TRIGGERnometry - Triggernometry - Ep. 4 Pippa Malmgren

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00:00:47.800 Pippa Magrum, welcome to Chickenometry.

00:00:49.540 Well, thank you for having me.

00:00:54.880 hello and welcome to trigonometry i'm francis foster i'm constantin kissin and this is the

00:01:02.820 show for you if you're bored of people talking on the internet about subjects they know nothing

00:01:07.240 about at trigonometry we don't pretend to be the experts we ask the experts we're here in our

00:01:13.220 makeshift studio the world famous angel comedy club and our amazing expert guest this week is

00:01:18.560 a fantastic piper malgram who's a former senior economic advisor to president george w bush a

00:01:24.240 renowned author and the founder of H-Robotics. Pippa Magrum, welcome to Trigandometry.

00:01:28.700 Well, thank you for having me.

00:01:38.720 Pippa, so tell us a little bit about your journey and how you actually

00:01:41.840 ended up doing what you did, being who you were, and how are you here?

00:01:45.740 Well, being an economist, I kind of think I sort of snuck in and nobody noticed.

00:01:51.140 I mean, really, one of the greatest compliments I ever get is people who go,

00:01:54.440 you don't look like an economist.

00:01:55.960 I'm like, thank you.

00:01:58.640 Anyway, you know, I was lucky.

00:02:00.720 My dad was the chief trade negotiator for the United States under Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford.

00:02:06.140 He worked for both sides, never left.

00:02:08.080 So I grew up in a household with my dad explaining, you know, when your shoes are made,

00:02:12.600 the upper part will be made in one country and the lower part in another country

00:02:15.860 and then put together in a third country.

00:02:17.600 I thought it was fascinating.

00:02:19.220 So I just was always interested in what was going on in the world economy and studied it and somehow ended up working in the White House, being President's advisor on economic policy.

00:02:30.360 That's when we had Enron, WorldCom, seven of the nine largest bankruptcies in American history in one year.

00:02:37.120 And then we had 9-11.

00:02:38.860 So that was a very eventful period in my life and in everybody's life.

00:02:42.700 and I don't know my thing is really just I'm fascinated by the world economy and the human

00:02:49.160 aspect all the other economists they just love to number crunch and do models and these huge

00:02:55.920 mathematical formula and I'm like yeah but how are they feeling you know I'm more interested in

00:03:02.160 and how does the society respond to what's happening in the economy this is going to sound

00:03:07.300 like a really trite question but what is it like working in the White House just going in every

00:03:12.300 day. I mean, that must be a huge thrill. You know, it is. And I'll tell you what,

00:03:17.120 it's interesting. My mom studied with J.R.R. Tolkien. Wow. Right? She studied medieval English.

00:03:25.240 And I was so struck when I first went to the White House. And I realized when you walk into

00:03:30.040 the Oval Office, your ego expands so suddenly. You're like, holy, I'm here and the president

00:03:36.940 is asking me my advice and you realize gollum lives above the door of the oval office and when

00:03:43.040 you walk in there he jumps on your shoulder and your ego just goes crazy and and it tells you

00:03:49.460 don't tell him what you think tell him what he wants to hear and in that moment i kind of realized

00:03:55.460 oh my god i'm a hobbit right i i i want to tell the president what he needs to hear not what

00:04:00.560 i think you know not what he would like to hear but what i think he needs to hear

00:04:05.560 And actually, a lot of people who work in that environment, they don't really operate that way.

00:04:10.840 They'll tell him what they think he wants to hear.

00:04:14.020 So it must be fascinating over a period of time.

00:04:16.340 You must see people's personalities completely change.

00:04:19.640 Totally.

00:04:20.660 I have one chief executive who came into my office.

00:04:23.680 He goes, the president's policies are terrible, and he should fire the secretary of the treasury, and it's all a disaster.

00:04:28.560 And I'm like, great, let's go over and tell him.

00:04:30.480 And as we're walking, he's just bombarding me with how bad it is.

