From NFL to Startup COO to Congressman Regulating Crypto (with Rep. Anthony Gonzalez)
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If you make, you can see here, if I just hold her, she's all wounded up right now.

We've got all the creature here. I got the baby on the monitor. I got my floppy dog. You've get your floppy dog.

Keep her off. Camera can never happen.

你。 who? Easy you, easy you with .

you see me down, say, welcome to this special episode of required.

the podcast about great technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm been delbert and I am the cofounder and managing director of seattle based pioneer square labs and our venture fund, psl ventures.

And i'm David rose tall, and I am an angle investor based in separate cisco.

And we are your hosts today. We have a first ever for required. Our guest is a united states congress serving from my host state of ohio, representative Anthony consolers. David Anthony y has an incredible story.

an incredible story. The original motivation was Anthony's on the house financial services committee and is probably one of its not the foremost member of congress working on understanding in regulating web 3 cyp to everything that's happening， you know, beyond that to the broader economy. The fed game stop, Robert, we get into all of IT.

Yes, the house financial services committee had a broad man day well before crypto came around.

And Anthony y is one of the handful focus we talk about that really actually used to understand this stuff in congress .

yeah and and not just because he's actually played around with IT himself but he ran a venture back, start up before serving in congress. He went to stanford G S, B. For great school with David.

That's where and the first six, you know that's who we talk about IT. All the emphatic. His story is just incredible. His family immigrated from cuba after the revolution. His dad was a steel entrepreneur in cleveland, and a Anthony ended up playing football at a higher state I members .

in high school watching him on T.

V he went to the nfl, he played for the cults, he got touch from pay manning, and he went to business school and now is A U. S.

Congressman is just incredible. yeah. Excited to get into IT listeners. If you want to discuss this episode after we, uh, we wrap up here, join us in the acquired slack at acquired data m flash slack. Okay, listeners, now is a great time to tell you about long time a friend of the show service now.

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Yep, so learn how you can put A I agents to work for your people by clicking the link in the shower notes or going to service. Now document slash A I dash agents. Now onto our interview with congresswomen Anthony y consoles. And remember, this show is not investment advice. David myself, energy guests may have investments in the companies we discuss, and the show is for informational entertainment purposes.

Anthony, welcome to acquired. This is pretty surreal, given that, you know, we were classa mates just a few years ago. And now here we are again, a reunited on the broadcast.

Surreal for that reason. Real, because i've heard you make that intro before, but never for me. How could I listen to the show? So IT is an honor to be here. And thank you for having me.

When you say here, where is here right now for you? Because IT looks like a very official setting behind you.

So IT is i'm currently in in my congressional office in washington. I'm not sure when the the episode, but we just had a series of boats and we're done for the week. So got a couple hours and before I head out, figured we on and have a little chat.

That's great. And where is the congressional office building wise?

It's basically across the street from the capital building. My son, when he comes work, he says, you know, that's the dome. More daddy works. So just across the street, on one side of the street or the house office buildings and then on the other side of the street of the senate office buildings, there's, of course, much nice, are a much bigger that I just aren't bad either.

But you guys do the real work .

we like to think so. They treat us like little children, like I, that's cute little house member. The thing is going to really solve this problem. I'm not sure that the country would agree with. I don't think the country, thinking ther of us solve many balloons, but that tends to be the dynamic around here.

what we will get in all that. But speaking of problems, things that you are highly involved in that are relevant to, I think, all acquired listeners, you're on three committees in congress rate, the house financial services committee, which oversees all financial services in the country. And in particularly, you're very involved with the crypto o web three, all of that regulation, the S B F testimony, all of that fund stuff. You're also on the science, space and technology committee, which ever sees NASA, among many other things, and the climate committee. So we're going to touch on all three of those here.

great. Yeah, all fund committees. One of the fun things about being a house member is it's sort of a user on adventure or you can kind pick whatever you want to work on and what you think is interesting and relevant to your district. I found myself self on three great committees that certainly will be relevant in the near and long term. So it's been in interesting few years, to say the least.

Yeah, well, because you teased IT of things that are interesting to you and relevant to your district. Let's take that thread and extrapolate on IT. So how do those things become interesting to you? And let's start all the way with sort of your family story and dating back to cuba.

Yes, so i'm the sound of cuban immigrants. My father immigrated here from cuba. My mother was born, raising since and adan, her family. And our sort of path to ohio is interesting, in a sense. My grandparents, my cuban grandparents, or honeymooning, and trying to go from basically new york city in miami through driving.

The legend is that they ran out of money in ohio, and so they had to stop for a little bit, figure out how to get home and finish out their trip. And so they made some friends and made a lot of money, and then came back to cuba. Never thought they would come back.

My grandfather always wanted to have some sort of american experience because they always admired the us, particularly our democracy. You know, even recasts o IT wasn't a beacon of democracy. And freedom is known primarily for corruption.

Both then, and I just retouched the godfather movies, and yeah, I forgot the godfather part two that happened rape before the revolution.

totally. And there's a book called havana oc turny, which is really interesting in sort of graphic description of how the mob and francine outer and all those folks spent a lot of time down in cuba. But anyway, once castro took over, my family was driven into exile.

My grandfather was part of a pro democracy movement. There was sort of a handful of movements, despaired movements, but he was part of a great democracy movement. And once castro took over, he not directly, but through one of his lootenants, offered my grandfather position to run one of the courts, basically like a district court in cuba.

My grandfather turned him down because he kind of sow castro for who he was. And that was the end. I mean, that you don't turn castle down back then, right? Anybody who did was getting tilled or or put in prison.

So they went to exile and basically kind of hit out in the jungles in around havana until they got their VISA process. And then ultimately, once the visas came through, a flu here to the us, did that legally, obviously came to miami for a couple days, and then called the old school back that my grandfather worked at. And this wasn't since.

And I and he said, can we have our jobs back? This is sure. Come on up. And so they got a small little housing, a neigh'd called sailor park was working class, primarily my neighborhood, the time. And that's why my father was raised. When I met my mother, they went to brother, sister schools, catholic schools in sinani, and got married. Father went to.

oh, wow, wow. I didn't know that party, your history. Yeah, that was more contentious than .

I was thought when I was getting recruit. IT was interesting in a plane at a higher ate. He played a mission til he was went missing. He played for both.

R wow, not too many fathers son combos in that that club.

No, a small handful. But he was great. Once I told him more, I wanted to go. Luckily, he, he knew, coach, trusted.

But in any event, we've lived there, and he started a steel company maybe the year before I was born. I think that he runs to this day. And so that's kind of what I grew up.

And I grew up in northeast ohio, which is in the place I feel most comfortable in the world. That's kind of where my people are, if you will, did a lot of sports and hung out at the office with him. You know, like most founders, he was working twelve, fourteen our days as if he wanted to see deadline, had to go into the office.

I see him in the mornings. I wake up early. He woke up early. But but otherwise, see in the office hard working, sort of hard scrapple kind of community that we take a lot of pride in and that i'm honored to represent to this day.

Listeners says, everyone knows I grew up in the cliver, an acronym or artha, ohio, too. And my uncle David is very involved in the city with the critically on sports commission and the convention of visitors burrow in the way that they sort of describe the area as sophisticated grid.

So now that you've said that, I know exactly who you're talking about. So funny. I never put IT together that then gilbert and they have might be related .

in the sort of a circle of cleveland area folks. You're not going to be more than a connection to way.

No, for sure, part of what I love about IT is you feel like you kind of know everybody and you're from there.

You can be great that I was just been really proud of, of being from northeast ohio, and it's sort of who I am culturally and the things i'm interested in what not and so that's how i've i've always been and part of what has been so fun about congress as you get to represent a community that you love and that you're from and that, from my perspective, welcomed to my family because we aren't from here. My father's not from this country. My mother's not from clever in big move for them. And and ultimately, we've made at home. And it's been incredible for all of us.

Or Anthony, we are talking about you being the sun of cuban immigrants and this sort of unauthorized ath to being a member of congress. You had an even more unorthodox stop along the way, playing d one, college football and then playing in the nfl. How did that transpire?

I always say, when I look at my own back on, like none of this makes any sense, certainly not lennar. So growing up, I love foobar. My father played football, played at michigan, and I was actually michie fan growing up until I went on a recruiting visit. And loud car was the head coach at the time and thought I was a kicker. I was not a kicker.

You dad was a bit past about that. I was a wide receiver.

He wasn't with me. My mom was. And now that I have kids, I can understand how heartbreaking that must have.

Because, like, I grew up a huge, massive fan, and my dream would have been to go there. I go with my mother. We make to drive up from clive. One is not far to enough hours.

I'd been there for games before, right? And like, oh my gosh, this is that I get to finally, you maybe a part of this if they'll have me and just completely ignored. And they paid attention to and really focused on four people from clive on in particular, who I knew, who I just played against at my position. And I, like you all, didn't watch the game. Clearly, if you did, you maybe would at least say hello so we were that I don't like an hour and a half in and I turned to my mom and I like, I think i'm wait to go and now sixteen at the time and just like.

okay ah that must be hard break yeah again.

like now that i'm a parent, i'm like, oh my gosh. Like, how could how you not burst in the tears? I'd be divided just for my kid, right? But the next week was ohio state.

The same thing were these things called junior days. This was before recruiting, got crazy. And so now I went to a house state that could not have been more different.

We walked in coast, stressful grab. Second, we got in police into his office. We had a private meeting.

He kind went through his only a second year on staff, went through sort his priorities for the program, how he saw IT, how he could see me fitting into IT, all those sorts of things, like exactly what you would do if you're trying to sell somebody. And I walked out as that felt a little bit Better. An impressionable sixteen year old will consider IT.

I know this is a tech in business podcast, but you know, you got to make IT about the glory of the highest state football for a minute here. I think what you're explaining is a microcosm that really outlines why the next decade plus went the way that I did.

I think that was probably right. So a tressel lost, I think, once to Michael in a second year, and they're never again, and they haven't won much until last year. Yes, if we want to look at causes, I think coach trust l was definitely the on on the short list of of reasons why that the tide turned on that rivalry.

So I get home from that junior day, and my dad, I wasn't sure how to tell him because he went to miss her again, right? And so I just kind of play a cool as like, okay, yeah, you know, that was nice as fun, but they had offered me a scholarship yet. And so a couple weeks later there was this banquet in muslim ohio. So big football.

right near the football hall of fame.

Yeah, right down the street from football of me. And we had played muscle. They do a dinner every year where they have a keynote speaker, and they vite the MVP from the opposing team for each game.

