nobody wants to talk about but I've
started to talk about it's the
intersection of DEI and and immigration
that has really I think warped I think
our perceptions on high skilled
immigration over the last 50 years um
which basic and you and you see this by
the way in like this you just you look
at like the foreign enrollment rates of
the top universities which went from you
know like two or three or 4% 50 years
ago to whatever 27 or 30 or 50
>> Columbia is over half right now
>> 70% or whatever it is and so there's
been this massive transformation in who
gets educated um and then there's been
this massive transformation of who gets
admitted through de through affirmative
action and then you know as we now know
at DEI um and and again this goes
straight to the political divide in the
country which is if you're a family you
know if you if you're a family if you're
parents of a kid where I grew up um and
you've got a smart kid um and you think
you're going to get them into you know a
top university in this country like you
are fooling yourself like there is no
chance right um because they've got
their well the top universities
basically the top universities have
basically an admissions program that
looks like this it's like DEI for white
people um which is the donors and all
the fake sports, right? Um, and so lot
of fake sports,
>> like I have a friend who got into Yale
to play varsity croquet. Um, [laughter]
which let me just say is not a sport
that we played a lot in rural Wisconsin.
And then you've got, you know, DEI
generally for for the other groups. And
then you've got this you got this
immigration influx. Um, and as a
consequence of that, like it is nearly
impossible uh for somebody coming from
like a Midwestern or rural background or
southern background um to get into the
US. By the way, this doesn't just affect
white people. This also obviously now we
now see how it's affecting Jewish
people. Um it it but it actually also
affects African-Americans uh in a very
interesting way which is actually uh
both the universities and the corporate
employers are literally this is true.
They're literally they literally import
Africans so that they don't have to hire
African-Americans um because they they
they they still count as black. Um there
was a great story the thing that woke me
up to this there was a story in the New
York Times 20 years ago about Harvard.
This is a Harvard admits you know black
students but which ones back when the
New York Times could talk about these
things honestly. Um, and it quoted
actually Henry Lewis Gates and Lonnie
Guineer at the time uh at Harvard Law
School basically observing that
African-Americans were not benefiting
from affirmative affirmative action
because Harvard had figured out that
they could import Nigerians. Um, right.
And again, it's just like great, the
Nigerians are great. They're very smart.
They're very productive. It's fantastic.
You know, all other things being equal,
you'd like to have as many of them in
your country, but like is that really
why we're doing, you know, the set aside
programs? Um and so like there is this
really fundamental question which is
like what level of untapped talent
exists in this country that a
combination of DEI and immigration have
basically cut out of the loop for the
last 50 years. Um and how long can we
have this you know story to everybody in
the Midwest and the South that says you
know sorry you're you know because of
historical oppression your kids are so
>> this is this is the angry populism
people are worried about that's
affecting our politics.
>> Yeah. This is what I've really come to
this is what I've really come to
appreciate from growing up in the one
place and now being in the other place,
which is if you if you're if you're in
the if you're in the center of the
country, you're just like, "Wow, these
people really hate me. They really hate
my kids." Like they're really out to get
me. Um and and like that that that's
just such a toxic that's just such a
toxic dynamic like that that's a very
very bad thing for that to continue.
>> So I guess to finish on a more positive
note, we have all these challenges
you've outlined. No, it's fair. I think
in order to be optimistic, you first
have to say what are the challenges and
diagnose it and then say what are the
ways.
>> Well, here's here's an optimistic thing
which is we have talent in this country
that is like we have we have so many
smart people in this country who are not
being properly trained, properly
educated and properly employed. Like we
really genuinely do we have tons of
smart kids running around who have all
kinds of potential who have been
completely cut out of opportunity for
the last 50 years.
>> So so we're going to have this wave of
productivity growth. It's going to be in
the real world with robotics. We're
going to start to build hopefully if you
get the policies right and it's going to
lift all these people up. What are the
bottlenecks or things in the way of
doing that? There's we have the amazing
secretary of energy here. Energy is
obviously a really key thing to get
right. Uh there's obviously the chips,
there's the critical minerals you
mentioned. Regulatory stuff is insane in
this country. It needs to be fixed like
like what are the biggest ones you're
focused on and how are we going to get
those to a place we need that ends up
with the optimistic outcome?
>> So I say yes, those. [laughter]
So I mean the good news on this is a lot
of it's obvious, right? The minute you
look at it, you're just like, well
obviously we have to do these things. If
you talk to anybody built, you know,
running businesses in any of these
sectors, they'll they'll tell you right
off the right off the bat the thing the
things the things that need to happen.
Um, and so I, you know, I think I think,
you know, and, you know, the current
administration, I think, is pretty
devoted to a lot of this. Um, you know,
look, the other, I would just say the
other positive thing that's happening,
um, there's this new book out called
Abundance, um, from uh, from Ezra Klein,
who I would say I disagree with on
approximately zero of everything. Um,
but I think this book is really good.
Um, and I think he and his co-author,
you know, outline, you know, they don't
necessarily have the policy
prescriptions I would outline, but they,
you know, they make this point of like,
you know, liberals used to believe in
building things, right? Well, I mean, if
you go all the way back, like communists
really believed in building things,
right? Like all like Soviet iconography
100 years ago was all like rockets and
skyscrapers and cars and motion and
energy and it was all amazing and they
built all these huge things. And then,
you know, liberals, you know, up
through, I don't know, up through the up
until basically the 1970s, you know,
really believed in really believed in
building things. they really believed in
building the future. Um, and so Ezra and
and Derek Thompson are trying to
recapture that. And there and there's a
bunch of, by the way, there's a bunch of
of of leaders of that party in
Washington that are now, you know,
pushing that quite hard. Um, and so may
maybe, you know, although it seems hard
to believe these days, but, you know,
there may be an opportunity for some
actual bipartisanship here.