00:04:33.040 We arrive at the Oval Office. As he crosses the door, he turns in this totally obsequious,

00:04:39.980 Mr. President, I am so delighted to meet you.

00:04:43.580 What happened to you? Come back to me. Come back. Don't look into the light.

00:04:48.040 And he never said a word. Because why? He suddenly has visions that he is going to be the American ambassador to name the country I love best.

00:04:55.840 That he's going to be invited on Air Force One.

00:04:57.520 And this is one of the biggest problems, I think, for all leaders, but heads of state, literally, you know, people get obsessed by the power and the paraphernalia and the, my precious, and it's a huge danger for all leaders, and they have to pick people to be around them who aren't affected by all that stuff.

00:05:16.220 Talking about obsession with power, the question that you probably get more than any is, what do you make of Donald Trump at the moment and what's been happening?

00:05:23.480 The economy seems to be booming under Donald Trump at the moment. Has it gone too far? I mean, what is happening?

00:05:27.980 Well, okay, so first of all, presidents don't make the economy do stuff.

00:05:33.180 But their policy stance does matter. It sends a signal.

00:05:37.300 But a lot of the things that are happening right now kind of started well before Donald Trump.

00:05:41.340 So like, for example, wages went up in China like five times in the last three or four years.

00:05:47.860 So the Chinese manufacturing picture is not very competitive anymore.

00:05:51.480 And in fact, the U.S. is very competitive in comparison.

00:05:54.840 So the job started moving back to the U.S.

00:05:58.160 Now, he says, you know, I did this.

00:06:00.460 And you're like, well, actually, it kind of was already in motion, and you're a bit lucky with that.

00:06:04.660 On the other hand, it's also true that his policies are helpful for that outcome.

00:06:11.340 So drawing a line between what a president gets to take credit for, I mean, basically all presidents are entitled to their luck, and they all claim credit for stuff that they didn't necessarily actually cause.

00:06:23.520 The other awkward thing, I mean, awkward is putting it mildly, but what he represents, in my view, he represents a desire by those who supported him, not just to be a change in Washington, but literally to burn the whole thing to the ground.

00:06:44.580 To be a disruptor.

00:06:45.320 To be a total destroyer, in fact, of the system.

00:06:50.220 Drain the swamp. 0.88

00:06:50.940 Drain the swamp, burn it down.

00:06:52.920 and as he does this the honest truth is well there's some element of truth it had become

00:06:58.680 hugely overgrown it had become almost inoperable like my first job and i know it's really awkward

00:07:05.320 and weird to say my very first job was working for president reagan oh wow as a white house intern

00:07:10.360 um i was 12 at the time but anyway yeah i i delivered papers from my job

00:07:18.520 So how many degrees did you have at this point?

00:07:21.300 Anyway, but I've lost my train of thought.

00:07:25.680 No, I'm just kidding.

00:07:26.740 So one of the things you realize from being around that environment is it matters how it's structured.

00:07:32.040 So at that time, the National Security Council had like literally 50 people.

00:07:38.040 Today, after President Obama was in power, it was 450 people.

00:07:43.340 Now, there's not enough time in the day for 450 people on one area, national security, that doesn't include the National Economic Council that I was on, or the Domestic Policy Council, or Homeland Defense, to all brief the president.

00:07:57.560 So, you know, I'm kind of with, that sounds so terrible, but I'm kind of with Trump on the, you have to make it smaller because it doesn't work.