So I was the invited from our team. And before I go, my dad says, well, this is easy, son, if he offered to a scholarship, you just say, thanks, but no thanks, you know, we're going to Michael and that's that. And but I knew kind of how I was feeling inside.

So I get there. I go to cut trust. And he was the keynote, and he comes up, he says, anything you were going to offer scholarship.

And I said, i'd be honor to play for your coach. WPS. I botched the line.

Were you planning on saying that? Or was its first of the moment?

No, I was actually planning to like do what my dad side and maybe see if michigan came around. But I rushed back before the dinner is like, I really do need to think about IT, but that is a generous offer. And I loved my time at I have states we'll see.

And then eventually, obviously, I went, my grandfather wasn't attorney as I mention, and so was his wife, my euille. And I was as close to them as anybody i've ever been close to in my life, especially my grandmother. SHE lived with us after he passed away.

And her and I spoke daily until the day he died, and he always said, if you're going to be an attorney, you should major in philosopher english. So I thought I wanted to be an attorney, and I felt like english would be a little boring. But I really like physical.

Hy, and so I took a couple classes and loved IT. My plan was on a major and that by plane the and felt great. But then i'll go to law school and I didn't change my mind until business until got to the nf, fl, in my third year, I I was hurt my entire third year so fast before I got drafted in first round play.

Two years was fine. I wasn't like an MVP anything, but played well and was slated to take over for margin. Harrison, who's a half fame wide receiver in playing .

for the cults catting, passes from paint matting. Yeah, you know.

I was said like a paint, manage your quarter back and you can stay on the field for sixteen games. You're probably going to have a good year. Unfortunately, I got hurt the first game and just never came back and really never came back period.

So I just kept getting hurt. I never got hurt my entire life. And then that thirty in the nfl, I ve got hurt.

I've got hurt every time I stepped on the football eld there after pretty much. And so between my third and fourth years, H. B. S. Did a program, like a little business program, that they use the case method on.

And I sort of like be a business school student for one week and after the first day after I called my mom and I was I going to exactly what i'm to do, what i'm done with this game. I'm to go to business school. At that point.

I started studying for the gate. So he taken a math class and like a decade, took the test seen later that year, put IT to bed. So my career ended.

And when I was pretty obvious that was going to happen, I finally applied to stanford to happen. I didn't actually from the locker room of my final Prices and game, which is sort of weird, but I went out for the game and I felt that goes. I just knew my body wasn't right. I think i'm going to play much longer.

See, you went back to the docker room and you started typing up and answers to have what matters .

to you most and why, exactly? Yeah, I really need an hour and a half year, folks. I'm not playing and i'm just going to buying out .

this S A you're with patron that point right now.

I was with the cult. I had the application finish. I wasn't trying to submit IT, but I was like right before the deadline for the first round.

So anyway, so summit and got in and I still wasn't sure. So I signed with the patridge. I went to new england, was hurt again. I I think I had three surgeries in like six weeks when I was there. And bills check actually was the one who who ceremony sly fired me.

He he called me and and he said, said, I like you, but you're hurt and I can't have hurt people and it's like that makes sense is that if you get healthy, heavier agent call me, we would like to have you but and I was actually smiling. When you're saying this, you're smiling. That doesn't Normal to happen.

I said, well, I think i'm a retire and go to business school I said where you go and I said, I go to stand for you so good school. Good luck. And so that was, he was the first person I told.

wow, wow.

And then I didn't tell anybody for like three weeks so I still wasn't sure. But eventually I I got around to IT. It's good to decision, as I possibly could, that for sure.

So at this point in your life, did you have public office in mind? Or were you thinking i'll also go to law school and be a lawyer?

So my aspirations in college, like if you were to ask choice smith, who was our our hydrometer ropy win quarter back, you had the locker next to me. He was number ten. I, I was number eleven, one of my best friends.

If you were to ask joy what i'm going to do, he would say, oh, he's going to be very clever. An, because we used to talk about that. I wanted to be married, living that be the coolest job in the whole world would be mArielle.

And so i've always thought I had this thought in my head of of public service, admittedly, you know, as life moved on, I thought I would do IT after my in a filler or after a long business car. So I went, and if I went to gsp, was was running an attack company before I gotten to congress. And my thought was, play that out for a long time, run that out, have a family, makes some decent money, take care of them, and then wants the kids are grown, then go into public service.

I was sort of my plan. What I ended that was, honestly, the twenty sixteen election was by the biggest thing that I ended that where I saw situation where I just stopped recognizing politics in our country, just didn't make any sense to me anymore. IT seemed to me like we were headed down a pretty dangerous path politically.

And so I really started thinking about, okay, what's the best way that I can be of use to the country in a moment like this? And ultimately came to the conclusion that I should just run for congress, which is sort of a weird realization. But but I thought if I did the right things that I could probably win.

And I felt the urgency from the standpoint of the country. And so that's ultimately, you know, after a lot of back and forth with my wife because this wasn't hard plan when we got married at all was, hey, look, let's really talk about this and see if it's for us and if it's something that we should pursue. And again, I don't know that we were one hundred percent like, yeah, this is definitely the right thing for us, but we did feel the urgency that the country was in a spot and my community was in a spot where going in the service seemed like the right thing to do.

And so we jump ed them. So lots of people around that time, we're feeling like, gosh, the direction things are headed that might be dangerous, polarization, the sort of lack of respect for institutions that we hold sacred. The seeming shift away from democracy is the most important thing to, you know, my own power is the most important thing.

Most people probably couldn't say, you know what I think I should do? I should run for office. And then most people who do, say that don't have a prayer.

So what were some of the things that set you apart where you started being like, okay, I met with this person and and that went well. And I think I can start a coalition build in the republican party this way here locally. How did that transpire? Also.

we should say probably most people who were thinking that we're not republicans at that point in time.

Yeah so I came to like a sort of interesting conclusion on that. But in terms of sort how you get started, right? Like I never done anything like this. I had been running a start up in conference scale that are good friends at ig sp, who who David knows and would love to have on the show at some point, if you can beg them .

on the highly secretive investment group of santa bra.

We've been begging for years now. We're making a public appeal here.

Come on, guys. Yeah, no. Come on, recent. Tim and alex, get on here. So I was working with them and running a start up. They were investor.

And you know, so I knew that start up game, and I kind of been in that world. And so I felt like, well, this is somewhat like I start up. I've never run for anything, and I don't know how politics works, but i'll try to figure that out. And so I honestly ly used a lot of the principles that I learned from them in terms of how the company build around how to build a campaign and how to build an apparatus, is around IT. And IT started with doing a bunch of what I would call customer interviews.

So I probably had fifteen, twenty conversations before I decided to run with people in and around politics in my district, just to understand you, you know, what are the motivations? What do people care about? You know, all those things I thought I knew, but you have to test those hypotheses and then to figure out whether my message would work.

And so I went through that process and ultimately thought I I understood my district in a very powerful way, and I thought I could craft a message that would work. But that's not enough either, right? Like you can have the best message in the world, but if you have no team and no ability to get IT out.

you're not going to go anywhere. What was the message that you landed on that .

you thought work well? Mine was primarily to focus on economic issues. So I think the takeaway that you saw nationally from the twenty sixteen election was, oh my gosh, the country is embracing this terrible politics in this attitude and the nastiness in the Victoria al in the anger in the division.

And that's what people want right now. And my view was, at least what happened in northeast ohio was fundamentally an economic story. And I knew that story very, very well, because my father has been building a steel company in northeast ohio for my entire life. And I know that when he started that, there were, I know something like five or six car manufacturing plants within ninety miles, and others one. And I know where they all went, and I know what happened to those jobs.

and I know how the people feel about IT. I remember the day ltv steel shut .

down that factory, absolutely quick store in ltv. So ltv still had this massive factory just out of the city.

massive right off the highway. IT was a big like you drive by and that has a presence .

yeah you can't miss IT just like just part of the city. And my dad same when your little, he would point out the smokestacks and say, if long as they are smoke coming out there, everything is going to be OK in northeast ohio. Just don't worry about IT because that means people are working.

And I think, no, it's time I was like twenty thousand people work in there. It's not precisely correct but directly correct that things change ten multiple times gone through multiple bankrupcy. I think that fewer than five hundred people work in there today.

And so that kind of transformation is what I felt the real take away of twenty sixteen was and I wasn't seeing enough understanding of that or new on on that. And so I ran on primarily and economic message in a unity message in twenty eighteen, which is one iron around, hey, look, we've got to a work together. Prefer northeast.

aha. We should know that the way you solve problems this together, we're actually like a purple part of the state typically. And so let's put all this chaos de, let's start working together and let's start building our economy in a way that works.

All of us. That was essentially my message. Obviously, there were sort of nuances in specifics, but that worked.

But the second part of IT, so that you get that message right and and then the advice I was getting from people been in politics forever, was you have to do two things. You have to build a great team and you have to raise money. And if you can do those two things, you can probably have some success.

And so I said, right, well, i've run sales teams before, and i've I know how to manage revenue. That's not that's not rocket science. And I think I can build teams.

So my current chief of staff was campaigners at the time. I went and found, found here. I basically SAT. We SAT at a bar together for about three and a half hours until I got him say, yes, I just not na warm down but he still esn laugh so and I think he's somewhat happy but I think my message and was look like I said you, this is a partnership. Sure, my my name will be the one on the door, but we're partners in this. And that means a lot of things to me until we've had good run together and a lot of fun. But links on the revenue side, I built a custom sales for a dashboard, which I don't think is common for for congressional members .

and probably not the candidate .

themselves doing that, right? yeah. no. And so I like sales force, and I i'd used in my previous company.

So I built a little dashboard and had the contacts loaded and and tract IT the same way I track sales and ultimately hit the fundraising targets. We built a team. And then you just work like mad. I mean, you're just everywhere you stop until you win. And I was like.

what was the budget for the for the first campaign?

I was told I needed two million for the primary, and that's a lot. So I was I was taught me to two million, and I was told I needed to make a big splash in the first month. And so think we ended up raising roughly six hundred thousand in the first month, which was good. As a good, you can only raise IT in five thousand and twenty seven hundred dollar chicks.

Two million is a lot when you have to add a lot of little numbers together. But like it's not very much when you could just find a billionaire and be like here just fun the whole .

thing yeah but you know for a whole host of reasons we've decided that that's prime not the best way to run our country. We spent like seven episodes on campaign finance. But the goal there is let's not let like all the rich folks band together.

And by elections, essentially. So you got to build support at a grass roots level. And and ultimately, I we're able to do IT at tony work, but unbelievably rewarding and from a professional standpoint, as Price as much fun as i've ever had.

to be honest. But I assume that the power of campaign contributions there, but you know even if we assume all the top and you need a thousand people to give you the max campaign contribution, right? yeah.