>> And again, it makes look it just makes
sense. If the country is growing faster,
it's going to be a happier health. It's
going to be a happier it's going to be a
fundamentally happier place because
people whoever whichever side of the
political spectrum you're on, there's
going to be
Reagan, Mr. Reagan, there's going to be
a sense of optimism, right? There's
going to be a sense of morning in
America. There's gonna be a sense of
opportunity. There's going to be the
sense that your kids are going to live
better lives than you do. Um, and and I
don't think that's a particularly
partisan view at the end of the day. And
I think there may be an opportunity to
maybe bridge the divide a bit.
>> And I want to dig a little tiny bit
deeper as we end into what that means
because for me, for example, I think
both of us see how healthcare doesn't
need to take up 20% of our GDP, right?
It's very obvious that AI can make these
things half a third the cost for better
outcomes. And yet every one of our
states in this country has very powerful
provider and payer lobbies and has very
powerful cartels that block competition.
And so if we want to go build something
with AI, we're not allowed to right now.
Like do you see the left and the right
tech working together to fight these
special interests to actually fix the
regulatory state? Because it's not like
the administration could just do it,
right? We have it's going to take a lot
of effort. Like what does that coalition
look like of the of the of the good guys
against this kind of broken regulatory
cartel in all these industries? Is that
is that something we're going to all
have to fight?
>> Yeah. So the the way I think about this
is there's basically right three
components to the American dream, right?
There's house, you know, have a have a
house, have a a house for your kids
where and you know, kind of by
definition, this goes back to the
geographic lens. The house needs to be
like near a place where there's like
great job opportunities, right? So it
can't be a house in the middle of
nowhere. It has to be a house where
there's going to be great jobs um and
you know, a safe environment and so
forth. Um number one. Number two is is
is healthare. You need, you know, great
healthcare for you and your family. And
then three is education. You want to
send your kids kids to good schools. Um
if you disagregate sectors of the
economy over the last 25 years, what you
find is basically everything that
technology touches basically collapses
in price. Um and so television sets and
you know computer games and you know
everything you know anything with
electronics in it basically the the
prices productivity growth in those
sectors has advanced very fast. Product
prices prices have have uh have
collapsed. Everything is is much
cheaper. Um but if you chart uh housing,
education and healthcare um the prices
of those things are skyrocketing, right?
And and we all we all you we all see
this is just the price of housing is
exploding, the price of education is
exploding and the price of healthcare I
mean healthcare is 20% of the economy on
its way to 50%. Um and uh and so the the
prices are exploding and and and so it's
like okay what what makes healthcare
what what makes those three components
the American dream have these exploding
prices. It's basically it's two things.
Number one is uh and these are
interrelated but number one is
technology is not really touching them
very much. that and you could say the
tech industry has done a bad job at
addressing housing and healthcare and
education or or you could say that you
know those industries have been
resistant to it. Uh but technology
hasn't really touched them that much
which means that they productivity
growth hasn't happened in them. Um and
then the other thing is they're heavily
regulated. Um they're they're heavily
dominated by the government. they're
heavily regulated and then in all three
of those sectors uh the government both
restricts supply right and so zoning
laws and university certifications and
so forth right mean that it's very hard
to actually build new of of those three
things um and then the government
responds to the political pressure
caused by the rising prices by
subsidizing demand and of course if you
subsidize demand and a fix supply you
get skyrocketing prices right and so
every time there's a housing cris you
know it's perpetual housing crisis in
California the answer always is
subsidies for home buyers which always
has the effect of driving prices up
further and making the problem worse,
right? Um and so so so like that that
that drives, you know, those are the
microeconomics of of what's happening.
Um I don't think there's easy answers on
this. I but I think the acknowledgement
that this is in fact what's happening.
And then I think the the pe to decide
that they do not want to live this way.
I I I think like or the marginal
American voter needs to decide. It's
just look, it's just not acceptable that
if I can't spend $3 million, I can't
have a house that's in a good
neighborhood with a good job attached to
it. And it's just not acceptable uh that
a four-year college degree is going to
cost a million dollars, which is which
is what it's on its way to doing. And
it's just not acceptable that like this
healthcare, you know, monster is running
out of control. Um and and so, you know,
it it you in many ways like this is like
the fundamental, you know, policy
political question of our time. You
know, that kind of kind of needs to be
dealt with. Again, these issues become
much easier to deal with in a high
growth environment, right? Um and in in
an environment with very rapid
technological development. Um let me
give you the good news story on on
healthcare. Everybody talks about
healthcare. can't break these curves.
There's one area of healthcare that is
incredibly sophisticated,
technologically advanced, and the price
curve looks like Moore's law. The price
curve looks like video games. The price
curve is just a straight line down, and
the quality of the service has gone way
up. And and that's lasic eye surgery,
right? And and the reason it's and the
reason that's the case is because it's
it's outside the system. It's a
discretionary purchase paid for by the
consumer. Um, you know, and the the
lasic eye studios are in like strip
malls. Um, and they've got like, you
know, three people and like a super
advanced, you know, incredibly advanced
like laser eye machine. um and you go in
there and you get zapped and you have
perfect eyesight and it every year it
gets better and cheaper. Um and so
that's like an example of what happens
if you're able to touch these sectors
with technology and if you're able to
get them out from under all all the
regulatory and government overhang and
so that that potential exists I think
throughout the system but but
fundamentally we have to decide we want
it and and fundamentally the population
the country has to decide that it wants
it.
>> Well I'm optimistic more of the leaders
in the tech and government sector are
going to be on our side and push through
and fix these regulations and the
technology is going to get us there.
Thank you, Mark, for being here.
Appreciate it.
>> Good. Thank you, everybody.