00:08:05.200 but it still needs to work somewhat and he's like well i don't really care whether it works or not

00:08:11.980 i just want it out of the way the other thing is you know the way he talks is so toxic

00:08:17.740 and i think there are a lot of people who might be aligned with him philosophically

00:08:22.740 make government smaller have lower taxes more freedom for businesses but do we have to insult

00:08:29.360 every possible member of the community that doesn't look exactly like a middle-aged white

00:08:35.520 male yeah so you're troubled by this well yeah absolutely it's unnecessary no but isn't that

00:08:42.840 how he won though it is well and i would say his negotiating style also reflects this right

00:08:48.620 so um you know he announces stuff like the steel tariffs or he announces you know we're going to

00:08:55.600 use the entire nuclear arsenal on North Korea, and everybody goes, ah, you know, but then 0.51

00:09:02.420 what happens, the North Koreans agree to come to the negotiating table, I suspect what we'll

00:09:08.940 find on the threat of trade wars is everybody comes to the table, so he's like the bully

00:09:15.160 at school who comes up to you on the playground, and first he just whacks you, you know, just

00:09:20.500 a punch to the chin, and when you're lying on the ground, you're like totally off balance,

00:09:25.600 Then he goes, okay, let's talk.

00:09:27.500 It's literally a style.

00:09:29.540 Sorry, your example is giving me flashbacks.

00:09:32.420 I'm kidding.

00:09:34.320 And so, anyway, highly disruptive.

00:09:37.980 And this is the way to think about it.

00:09:39.520 He's literally like an uber phenomena in politics.

00:09:41.900 He is disintermediating the traditional power structures for better and for worse.

00:09:46.940 Depends on your angle.

00:09:48.700 Do you think that, I mean, this is quite a loaded question.

00:09:52.000 Do you think that he is?

00:09:53.220 I look for it.

00:09:53.880 because he said

00:09:55.740 certain things that can be construed as racist 0.93

00:09:58.480 for instance, some Mexicans are racist 1.00

00:10:00.340 rapists 1.00

00:10:01.280 but do you think that is a tactic of his

00:10:04.740 or do you think he genuinely believes those sentiments

00:10:07.060 I don't know him

00:10:09.520 I've been lucky

00:10:11.060 I've met a number of

00:10:13.100 I thought you were going to say

00:10:14.340 I've been lucky I haven't met him

00:10:15.500 I don't know him

00:10:18.580 I know people who have worked for him

00:10:20.240 my suspicion

00:10:22.720 is that he has this kind of banter

00:10:26.800 that's deliberately designed to be totally provocative.

00:10:30.360 It's back to the negotiating style.

00:10:33.640 But that probably, if you really sat down with him,

00:10:37.560 he is not thinking,

00:10:40.900 I want to specifically exclude these minorities 1.00

00:10:44.560 from having a future.

00:10:46.500 But how do you disentangle it?

00:10:48.100 This is the question.

00:10:48.940 How do you disentangle it?

00:10:49.860 And here's an awkward point here.

00:10:53.880 When we look at the numbers, voters who supported Trump in the election,

00:10:59.720 the numbers of women and minorities, both African-Americans and Hispanics,

00:11:06.180 that supported him was higher than any of the pollsters anticipated.

00:11:11.300 Well, higher than Mitt Romney and John McCain, actually.

00:11:13.800 And so the question is why?

00:11:15.180 And my theory is this.

00:11:17.040 in the establishment world there's often not a place for women i mean i left investment banking 1.00

00:11:25.320 because i felt i could create my own thing and have more freedom and say what i felt about the

00:11:31.160 world and not be constrained so as a woman i left the establishment created my own company

00:11:35.920 a lot of african americans do the same a lot of hispanics do the same because their

00:11:39.320 opportunity for promotion is not huge right which is something we have to fix but in the meantime

00:11:46.820 what do you do you become an entrepreneur now the moment you're an entrepreneur you're the bread

00:11:50.660 winner you've got to pay the bills and you look at trump and you go i don't like what he says

00:11:55.760 but if he stands for lower taxes smaller government less regulation i'm going to vote

00:12:01.520 with my breadwinner hat first and then we can talk about the position i occupy in the society

00:12:08.120 which doesn't in any way forgive this whole business of being you know as you say racist and

00:12:15.980 and almost separatist like everyone is in a separate group with him it doesn't forgive that

00:12:21.320 but it maybe explains some of these voting dynamics i find it incredibly fascinating

00:12:26.960 because my mother is latin american she's from venezuela and uh she's a fan of trump