But um you also don't want your average number to be too higher like you you want broad support. So IT, IT is important not only have thus sort of high donors, but also grassroots support. So I forget what our average campaign ribulose, but I think the goal should be to get that number actually pretty low because that means your supporters is beyond just sort of wealthy folks area. But there is something that happens in politics where people want to back the winner and they want momentum, right? And so part of the the goal with the advice on you, you need to raise a lot of money quickly, is you're sending a signal .

of the market strength leads to strength, right?

It's like startups. absolutely. So you have this. So I need to signal to people, hey, this isn't just some joke who thinks he can trade on his football name like there's some substance here. And so the thought was, okay, well, let's raise as much as humanly possible quickly.

And then once we did that, those first dollars are the easiest in some ways, because as friends and family I put some in myself, IT feels more controllable after you get that first slogging. That's when the real world begins. Because now people are looking at, okay, who is that and what is what is he all about then? So then you're just continuously selling non and stop.

We are leave in the house every morning. At seven A M, I was finishing my follow up emails around seven pm, and that was the schedule for like a year. But IT was fun because you get the first off.

I'm just a competition junky so like I just love competing. It's just hard wired in there. Um wish I could get IT out sometimes, but it's just where IT is.

So there's that element to IT. But the other part, and this is the more rewarding part, is you're connecting with the people that you're ultimately hoping to represent. And it's hard to explain this, but you learn so much from them like an unbelievable amount.

One of the things that always bothers me is when people say what voters are done. I haven't met a done voter. My voters are really smart.

They're smart on a handful of issues that really matter to them. And when you talk to them about those issues, they know more than anybody, they certainly know more than me, and they educate. And that's how you learn.

Now, are they experts on every policy issue? No, of course not. But the ones they care the most about people are really smart on those issues, and they taught so much. And so that's where the the reward comes from, is feeling like, oh my gosh, i'd Better do a good job for these people because they care so deeply about these issues and I have to deliver form. And so that was that was part of the reward and continues to be part of the reward, Frankly, of doing the job.

yes. So they sort this dual responsibility as an elected official, specifically to those people that you represent and you raise money from and you are inspired by and you understand their plate in a big way. But also, you know, you sit on committees and what those committees need to do is thinking the best interest of everyone, not just the specific group that you represent. And as we transition here and are talking about some of the the specific topics of your committees, I want to open with that question of do those things ever come at odds or do you usually feel like representing your specific group and the brought american public is something that basically always works out?

Yeah so the way I think I was like to how closely do your values a line with your voters values and for me, the answer is most of the time. So it's not hard, right? There are occasional moments when those things are at odds. And at that point you have a choice.

And your choices, do I rely my own judgment, which may cause me some problems back home? Or do you just sort to do the politically expedient thing? And and there's different schools that thought on that onest ly, but in the way that I handled IT was to the extent that I thought I could do IT, I always relied on my own instincts over their political experience.

I will admit, nobody can do that one hundred percent of time. At least I didn't feel like I could because you only have so much political capital. And I think you you need to be careful about how you spend IT.

And that doesn't mean you you never spend IT. Some people never spend IT, by the way, and it's a really good way to keep getting elected. Everybody handles a little bit differently. But the good news on that for me is like a further most part in our ninety nine percent of votes then never really felt like I was making that choice.

You're making decisions on A A lot of very important things right now. But I do think it's worth giving listener's context of like what your term has been like and if you're willing take us through that second impeachment vote and how you thought about IT. And just so we don't bury the lead here, Anthony y voted in favor of impeachment of the president at the second vote.

So just quick rewind. So twenty twenty election happens, right? And from the time I ended until, say, generally six, I had a deeply uneasy feeling and felt like things we're going to get pretty crazy because I was seeing the rhetoric c, that was coming out of the White house.

I was seeing how was being reported. I was hearing from my how they were feeling. And to me, I was pretty clear, and I personally think anybody who's in this business who knows how elections work should have known that was clear.

And so, you know, to me, I was thinking, man, hopefully people are buying this because this is crazy. I remember talking to somebody very close to me. They said, gosh, this thing was stown said, what country do you think you've live in? This thing wasn't stolen.

So tell me where you think IT was. And now they would give me this, you know, some of these explanations that you'd be hearing on, like these cute on board, on twitter and what not, and you could usually dispell them. But, you know, these were people close to me, but like your average person, you didn't have full access to me, and I could barely get get our message out.

So I I remember grabbing my chief service is like, just find me a camera. I like just get me in front of a camera. I need to start talking to people and telling them because otherwise working to have a problem, there's something terribles is going to happen if if people think this thing was stolen.

I mean, the united states of half the country believe the election was told you work. We're going going to have a real violent outcome here. I was hoping to be wrong, but that's what I thought was coming.

And long behold this sort of fast forward as we get closer and closer to january six, the pressure build. And on the morning of january sex, they told us, I said, here you get to come in early. Just get here early.

There's going to be a big protest and we'd that would be easier free if you're here early. So okay, so early to me, I wake up at four. So early to me is like I go now four thirty five o'clock and i'll get in.

And this was during the pandemic when nobody was ever on the streets, Normally from where I live to get to the capital take like fifteen minutes. This time I took forty five minutes because they were buses and buses and buses from all over the country. And the mall was already pretty well filled and packed.

People in energy and activity and signs. You know, you can read the signs as you're going in science i've never seen before that didn't make any sense to me. And I thought, okay, this is actually a lot worse than than I even thought.

And so I tried to send my staff home, but they stay, they insisted. And we had already free released what I was going to do, which was to certify the election. And so you know, fast forward a little bit and we're in the the house chAmber and i'm up in the balcony because I I wanted to see a couple things.

First, I want you to make sure pants did the right thing. I don't know what my plan was going to be if he didn't, but I just want to to make them. I just wanted make sure.

And then the second thing, I just wanted to see if they would actually go through with these objections. So I thought I was crazy. That was most anti democratic s thing i've ever seen in my life.

Still feel well. And so, you know, i'm sitting their pants. Does the right thing? okay? good.

And then ted crew stands up in objects. And I was just disgusted, I just completely disgusted. And so I said, I got to get out here.

So I started walking out of the chAmber, and I going to go back to my office. And then I could see the people start to breach on. I looked at one of the windows, oh, my god, and you see the people start to go.

And then I fit on my twitter, and, you know, you can see, oh, my y've already gotten through the senate. And so, you know, at that point I thought, OK, I get, it's best thing for me to do just getting to my office. So get in the elevator.

You go through the tunnels, boom. And by the time I get back, the folks were already in the house, the rides were already in the house, and they were trying to evacuate people. And basically the session had been cancelled. And so now you're they're going okay 了， know what's going to happen, but it's not good. I know that much. And the basic instructions we got or if you're not with the other members, they had hidden the other members in A A bunker, if you will, if you're not with them, shut off all the lights and be dead silent because we don't want you. We don't want to make any noise.

Okay, so I you know, but i'm like sit in my office and think OK I should I change out of these clothes so I don't look like a member of congress in case they post through the day so I throw on jeans and running shoes and i'm taking myself well, you know, I can still run a little bit so if they get in here, I guess i've just jump over him and spread. And maybe that's my plan. And so we did all that.

And then you periodical that. You would hear screams and yells and stuff. And I called down at one point.

I said, hey, there's a one noise way. no. Can you send somebody up?

I don't know that this Patricks start. We are completely overwhelmed, just like, do the best you can OK. That sounds so good. yes.

So then I started trying .

to get a hold of folks at the White house and just anybody I knew who might be there. And hey, he's got call this off like this is this has gone way too far and he wouldn't do IT and took him hours. Then I think almost three hours may be little more than that.

But when you're in a situation like that, three hours feels like fifteen hours. I mean, you're just hoping to god that somebody does something responsible. IT just wasn't happened.

And so now my view remains that it's an unforgivable assault on the country. And IT was LED by the former president who was inspired by him. And ultimately, my view, which I think is coming out in this january six commission, is that he kind like that kind of like what was going on. And I I spoke to a number of people who are around him that day, then came to that conclusion. And so at that point, you know, you have to ask yourself, and are are you willing doing to make that vote, that impeachment vote and .

to be clear there, there was a previously an impeachment vote that you would not been in in favor of. But this specific event is sort of what changed your mind to say, yes, i'm one of believe six republicans to vote to impeach.

I think over ten made in six senators but in the house, if there were ten of us, the first one not go back to but I certainly didn't condone the behavior, but I just just didn't hit my bar for peach .

more that was the russia .

stuff right that was ah actually ukrainy. I try to right theoretically ally brian skii back to this current vote as that was unfolding admittedly on genuine sex I thought to myself I think they're in peaching again. Democrat control the house, so they control what what goes to the floors.

I is where I think they are going to do IT again. So i've going to start thinking about this. 嗯， and I kind of went back and forth, not because I didn't think IT was wrong or impeachment.

I certainly did. The thing I was ticking around in my head was what he did was clearly impeached. But you know, he has whatever six days left by the time the outcomes are three days.

Is that really the right thing to do? Should we we send him? Should we do something else? And ultimately, I came to the conclusion that not only was the the right thing to do, but we actually had to do IT for a whole host of reasons.

But one of the main ones is because I think it's important that we send a message to every future president forever, that if you think for one second you can concoct this ridiculous plan and seek your supporters on congress in the capital, resulting in a bunch of death and the total embarrassment of our country and a grave wound on the country, on the democracy itself, then you are going to a get impeached and and everybody needs to know that. And so that was ultimately the decision I came to. But admittedly, he was the hardest decision i've ever had to make professionally for sure.

Well, this is one of those where potentially your own interests are misaligned from what you believed was the right thing to do. I mean, did you know that in casting this vote, that would be the end of your ability to show a subsequent term?

No, you know, honestly, I planned to fight IT, so I knew I was going to be hard. But ultimately, look at the end of the death. I've made two oats in my entire life.

okay? I've made one oath of my wife, and i've made an oath to the constitution. Those are the only two others, to my knowledge, that i've ever taken, and I don't plan to break either one.

IT really came down to that for me is like, I feel like I owe this to the country. I feel like I have to do this. And it's going to be brutal. It's going be terrible for me and IT was but you got to do IT and then you ve got to fight for your political life. And ultimately, that was that was the plan and that's what what I I intended to do.

But admittedly, dly, after many months of sort going through that process and and really trying to figure out, independent of the politics, trying to figure out what kind of life do my wife and I want, like what do we want for our kids? What do we want for us? What do we want to be? What kind of jobs that we want.

IT was pretty obvious as our kids are getting older, that politics poly isn't the best place. And so made a very difficult decision again, which was to drop out of the the campaign. And i'll finish my term out here in january and see what happens.

You really have to live these two life right like year with your constituents back home and ohio but like you're also in dc yeah know those places are not a tiguan sly, a geographically connected. No one of them pretty expensive.

So from a family perspective, it's just a really hard life. I think this is why, originally I planned to to get IT politics much later when my, my kids were grown. You know, the reality is to do this job correctly and to serve your constituents in the way that I think they deserve to be served.

You probably have to be on the road north of a hundred days year for sure um but you're probably looking at one fifty, maybe close to two hundred in terms of days that that you should be out. And so we as a family talked about, okay, you know, what do we want for our kids and what do we want for our marriage? Ultimately, we decided that the best thing to do is is to just step away.

And i'll focus on on my committee, which i'd love. I'd love working on my committees. You make in whatever difference I can in my last couple months before set in sale on the next journey.

Well, it's not like the work you're doing in your committees as some like after thought. That's the crazy of things like you have this very crucial moment in your term. And of course, that dominates a lot of the conversations i'm sure that you have, but use of the rest your term here to serve and you're doing things like proposing regulation for the future of crypto o and web three and potentially the next generation of technology. So i'd love to talk little little about that if you're open to IT and like what on earth a committee actually does yeah what .

I says the committees are where the real work happens. So you fall on twitter, you see the votes and all that that's finding good. But like real work actually happens in committee. That's where we have hearings and we have real dialogue and debate and and you really talk policy and in terms of crypto u so when I got here in twenty eighteen or only twenty nine, crapo was a topic.

IT was definitely something we were talking about, but IT really didn't go on to over drive really until you know the pandemic when folks at home and markets were a straight vertical. You cannot thank jay power for that. J slowed down alone soon.

Did you see? A my favor, I think, is going to be my favorite like lasting moment of the pandemic was ism. Somebody did a deep fake auto oon video of j pal Janet yelling, uh, ben berni and somebody else to rick rolling, like, singing, like never going to give you up and like, dance around.

Yeah, you know we have similar friends, so I get the same means that come come to .

me as elon bus said, I got a good mean guy. Seems like you both share the same mean tender.

very similar mean vendors. So you know people really started to paying attention to IT congressionally in a sort of thoughts way, I would say, in twenty twenty as the markets, we're going a little haywire. Frankly, when I got to do IT, I was I was on a family vacation with my wife family. They do an annual trip to and talk every year.

And so we were there and I was listening to modern finance with just Kevin rose is pocket and has been a guest in this show yeah course and he had something on fluming o down which like i'd never heard of a dw period certainly to note fingo out was and after that hour over long, IT was, I thought, oh my gosh, I feel like I think about getting red pill or whatever or orange pilled that was my moment where I thought to myself, okay. I think i've just learned something or stumbled on to something that can be unbelievably impacted for society and helpful and solving a lot of problems that I currently seen with the internet and in our capital markets and with access to financial products and all these sorts of things. That was really my aha moment.

And you were on the financial services committee at this point.

I was I went through th Epaces o n c ypher, make sure I was an ignorant, but I hadn't really gone deep on crypto. And then I spent a good chunk of the next few months going as deeper as humanly possible and and just learning about the different now ones and what in alto is and what's the difference between these tokens and and how are these applications working .

and and you're actually like participating and dey like.

yes. So the way that I did IT was you i'm on the committee and there is no world against this, but I don't necessarily think I should be investing in current assets while i'm thinking about regulating him.

Shocking, shocking that there .

should be probably should be a rule against step.

but there isn't. Well, do you just no regulation at this point, right? Like back then.

well, yeah, it's the whole host things that don't make sense. That's probably one of them. I kept reading these White papers and coming to a conclusion of I can I feel like I can only learn so much like I need to actually play with this stuff a little bit so I can figure out how these things work.

If i'm going to be knowledge ble in the space, I should at least have some sort of feel for IT. I mean, would almost be like asking somebody to, I don't know, like regulate cl phone companies between like to use a cell phone. So in my head I thought OK, well, I don't think I should be investing, but I do.

Anna play around with IT. So I took like a little margin, a couple hundred box or something, and started playing around in defy and quickly realized I couldn't do anything with my east because the gas fees would destroy IT did that for a couple weeks. And then in my plan, which I ended up, everyone was, I just give IT all the united way when it's over, the united wake accepts corpo donations.

And so I did that for a couple weeks after get how long IT was not too long, but ultimately have learned probably more playing around with that than I ever could have just reading. And so from that, not only did I feel like I understood IT Better, but I also felt like I could I could legislate in a more thoughts way. And so from there, we've kind of been going deep on and had ever sense, and it's been interesting.

And and we're getting to a point as a congress, which is really nice, where I feel like we're getting close to finally legislating on IT, specifically around stable coins. We'll see if we get there. But I think that sort of the first bite of the apple coming off the the tar luna crash.

do you feel like there's critical mass now have enough people in congress and may be specifically on the financial services committee who like i've done that work to really understand IT. Now I like, you know, or is IT still in the like people are illegal ating on cell phone service without using ell phone.

So we're pass at on financial services like take a step back for second. If you were just in congress broadly, I would say ninety percent of members don't understand IT at all. They've heard about IT, but like they don't know IT um maybe their kids, grand kids, whatever, but they don't know much about to be on that.

The next five percent are people in my committee who are getting up to speed, who understand the basics in the building blocks. We have had a couple of hearings and now they're been really productive, I think having had some great witnesses and they want to be thoughtful in the space. But may be they feel little hesitant because you know complicated if you have not really gone deep, but it's hard understand IT.

And then the final five percent are folks like me who have spent a ton of time on IT and are now coming to some pretty clear views on what the right regulatory framework should be. And that may sound daunting. Like you got ninety percent, you don't know anything about IT, but the truth is that most issues are around here. I say that whether real work happens, the committees lead because these are difficult, complex issues and you need real expertise. And then if it's the right set of members in the right policy that can pull the other ninety percent with them, I think we're getting to that point where that five percent is comfortable on both sides of the isle to really engage in a thoughtful way.

This is reasonably by partisan and it's uh, support or lack of support. It's not sort of split, right? It's kind of split on uh, age or demographic lines.

Yeah so that's what i've noticed. I'll say this like grown in right like just walking into the debate for the first time, republicans tended to be more supportive than democrats are. Not sure entirely why that is, but as a general rule, republicans were more supportive than democrats.

Having said that, within those two bands, the bigger break was on demographics. So the more senior member, the more skeptical they are likely to be in. This makes sense, right?

If if you look at how crp those used and the more junior the member and mostly by age as opposed to tenure, the more likely they're gonna engage in IT and try to understand that, and that's largely played out. But as the weeks and months have gone on, even the more senior members have realized, this is something we really, we really need to tackle. I think the presents working group, they put out a paper, which some of that I grew with, some of that I don't. The most meaningful aspect is that the White house signaled he, this is important, and we need to work on IT. And I think that's really jump started everybody because we've had hole unch of hearings as as a result.

And now there's real legislation being debated. yes. So let's zoom on legislation being debated.

We're going to go school house rocks here a little bit, but how does something go from a vague concept of we probably need legislation in this space to becoming law? And what is the committees role in that versus a general member? So you'd be shocked .

that how many members seem to completely forget about school house rocks, just like you atter I know how to fix this part. Like, yeah, do you have a coastline? Sors that by partisan? no. Okay, sit down, please.

For our, uh, international listeners who may not have been exposed. This was, I was on P, B. S. right? I feel like I was all over the TV when we were going out.

Where was schoolhouse rocks?

I know everybody pauses this. Go to youtube search, uh, i'm just a bill and then come back .

that's exactly right. To summarize the video, yala, about to just watch the way something like a cyp dal bill would work. Okay, is congress sort of gets IT in their head that, hey, we we need to legislate in this space, whole bunch catalyst for cyp done particular.

But that sort of a conclusion we've all come to. And at that point, the committees will hold hearings. And usually, there are on a number of different topics related to the main, if you will.

So we had one specifically on stable coins. We had one specifically on CBD c. We had won on crypto markets just sort of broadly. And you go through that process and it's it's a pretty and death process.

And every time you'd if you're smart and you're preparing for these hearings, it's multiple hours you and your staff for trade and questions back and forth. And as you develop your your understanding, you start to come to some conclusions around what you want to do. My view is the best legislation is durable.

And in order for something to be durable and needs to be by partisan and should be by camera, by Carol, meeting house and senate. So my perspective is always you're got to give yourself a chance by starting with with some democratic account part. So i'm legislating on a bill.

What i'll do is i'll find and i'll based this on committee comments. So i'm listening not just to my own questions, but i'm listening to how other people are processing the information. And I say, okay, so these two people over here, I think I can work with on this so then you just literally go tap and say, hey, you can do something on this.

I think sounds like we're in similar place. And from there, you know your staff get together and the all trade notes and legislation back and forth. And then ultimately hopeful you've come to some good text you propose IT.

IT will get a voting committee if the committee chair wanted to. To once IT goes to committee, IT goes to the house floor, pass of the house floor. Now IT gets kicked over to the senate.

They can take IT or not. Most time senate ignores us, but sometimes they listen. And then in the senate, they have to beat the film buster.

So they need to forget sixty votes over there where we're just simple majority in the house. And so a little harder to get things through that. But then from there goes the White house and present signs in the law and where we go. As simple as that sounds, it's the most frustrating, chaotic process. You can imagine things that should take like six months, take like six years.

Well, you an exchange to us last time we had been preparing for this that like no bill ever is like pure of scope. It's the Christmas trees, right? And stuff get hung on IT and you'll like all starts to see you may be just wanting to regulate stable coins and like all this totally unrelated stuff that gets added on IT at yeah totally.

So that actually happened to curb down in particular on the infrastructure bill. So there was a big infrastructure bill that was past not terribly long go when I worked on a lot, is bipartisan by camera. IT started in this group called the problem solves caucus, which is a group of part of great group for most people who are frustrated by congress, said, be encouraged by this.

It's fifty republicans, fifty democrats, everything we do by partisan. It's a great group, all the members who you ve never heard of, but are actually very productive and stay off cable news, but work hard. So problems of caucus put the infrastructure bill forward, at least the principles.

And the senate worked out the details. And then this is also frustrated. You get the bill like four seconds before it's voted on. It's not like you get the bill week ahead of time.

I've been a part of companies closing financing. Yeah you get IT four seconds before the deals done.

Yeah exactly. So politics in the only place with this issue. So the instructions bill gets through the senate, and all the sudden, you know, people are high five.

And and then like a crypto provision there in the infrastructure bill. Why is there a crypto provision in the infrastructure bill? Well, because we have to pay for the infrastructure, of course.

And so somebody slipped in A A little tax without really telling anybody. And ultimately, IT came into the infrastructure bill and was signed into law and that sort of the Christmas tree version of of how legislating works. And admittedly, the person who crafted that provision didn't intend IT to be as wide sweeping as IT was. There was a thought that basically we are going to label any developer working in cyp to a broker which would kill the industry, know if everybody has to register a book .

and what is the tax?

Well, IT would have been if you are a broker then you have to do xyz, which would involve you register ing paying taxes. It's that was part of IT. The goal is to is to get at something real, which is if you don't have good tax compliance and cyp to that's another thing I probably realized when I was planned around with IT a little bit is like you're not careful. You can you can break tax law pretty easily in in the space.

Oh yeah, like the default is they do yeah.

the default is right. And so like one of the first thing that is like I need a soft like this is all on chain. So surely there's a way for this to automate and track for me and I will named the product can endora product.

But um I found a particular software that I I liked that I used and helped me track all that stuff. But the motivation was a sincere one, which is y we want to make sure that that people aren't waiting taxes. And actually that's what I was.

I was gona require IT wasn't attacks on the broker. IT was going to require anybody who was defined as a broker to provide tax information to the irs. So IT would would have required developers s to all of a sudden provide tax information.

which makes sense if you're not familiar with crypto because that is the way that are USD infrastructure works. Or if you have a broker account somewhere, you can just count on the fact that is calculating on your taxes for you. It'll tell the irs and it'll send you a copy so that you know what to pay and of course, or at least you know what to include in your tax return.

And because that's not Mandatory in cyp to none of the broken, just do IT. It's actually a little bit difficult in many ways, well, especially defy to figure what your taxes are. But you face this other problem where IT may not be what we think of as like a broken age or exchange that is generating these taxable events for you. And so you would need every application developer to be spitting these things out too, which is, as you mention, pretty untenable.

right? And so the the senator who proposed that had to like go down to the well, the senate and basically say, I did not intend for IT to sweep in all these developers and rote letters and those sort of things. And that's that's actually important to do because that way, if anything ever goes to court, they could refer to that as, hey, this was actually congressional intent.

IT wasn't to sweep up all the developers, but was to actually after legitimate brokers. And so you know, that was an a hamo. And I think for all of us, but certainly for the crypto community, how was that infrastructure bill? And so you know that unfortunately, how things do get legislated around here a lot. I am hopeful that with respect to cpa though, that going forward will be more thoughts and do things like what I think is appropriate, which is to take a little bite sized chunks as we understand them, because the last thing you want to do is put something forward that you only sort of understand, and then ultimately, you cause a heck of a lot more problems and you intend to. And so that's the direction we seem to be going in cypher, and that's actually really encouraging and not Normally how we Operate around here.

What do you think is like the writer, the directionally rate framework for regulation that should exist for crapo, given here we are in summer twenty twenty two? And then the second question is like, what do you predict the coming months of regulation is going to look like to the extended?

It's different, yes. So what do I think I should be actually think we should look to the clinton administration for how they handle the early internet, and they orca strait around the phrase, do no harm. So bill clinton ton, rightfully, I think, came the conclusion that, hey, look, there's a lot of weird stuff happening with this new internet thing. And like, these chat rooms are weird I mean like, oh yeah remember those were nasty places.

We are all teenagers and in them at the time I think .

barely teenagers yeah um I think my first A L chat amazing. I was definitely not a teenager and should not have been in there. But having said that, there are some pretty terrible things happening online. And you could have made an argument that the right thing to do is to shut IT down and tamper down and control IT and regulated to death, basically. Oh.

and this was the air I remembering right? Where lake, a bunch of people in congress wanted to lake and video games. Yeah.

this was not a crazy .

sentiment in the country at the time. No.

this was kind of how people felt. And bill clinton actually provide to the right leadership there, where he said, first, do no harm. Let's let this thing breathe like, see, work, cos.

And then once we understand IT Better than we can propose a set of regulations that makes sense for the space, given what it's becoming. IT won't always be nasty chat rooms. And he was right.

And so in a slowly but surely, we worked up on the regulatory Operatics. Do we get a perfect know? Of course not.

Congress is infinitely valuable. We never get everything perfect. But I think that was ultimately the right playbook for that time in space.

I would argue the same montreal IT exists today, which is, yes, are there things that are bad that happen in cyp to absolutely. We talked on one tax event. Does that happen? Certainly IT happens.

Of course that happens. As you said, it's probably the default. You have to decide that you're going to pay taxes. And so that's something we need to work on, and there's other areas as well.

But should the response speed to destroy the entire industry before most people understand IT, before I even had a chance to really development anything, certainly not. My view is the motor should be do no harm and take bite size pieces as they become obvious, but don't overreach. And I suspect that's how congress will behave.

I do fear that the administration will take a more heavy handed path, mainly because the S. C, C. Chairs pretty hostile at times in his public comments on crypto. That's I think we're the the given take to be. But that's also why it's so important that congress actually puts laws forward even if they don't pass. But just by showing their by partition support for a set of principles that in and of itself will send a message to the regulators that, hey, were actually pretty far away from where congresses and that's not a good place to be because last thing you do regularly, you propose a set of regulations and the congress just foot ammonia. My hope is that the energy were seeing, which is becoming more more bipartisan by the day, will ultimately lead us more down that do no harm path as opposed to the the heavy handed path.

So what do you think the bite sized early regulation will be sort of on the steps to getting a more complete regular ory framework?

My view points are party the most straight forward to figure out.

And part of IT know IT comes from the territon a issue, right? And I think what that did was wanted awakened members of congress to what can happen when things go wrong, right? But and this was a happy surprise, IT also forced members to confront, okay, what is this algorithm stable coin thing? And how is IT different from a fiat back stable coin? And what, if anything, should we do about that distinction? And so i've been really encouraged by how well members have articulate that distinction and have grasp that distinction.

And so what I think you'll probably see is some sort of law that enshrine a quote payment stable coin. That language has been used in a couple of different bills, a payment stable coin as essentially a fia px stable coin. And that my preference would be that we're silent on algorithm is stable coins, and we will figure out what exactly that is later.

Is that a security? Is that something else is IT commodity? I don't know. I I don't think there's actually a clear answer to that because they are all different, right? And they have different properties and they they do not work the same.

I would say let's focus on the back stable coins because I think we all actually agree on that. And actually, that's not that difficult fee up bx stable point to really time out. What's the reserves one of the reserve qualities? What are the auditing requirements?

What sort of attestations do they need and what sort of redemptions and consumer protection things do you want to build into that? If you can answer those questions, you can probably define something that looks like a fight back. Stable coin algos are much harder.

Yeah and in my mind, that sort of two high level purposes that regulation in the space could serve. And i'm curious if you you think that i'm sort of describing this right or thinking about that right. One is protection for the american consumer or the american investor.

When something goes dramatically wrong, we look at, we go who we don't want that to happen again, we passed all that makes that thing illegal. Two is giving comfort to developers that they can innovate without doing something illegal. And is that sort of how congress thinks about IT too? Or those actually the same thing?

I think they are the same thing. I think they're they're heavily correlated for sure, right? The overwhelming majority of of the innovation happening, folks want to do IT responsibly.

Very few people are out there building these amazing products and services with the goal of stealing right? There are some criminals out there and pumped m schemes and and nasty things and we should go after them with the full force of law right um and there are laws on the books that exists that give the authority to do IT. But most innovators in the space want to build transformative, amazing products and they want to do IT at scale. But they're scared to do IT in the uh because our regulatory environment is so uncertain .

that so many examples I like F, T, X, be like the obvious.

Tx is the best example, standby and free basically group on stanford campus and he's building a tech company outside the us, is like the crazier thing. Imagine that for a second, that never what had happened in web two or web or whatever, right? If you're in silicon valley, that's where you want to be to build this tech company. And today, he's is going basically everywhere. But here to build that company, we hope to get him back.

which is obviously like you do. There's new ones, of course, but like pretty clear, that's not in america's best interest like we want that company here?

No, of course not now. And that's my interest in IT. I believe fundamentally in the innovation and I believe that it's powerful and it's gone to create a tone of jobs and economic might in power.

It's going to be important technologies for the world, for every technology like that, not just crypto. I want that here. I want that developed here.

That's gona create jobs, is going to provide opportunity. It's going to do all sorts of things that that most americans think are positive for our country in our democracy. So that's my primary motivation. You know, part of how you protect consumers and provide that clarity on regulation is by proposing things that hit both sides of IT and do things like defining what a stable point is, what a payment stable point is.

Essentially, you provide that definition because for my vanish point, in a world where these are proferred around the entire country, I need to know that if my farmers get paid in stable coins, that they're solid. I can't have my farmer getting paid in terrill, una and all the sun. That thing goes to zero. These are going to be hitting the payment rails and people are going to be relying on them to pay their bills, feed their families. At Sarah, we need to know that they're solid and that's consumer protection.

but it's also pro innovation. Something is happening like angle list. You can invest a stable coins like we have L P S. And kindergarten ventures that you know make their capital contributions and stable and we need that to be actual money you know to go into startups .

yeah so the same I can feed heat was in washed to not terrible long ago. And he said they've done acquisitions using stable points. They said when they buy companies, they use crp to the reasons you would think because it's quicker and easier.

And third and the cost is lower. But when it's done right, I think we'll see more, more and more of that. But if we drop the ball on this or we're too heavy handed or we we go way further than we're capable, from an understanding standpoint, we are the more likely to get IT wrong than right. And that's why, in my view, first thing, let's just do feed up back stable coins because we can pretty much figure that out.

right? We have all the benefits of the instant settlement, no need for a trusted in our media. There is going to be less fees, all the stuff.

But like we understand what the value is tied to, and we have a lot of other things that depend on that system of what that specific one U S D. Nomination is tied to. So there's a lot of comfort that can come from that while getting all the benefits of the innovation.

Yeah totally hundred percent. And like the way I think about some of the other stuff like you like the algos that hope of you I know he hates all out that I don't but to me like it's not clear what that's onna turn into and what the right responses.

And so if I don't feel like I understand something from a policy standpoint, my reaction as I should be signing on IT from a regulatory an policy standpoint until I understand that I probably shouldn't be regulating unless it's hurting people or destroyed people, right right? But that's why I say I think we largely understand fear back. Stable coins, let's start there um and then we can sort of take our our bite size pieces as as we develop.

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over the whole course of my term, would take party a third. I've done a tone of china work, and that was like the bulk of my first year in congress was doing things to fix our international financial institutions like the world. And in the IMF, which had been largely overrun by china.

And so I did a tonic stuff for reforms there, and that took a lot of time and energy. But the areas I focused the most on china cap markets. So I did like a lot of different things around the game, stop, you know, meme stock, which was interesting in fun, especially falling on on wall street bets. And then crp to those are probably the three areas that I spend my most .

time has been legislation that came out of the me stock mania. No.

you know, it's actually disappointed in that we did a ton of hearings on IT and the democrats propose some things. I don't say this is a part of in common, by the way. It's just the reality. Republicans do the same junk. So we could have done some things maybe in a big part of an way that I think would have been smart.

The main thing we could have done is past a bill to shorten the settled time for two days, the one day that would reduce the risk in the system overall, and probably would have prevented what Robin hood ultimately had to do, which was halt trading. But rather than do that, what they ended up doing was they took a whole bunch of things that they wanted to do for the last decade, and they put him into a bill, and they passed the house. They will never go anywhere in the senate.

Nothing changed again. That sounds like a head on the democrats. I'm not trying to hit democrats. I'm sure if and when we really take the house majority will do the same thing to just come the frustration washington .

and became a political casually IT.

Did that happens, unfortunately, with a lot of issues in that. When was so fresh? Ers, if we actually did your work on IT, I think we have four hearings on IT. So we spend a lot of time try to understand IT.

And there was a national media attention, and I think I watched those hearings like live.

Yeah, that was probably the most fun hearing their interesting hearing. So like, I had two computers up. We did a remote. I had two computers up. I had my personal computer up, which had the wall street bets forum, he and then I had the hearing, and every single member who spoke, they just absolutely obvious orated. I love IT.

You would just like, what, reading a real time.

And they were getting me to like the guy from hit man, the show or the video game in the movie. Like, who like this guy? And he looked like, what's his name?

They were come very good to the guy from him. And that's so great. Yeah.

I could that hit man in this guy in idiot. And then I started asking questions. I wait, a man and he's got IT.

Okay, there we go. This is your career after congress, you can go play hit man. And you know the next video.

gay with you, a hit man, to be a mean stocker.

You've got a built in audience, right? Let's move out of financial services. I I want to make you dash on jp, a even more than he's already poor guy, he's already in the depth right now.

is a very nice man, but got some inflation issues.

Yes, seriously fun side bar before we move on to m. Science, space and technology in american dynamism. But there is a sort related you, given your background, have been highly involved with the revolution, really that happening in the N.

C. W. A right now in college athletics. And the name, image, and like this bill for color athletes can now take sponsorships of the repercussions that have been a wild IT. Tell us a little bit about what's .

going on there. So it's pretty messy right now. You know, my view on on name image and likely, and this goes back to my time at ohio, o state was IT never made sense to me why college athletes s were the only people in amErica who couldn't do anything with their name, image and lightness. Literally everyone else in the country can do IT that i'm aware of. Maybe some military officers can have no idea, but I think even they can pholoe asti far as I knew where the only ones didn't make sense to me, then dollars a make sense to me.

Did you in your teammates lake, did you resent this back in the .

day a little bit? Not in like a, you know, negative way necessarily. I mean, look like I was, say, college athletics was one of the greatest experiences of my life.

I got way more out of the highest state than they ever. Amy, I did the best I could. I was there, and I hope I contributed admirably. But but that experience was invaluable. And I wouldn't de IT for anything in the world. Having said that, you know, there is something that happens to when you see a bunch of people wearing your jersey in the stands and you see your autographs on ebay selling for you whatever amount, money and your thing in yourself. Well, two things.

One like i'm not yet any that but that's my jersey and that's a picture of me with my signature and so that does affect people and again, not a way that to cheap in the experience not to say, hey, this is be as you know, I didn't get anything out of this. We all had an amazing experience. But that doesn't mean that everything was perfect, right? And so this was always something that that I thought you makes sense for people to be able to do, and not just for the football players, by the way.

So my wife was a swimmer at stanford. She's college swimmer. Stanford is one of the most expensive places in the country to go to school and the live. She's on the swiming team. She's not allowed to teach swiming lessons to help pay bills.

It's like literally the number one person I don't want to take swim lessons from.

right? exactly.

There are a lot of families and attitude that would pay a lot of money for a time for swimming .

to teach their kids at a swim. exactly. They probably did despite the rules. But the rules forever said you couldn't do anything with this, nothing with name, image and lightness. So whether you're a star foot all player or high state or a star former at stanford or, you know, a back up long snapper at you, pick your college anywhere. You just can't do anything with this and didn't make sense to make the thought you could monodist IT.

And so a couple years ago, the state of california passed the bill that would legalize IT in the state of california that set off a whole chain reaction where states all over the country started passing laws. But they were all different. And to me, that was chaos. You know, you want a whole host of things, but at minimum, you want an even playing field for everybody across the country because .

that you get a new a situation where, like, it's just stick in football for a moment like correct goes to well, now that that person can make a lot of money by doing that quarter backhoes, I will stay. They can make any money by doing that like that. That's a market distortion.

exactly. I think it's an awkward way to make a college decision is like which state has passed the law that I like the most with respective marketing rights. And so what we proposed was, hey, let's do a national standard, let's have one standard and legalized IT provide the economic right for the athlete, no matter who you are, but building some gardeners around inducements and recruiting in those sorts of things. And so that was, that was our intent. That's what we've proposed now for two congresses have a by partition.

And just so people understand the history of this is not like there was something federally making IT illegal IT was that the nc. ys. Said that you can do this and be a part of one of our programs, which are all the biggest programs. And so with congress passing regulations, it's basically supercede ding and saying, look like you can't prohibit these people from doing this thing exactly.

And so we've been pushing that legislation for a few years now. Ultimately, what happened is the incident. I lost a court case at the spring court last years, about a year ago, and since then, they just said, will make name image like legal, but we won't enforce IT and so will will stay completely out of IT essentially.

And so that set off what to me, looks like the wild west. So now what you're seeing. Are these things called collectives and what a collective is is is a group of boosters that don't have an official affiliation ation with the university and they are raising quote, marketing dollars um to go by players on behalf of the .

team 是不是 it's say this is crazy。

Yeah it's not. Um and you're seeing IT in the recruit you're seeing in a quarter. Bx sign these quote N I deals for eight million dollars prom with that a couple of one.

I've not seen any of these deals and nobody has, but here's what you should look for if you were to look at one of those deals. Number one, what commission is the person who broker the deal? Taking my guesses, they're taking a big commission.

So if you sign an n fell contract, your agent the most, your agent can make us three percent. That's the a collective bargaining in the rules of of the union. Marketing deals have unlimited cuts, but Normalize around twenty percent.

My yes is these N I deals are coming with pretty big haircuts that look more like twenty percent than three percent. But there is no way to know because there's no transparency and everything is just sort of happening in this chaotic situation. On top of that, it's just it's goofy for the team, right? Like if you're the coach now, you're hoping that the collective that you have no association with buys the right players.

I really handy caps the coach, like the coach, can go and and convince the player and say, I know for sure I have this thing for you they are like at the mercy of a collective and gotto make a call and say, do you think you could go up to this number for this player?

exactly? To me, the model is in a place where if congress doesn't step in and and find some sort of way to stabilize this, the whole thing will probably go professional, which maybe, like a lot of people think you should. And you know that I maybe an argument for another day, but but in that world, here's the tradeoffs that you make if it's full professional in that world. The way most schools would react, I suspect, is they would cut every single sport that doesn't make money, except for the ones they would have to keep for title nine purposes. And so these athletic departments would shrink dramatically.

but they have like six to ten programs for school at most.

right? Yeah, I mean, you'd probably you know you would have a football team in a basketball team and you have women's baseball team and then you try to feel hockey. I think there's a lot of people on that team. I think, think, think nice swimming, big numbers like you just you'd be making choices that I would argue aren't in the best interest of, of your entire student athlete. And so a lot of opportunity would go away.

And for folks you don't know, I like I pretty sure when I was at ohio state, I remember the state that us in the university of all, again, by virtue of of nike using IT as their testing ground and and the incredible rabbit fan hood for the university, I think the football program paid for every other sport, thus making the athletic department itself profitable and could contribute back to other things in the university. But I think us in the university of organ were the only countries in the nation at that time that actually could do that.

Yeah ah I think there's more they're profitable now, but the general structure is football and men's basketball make the money and they pay for everything else is generally how works. Maybe we should have that discussion, but there is a tradeoff like there is an everything right and and the tradeoff is the opportunity for the men's track and the women's track and the softball team in the field hockey team and my wife swing team and all.

Is that right? All the set of those are on the chopping block. And you know, when you talk about how do we expand opportunity in our society and how do we make sure that institutions are more receptive to people from all different backgrounds, in particular, really difficult backgrounds, in particular minority background, one of the best ways is through sports.

And so if you're going to kill the college model, you're going to kill that opportunity right along side of IT, that this is the trade off. And again, like people can come down wherever they want on that issue, that I think we need to be eyes wide open as we think through this. And for me, the conclusion has always been look like.

I don't know what the answer to that question is. I do know that nl is pretty straight forward, and I know that people should be able to market themselves. And if a college swimmer anywhere in the country wants to teach someone lessons to help pay for school because, by the way, they're not on scholarship, so they're taken on student debt just like everyone else. If that's true, then we should let them market themselves. And I don't think that's controversial.

It's crazy. The amount dollars that are involved in the most crazy thing to me from all of IT is that like it's almost like college programmes, like cafe pregnant right now or in that like it's got all of the money and structure of up like professions owned, you know for profits for the organization, right? But you d like these collectives of boosters like they don't own equity, you know how you like there just is a while that they're putting up this money for I don't know yeah I also don't .

think is sustainable right? Like what do you get you? There's no economic return to IT for them. exactly.

It's a psychological return in the notion that you get to be more connected to your team and you win more games. And that's wonderful. But the people paying that money don't make anything off for that far. I can tell maybe they do. I don't think they do.

They're cut in on the deals that there's such .

a large commission or something. No, I think the collectives are set up. All is non profit. I think the people who are making money off the deals are the agents would be my guess.

And that's why I think having some visibility on what those commissions look like would be helpful to the players, Frankly, because you would know, hey, what the heck you took thirty percent of me, but only five percent of him. Um know what's going on here. So that's a broken market.

Well, speaking of opportunity in america, let's talk about science, space and technology and american dynamic and catcher's boy's terms. You do you mention china competitive with that? You are involved in finial services committee.

But yeah i'd love to hear from you you know maybe the right way to start this. You know you've said this before. You know planning elsewhere. You know of what you see is the great political battle of our time and how it's not republican versus democrats.

I don't think IT is though the activists inside of both parties think that's what IT is. So to me, I think we're at at a crossroads in our country, but also globally. And I think the breakdown is, do you believe in american democrat or not? And that's not a question of do you believe that the democracy is working perfectly? I clearly the answer of that is no.

There are almost no people I know who think our government's working exactly way that I should. And so we should fight for meaningful reforms to make sure it's more reflective of the people we serve. absolutely.

When I say there are people who have lost faith in america, why? I think that real divide is who believes in american democracy and is IT on both sides. What i've seen increasingly is people inside the parties.

When things don't go their way, when they don't get in the outcome they like, their immediate reaction, is to destroy, tear down something. Could be a building, could be law, could be the court, could be anything right? It's sort of the taker bAllen go home.

This things totally broken. We need to burn IT down and start over with something else. I see that on the left, and I see IT on the right. I think that's poison.

It's poison for a whole hoster reasons, one of which is, I think we need to take a step back and remember how incredible the american idea and american actually has been for the entire world. Prior to our founding, governments were not of buying for the people. Governments were of buying for the government like a lot.

Yeah, outside of a handful of the greek city states back in the day, democracy was a new idea, was an experiment. And for the first time ever, we placed the sovereign ne of the individual at the center society and government's job, if you go back to the founding, was basically to protect the rights of the individual. The individual was sovereign.

Government was behold, into the individual. That's a beautiful, beautiful and powerful idea. And by the way, we don't just believe that for people inside our own country, the belief is that all people have dignity, all people have these rights.

And as a result, we need to lead with those values globally. And if you believe that, of course, you have self government, of course you have a democracy, you went, have an arbitrary monarch ruling over you because the people are sothern. And from that look, we've created more wealth, more prosperity, lifted more people out of poverty, freed more people and oversaw the longest sustainable peace in world history.

That's not to say we're perfect to get, of course or not. And of course, the founding was in perfect right with the truth is compromised, I think, is the original of the country, whole host of things that we ve gotten wrong? But compare that to the alternative, which is sort authoritarians m and chinese communism and the sort of divides there.

And I think it's a pretty clear answer, uh, as to what the right path ford is. And so when I see people tired on our democracy, whether it's again, right or left, I think that's a dead give away to china. IT involved in the russia, in the china's of the world.

And you hear IT in the rhetoric. You see IT from their propaganda. Ms, and all that does is cheap and democracy, and in our leadership in the world, globally. And so to me, that's the real divide. You know, look like faith in democracy isn't given its earned.

And so people in positions like mine need to do a much Better job of fighting for things that are reliant for our people and ignoring the most extreme voices and and take the necessary political rest to bring us back. But it's also not just on us, right, like the beauty, but also the burden of democracy is it's a participation sports. So you actually have to show up as an american, you have to vote, and not just once every four years.

right? And and aoi, do I have the right to vote? But like, I kind of should know what i'm voting on. So like I can't need to do some work to make informed choices yeah.

The one question people asked me a lot is, hey, you know, how do we fix this? And the first question I ask is, how many of you voted in primaries? And usually, like one hand goes up, the numbers are around twenty percent, around twenty percent of voters voting primaries. Well, the primary where the battle is for most races, most congressional district t certainly in this country are heavily Jerry mander. And you know, a lot of the senate races are really come down to know who who's going to win that primary and .

of using in your own journey. Ate IT was all focused on the primary, right? All the funder raising that was the battle.

Yeah and you and you run hard, and you fight hard for every vote and and you represent every constituent, not just republican mary voters, but ultimately you have to appeal with the people vote if you want to get elected. If we could move our primary elector participation from like twenty to fifty, 哎， politics will moderate. And they would improve dramatically.

more so than most people realized. And why is that that there one of loss in the .

primary versus the general well in congressional dish because are so germinated. So they're all ranked my discharge like an r plus nine, which republican for generic democrats, the republican has a nine point lead in every district as IT minds. Actually, a nine point lead is a lot minds, one of the least jarmand red in the country, right? You actually see a lot. And like the teens and twenties and forties where you know r plus fifty seven. So like nobody can win.

So that's the argument of that. Whoever then wins the republican nomination and the primary is paved, the path is paved from there.

right? If you think about IT in general elections, the media is making such a big deal about X, Y, Z, house, senate. And like what you're talking about, like the rear four seats in the entire country. What does that mean for the rest of the seats? S like those are given s right.

And you know what else just happened? We all just got our maps redrawn. And what happened is fewer are now top s so there's basically fewer at play, and the existing districts are now more extreme.

And so is like the worst of all world. So we have fewer competitive seats. And the ones that we have are you going to have more dream candidates unless, and here's the hack, unless people actually show up and .

vote this one little trick.

Yeah, this one thing that you need to do, like get engaged to actually follow the primary and look and like, do I like this?

Canada or not? They made you a booklet is right there. Everything you need to know is right there.

Yeah and like a everybody's on twitter, get on there. Look at the things like it's it's really easy, I think, to figure out like I resonate more, this person or that person and nobody is, is going to be you know one hundred percent the way you want, of course. But I think you'll be able to quickly figure out, okay, who's going to be a productive representative and whose maybe has other motives, right? And so that, that would be my biggest solution for individuals who are frustrated or just got to vote more.

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So maybe let's not bring you to american industrial policy. I mean, over the time i've been in congress, the view is shifted. So much of global ism is an unfeared good to holy crap.

We may have some issues with our supply in like american industrialism and offshoring you've lived on. This was your dirty then? yes.

So you know, again, I can promise maybe a slightly different perspective because of my fathers backroom, my family background, building a steel company in northeast ohio and seeing what has into the industrial base in the middle st. And what that meant for our communities? You seen poverty creep into places.

You've seen what were once very viBrant neighborhoods start to decay in, in a lot of hopelessness, in opiate, and all kinds of terrible things come in their place. And so when you see that, I think IT forces you to take a step and say, okay, what should we really be doing here? And you know me, I think there's sort of three buckets that I think are most important.

One is to build a sustainable economy, one a dynamic economy and then also a resilient economy. And I would say sustained gets probably the most publicity right now. And you know, that's obviously important, but the dynamic is absolutely critical.

And by that, I mean, basically, I think the us. Should lead in every critical technology from now until eternity. So like I want the best AI systems in machine learning systems.

dynamic, literally, meaning changing. So whatever the next big wave is that we are leading that big wave yeah because .

that's where the economic values is going to be created and that's also where the jobs are going to be created for the most part, right? Like f tx being .

based in the bahamas like is not good .

yeah drives me crazy and they're not the only one, right? And so whatever we need to do to attract builders and founders and engineers and and talent to be in this country, to be educated and to build the most critical technologies of the future and the supply chains that underpin them, that is massively important. And then on the resiliency, I think this is where sort the goal was efficiency forever.

And I think covent, more than anything, probably highlighted to the world what may be. Northeast ohio realized a long time ago, which is if you just optimize for efficiency, you're going to have to trade off at some point for us. IT was jobs during the pandemic.

That was supplies and ppe. Yes, the more you squeeze margin and the more you make IT so that you can get every last drop out of the towel, the less resilient you are to any sort of shock in the system. absolutely.

You know we're dealing with IT again on the inflation side, which I think is still largely hold over from sa covent disruptions. But you, so what what should we do going forward to? I think we should reassure everything.

No, I don't. But you, in this world where I believe it's us, verses china and russia, and through us, values, norms and ideas. First of the chinese communist party values and ideas, I want as many critical technologies and supply chains, domestic or with our friends, as possible.

So like i'm happy to offshore. I don't know t shirt manufacturing and we run out A T shirts, that would be unfortunate. But if a war broke out, we would probably survive.

And you're identifying that like it's not mission critical, whether like semiconductors, for example.

mission critical T S M C is like pretty free and important.

Yeah absolutely. And by the way, like if china moves on taiwan, that's a big problem for us, especially if we have a national security issue. You know those are the sorts of things bit on top of that.

I think you know we have to get some of these raw materials go in here as well, and that can be uncomfortable because there's environmental impacts. But you know what I would say to my folks who are more concerned about that is, by and large, is one hundred percent true. But by and large, the united states has higher standards around our manufacturing and declines and sustainability of our manufacturing.

The other parts of the world, like a tony steel made in the united states, is going to be made with less energy intensity than most parts of the world, not all, but most, and certainly china. There's silver bullet. But I think you solve a variety of your goal if you want a dynamic, resilient and sustainable economy by bringing a lot of this production in, particularly the most critical pieces back home or with our our most trusted Alice.

It's such a prisoner's dilema on the sustainability versus dynamism front because okay, let's just simplify the problem and say the U. S. Spends more money to make steal the very same steel, but does weigh less pollution.

But china does weigh more pollution to make cheaper steal of the same quality. And I know those things are not necessarily tribute. Let's just assume that it's a clean box problem. Well, we all live in the same atmosphere. And so if you take IT as a given that they're gone to keep doing that as long as we're willing to keep buying, then like are we actually helping the sustainability goals by saying, hay, let's not produce here because that would be a way to contribute to solving the problem by being the leader in the first mover?

yes. So that's why I think from a policy standpoint, it's so important that we, at the government level, invest in the R N D. Necessary to literally invent the answer to that question, like at my belief, is the answer to the prisoner's delimit.

As we have to invent the answer like that doesn't exist today, there's no obvious answer to that. You are literally in in a prisoners dilma. Unless we find a way to develop cheap but also sustainable steel, we're going to forever be in that particular box.

And so some legislation that I hope will pass very, very soon that, that i'm working on would basically fund demonstration projects for clean steel to do literally exactly this problem. And and I think, you know steel is one thing, but that's on the manufacturing side. But you could also look at agricultural, transportation, energy generation, that most of those sectors have similar trade off to.

What you just described, in my view, is the only way we can really do IT on a global scale as if we make the Green alternatives so cheap and reliable that everyone everywhere would say, hey, this is the best thing to do for all sorts reasons. Now that's way into the future. What I just describe its prior twenty and fifty year journey, but I don't know how to solve the sustainability goals otherwise because there's a stead I think something like fifty percent of the people born in the world in the next fifty years will be born in africa.

Well, how do those economies power themselves? They power themselves largely on fossil fuels, right? Then they're developing economies.

So what are you going to tell them? Hey, sorry, you have to take this really expensive deal and your people have to stay? Absolutely not.

And it's deeply oppressive to say, like we spent the last hundred years expounding unbelievable amount of energy to build this incredible nation that we live in. But sorry, the atmosphere is super polluted now. So none of you are allowed to do that. And we're going to use military muscle to make sure that's true. That's oppressive if you need to innovate your .

way through this problem. That's my personal view. Yeah, you said a Better than me. My view is that the answer this is it's a market design question, but it's also an innovation question.

And I think our responsibility again at the government level to make sure we're funding that R N D, so that we get there. No private enterprise can underwrite a fifty year R N D project. The payoff s not there.

Well, this is an argument on the T S M C episode is that only government scale investment actually could have a prayer of succeeding in creating the next T M C. Elsewhere.

N T S M C was a government seated video company.

yeah. And in congress were were about to pass this chips act, which is a bit controversial, but its goal is to reassure some conduct of manufacturing here in the us. By providing subsidies and grants and all kinds of incentive to get focus to build fabs. Here happens to be that until has announced a massive investment in ohio. So i'm pretty excited about that.

I want to get done, totally agree with done, innovated our way out .

of problems, exactly out of IT.

The american way I thinking is, is the quired way. At least let's .

put IT that way. It's definitely the human way, like human beings are unbelievable, ably good at growing and surviving. And so like I think humanity will sort of like continued to bump up the against the edges of its environment until IT innovates a way to continue to like, spread and prosper.

yeah. And i'm totally bullish on our ability as a species to do that. And i'm particularly bullish that amErica is going to lead the way because I think we have the best system for IT, like the free enterprise systems.

unbelievable. If you want evidence, think about how awful our politics are, but how stronger economy is on a relative basis, know we should be in a much Better position than we are politically. But that's the power of free enterprises. You set the incentives up and you turn, people lose, and that creates an unbelievable things.

So my questions, what in entrepreneurs and investors like do like if you agree that reassuring the dynamism part of the american economy needs to be revised orated, let's take a high, like our new steel startups. Can I get started? You know, like what's the right way to approach this? Or is that legacy companies is the accommodation of both?

I think it's all the above. So like you know, governors all over this country want their states to be more dynamic and and want their economies to be stronger. They want to attract more people.

Generally know in ohio, I always think the way to approach is to leverage the existing assets that you have. And most people don't know this, but colombus, ohio in particular, is starting to develop a pretty nice taxi. So there's A A company called drive capital, which was started by a mark of omi who tell the Young right now and his fun is doing incredibly well. And they've had a handful of IPO in last few years in some solid acquisitions and as a result, are seeing this burgeoning taxine more on the soft side in columbus, ohio and a lot of its in the insurance space. We happen to have a incredible insurance industry in ohio as well.

Turns out nationwide people know a lot about how to create new insurance products exactly.

So you have this sort of nice little fly wheel building around software, insurance and technology and then the capital and expertise there with drive capital layer, the l investment on top of that, right? And so we'll have some giant fabs and an investment happening right outside of columbus, a trade term. But you can see some of silicon heartland sort of dynamic taking place.

What we'll need to do is, is find a way to become greater advanced manufacturing and chip manufacturing and all those sorts things. And we're going to actually to build the facilities and and the support services around them. You know that's going to happen in ohio, and that's really exciting. That's just the columbus area, northeast ohio open, as you know, in clean clinic, in university hospital to the most innovative medical facilities in the world. And so now I think we need to do a much Better job as a region connecting the innovations that are happening inside the walls of those two great institutions out to the broader ecosystem.

But you know, I think if you sort of look at the pockets throughout and see, okay, what assets do I already have and how can I leverage them? And what's in fast growing, high growing, I think you can start to piece together a strategy, take a step up at sort of a national level. And I think you need to have the incentives put in place such that, you know, as we transition away from fossil fuels and towards more clean energy that we're doing, as much of that development and manufacturing here as possible, that we're mining the minerals here and that we're building sustainable supply chains around that, that could be anywhere. That sort of how I think about the economic chAllenges that we have.

It's interesting. I mean, it's kind of this time namic c is always been true. But now that silicon valley, you know, mindset is israel a diaster at this point across the country in the world, obviously, you know, one of the things I always thought, and then you know when when you know Anthony, who are there lived first hand, was stay, afford, really got this from a policy perspective right in a way that like, no, whether university ever has, which is just like to my mind.

I always voted down as the simple idea that like, if you push the innovation out of the university, let people make money on IT, you will do Better as the university, then if you try and hold IT with IT. And that, to me, like this is a big part of the story of silicon valley. I mean.

famously, stanford only took one percent of google when I was a stand for, you know, graduate research project, when most universities want twenty five, fifty plus percent of anything that they call IT tech transfer. It's not even like I was your idea in the first place and we'd like a piece of vics that was developed. It's like a we're transfering IT out into a company. It's right there in the language.

right? Jason hung was a great student. Stanford, as we talked about while he is starting in video and like there's a genser huang building at stanford and it's not as stanford took equity in video in their early his dio.

yeah. And you know, like the inertia behind some of these really good, important early decisions is incredible once you get IT, right, these fly wheel developed and and there they are just so powerful. They're powerful for your community. They are powerful for the country and we much of IT as we can get.

Well, Anthony, on a closing note, let's bring you back to you personally a little bit. You're not running in the next election. So what what do you think the future holds for you as you focus on the next step of your life?

This is a good question. Admittedly, dly, my primary focus is finishing strong. I have a handful of piece of legislation that I am still pushing that i'm hopefully can get across the finish line. That's the primary focus. But I am starting to kind of a go through my notes again and reread my my business school notebooks and go through experience as I keep no books at at all time.

So it's kind of fun to go through and relieve some of those experiences building businesses but also in business and know I think i'm still trying to work through, do I want to be an investor or do I want to be an Operator? I've done Operating and I enjoy I enjoying the hacked out of build our campaign team, which is totally like a start up in a way. And I enjoy the investment side.

And you know like for me, what i'm trying to figure out is that who in my life do I admire and what kind of businesses do I want to build? You know, like I think of the ig sb model, and I just think it's fundamentally an incredible model. The success is outrageous for those who listen to the autos acquired episode is prime most someone to that.

The truly incredible story came out of called the investment group of a barber and also came out of staff. D, G, S. Be a really just two folks in a very small handful of people over fifty years like have compounded numbers that are you did unbelievable.

Yeah and it's crazy. And basically by are doing the buffet model but with high growth companies, right, be super concentrated. Don't get outside your circle competence and you focus on the underlying economics of the business and what they would says. We also only work with people we like and admire. That is probably my top priority as I as I move forward is that I want to be in a position where I love the people I work with, I admire the people I work with and for and i'm working on exciting new chAllenges that sort of where where I think i'll be the most effective. And again, whether it's Operating or investing, I guess time i'll tell, but I guess we are also all just a little bit of both at the end of the day IT.

Yeah, capital allocation is the number one most important skill of the C. E. O. For many people would argue.

Yeah, yeah. It's certainly the the wild one. That perspective, right?

absolutely. Oh, we should plug wills new thing here. Oh yeah, if you like the outsiders and you like, uh, our books club with wheel back in the day, he's got new podcast called fifty x that's the first episode, I think, with the city of trans time, which is a great epo de David, I got early steak peak yeah .

as part of our friends over at the classic empire that's good for me.

I got ta pick .

that up ah yeah it's it's really good.

It's unbelievable how they've grown a truly excEllent manufacturing company, both or dally and by acquisition over the years. It's an .

impressive story. Trans is nick. Yes, I know nick well. Oh, nice. yeah. It's well interviewing nick.

We have a very vocal it's a small minority, but a very vocal small minority of acquired listeners who are just like campaigning for a transient episode.

Nick would be great on the podcast I of you have heard next speak. But nick is incredible. He super fun and entertaining and like gargarin as he's a cliver guy yeah, he's awesome.

yeah. He'd be a good guest. He'd Better than me. You you should get him.

This has been pretty good. Well, we all added the list and and listeners to go .

check out fifty x so we won't make you answer. You're gonna next though. But but I I am curious, where would you steer founders? I think there are a lot of people out there I know who always, who are listening, who wants to found companies, but I think especially these ideas that we've been talking about with Katherine, with you of american anna ism, resent, what do you think founder should go poke around and, uh, dig to start companies?

It's a great question. I mean, I maybe i'm thinking of the same thing.

Don't give your best ideas, maybe your second.

yes. Well, I mean, this is that profound. But to me, like I look for industries that have enormous tAilings and like where's the growth going to be? And then where can I fit inside of that, if at all? So like there's probably going to be enormous growth in vaccine development and pharmacy ticals.

I know nothing about IT. I hope everybody does phenomenally well in that space. It's just not going to be for me. okay. So outside my circle confidence, I love everyone in IT, not for me, but in other ways to marry my experiences on decentralized systems. And I don't know sports or entertainment probably. Is that what i'm going to do? I have no idea, but I do think there are some interesting tailwinds on the decentralized side.

There are certainly interesting Taylors on the climate movement, right? And how do we decarbonize the economy and do IT in a way that responsible, not just for our people, for for the entire world, is probably the biggest theme, Frankly, that you thinks Price of fifty year theme, but definite for the rest of my career. I think we'll be working on that.

And so where are your skills going to be the most valuable? And where do you have the ability to do the best job, which sort of an obvious point. But I think it's important one.

I think a lot of times people think there's a lot of money to be made over there. I'll go over there. You're not a good fit for that. You should be fighting up pill.

That's what I would tell founders focus on the things that you can be the best in the world at that, have a bunch of tAilings behind him, and surround yourself with people you love and admire. The times that i've gotten IT wrong in my life is when I put myself in positions where i'm not with people I love and admire. When you're in that position, things can break down, and they break down quickly.

A man, right? How to percent ago that I, that is true. Good wisdom from the ideas be folks and many others.

So for sure, the most for times I have in my career and the most meaningful are always with people I love. And it's not even like minded people, like people from all different backgrounds and trees and colors. And you come together in these interesting environments and you build something amazing.

And it's so fun and interesting, and you ve learned so much, that to me is where the development is. It's in those uncomfortable moments. Anybody can go be comfortable sort of where can you push your own limits and do IT with people you love that I think that the growth comes and that's what I enjoy the most.

I it's obama that we're gonna lose you as someone representing us, but I I gotta say it's gonna nice to have you back building stuff again.

I'm excited to finish out. I'm excited to get back out there. It's a great big world out there. I just got find my place in IT.

Anthony, thank you so much.

Now thank you. This has been fun and an honor and appreciate to help me on with that.

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It's actually gonna a great companion episode. This episode totally.

I mean, it's freely very helpful just to understand what is the terminology that everyone's using, what does that mean today? power. All of us sort of sharping our pencils on Better understanding what this landscape looks like, what's useful, what did we think was going to be useful but didn't really play out.

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