00:12:31.940 and because the the the reason is is she saw obama as being a soft touch and she likes the

00:12:38.860 fact that there's a president who has come in who is hardline who says what he believes in

00:12:44.240 inverted commas and it's something that she can you know whether you like him or whether you don't

00:12:49.360 you know what trump stands for and a lot of the time with a lot of politicians especially in the

00:12:54.180 uk you look at and you go i don't know what you represent well i i hear you and i think it's very

00:13:02.460 interesting that international observers are more afraid of trump than they've been afraid of

00:13:10.540 previous presidents. And it's a stark contrast with President Obama, for example. When I

00:13:15.920 talked to the Chinese and the Russian leadership, their view was they could pretty much do anything

00:13:21.560 and get no reaction from President Obama. You know, the South China Sea issue, right,

00:13:27.940 where the Chinese are building, you know, all these sort of military facilities in the

00:13:31.520 middle of the South Pacific. And they interviewed the general who was in charge. And he said,

00:13:35.820 well, you know, we put a huge building crane on the island and we waited for President Obama to react and then no reaction.

00:13:42.800 So then we started using it and then no reaction.

00:13:45.140 And we started building a runway, no reaction.

00:13:47.160 Next thing we're like landing our military jets there, no reaction.

00:13:50.340 That caused them to think, okay, well, we can do a whole bunch of things and basically there's no consequences.

00:13:57.440 Then Trump comes in and he basically, you know, threatens to use everything and suddenly everybody's walking on eggshells.

00:14:02.960 And so it's a strange turnaround.

00:14:07.060 And interestingly, the Chinese in particular view Trump as a one-off in history

00:14:13.940 in that he is our first president who is literally prepared to give away territory.

00:14:19.620 So while he's supposedly tough, he's a negotiator.

00:14:23.520 So he's basically a property guy.

00:14:25.760 He's trying to get a deal done.

00:14:27.320 So, for example, with North Korea,

00:14:29.760 I suspect that part of the way he's managed to get everybody to the negotiating table

00:14:33.540 is he's basically said to the Chinese,

00:14:36.260 if you can diminish this North Korean nuclear problem,

00:14:41.040 just keep North Korea. 1.00

00:14:42.820 Just soft-annex that thing. 0.99

00:14:45.140 And that is the message he gave the Russians on Ukraine.

00:14:48.060 He said, well, we're not interested.

00:14:49.460 We don't have a national strategic interest.

00:14:51.260 If you want it, you can have it.

00:14:53.020 It's the same thing he said about Syria to the Russians.

00:14:55.120 You want it? That's a problem. We don't want it.

00:14:57.240 And the Chinese are like, oh, my God, he's giving away territory. 0.98

00:15:01.260 What can we get?

00:15:02.420 And from a Chinese point of view, to get a greater degree of influence over North Korea

00:15:08.880 is a huge benefit to that.

00:15:11.140 So I'm just saying it's very interesting that we have a president who has said,

00:15:17.180 I'm not into foreign policy, and yet he seems to be presiding over more movement

00:15:21.760 in foreign policy than we've seen in many years.

00:15:24.520 It's all very paradoxical.

00:15:27.240 We've talked about Trump. Let's keep it light. Let's move on to Brexit.

00:15:41.240 Essentially, what is Brexit? And if you could just explain.

00:15:45.340 And does it make it racist if you vote for Brexit?

00:15:49.360 So, OK, I think what it's really about is centralisation versus decentralisation of power.

00:15:57.240 And all over the world, people have been damaged by the huge debt burden that's bearing down.

00:16:04.840 I kind of think it's the debt burden that's like the huge silent wrecking ball that bears down on the society,

00:16:10.980 and it literally breaks the promises that hold the society together.

00:16:14.520 So suddenly you realize that government used to say you could retire at, you know, 65,

00:16:19.480 and now the message is it's going to be like 93, right?

00:16:22.640 Because you don't have any money, right?

00:16:23.800 And, you know, things that you used to get your trash picked up, I don't know, twice a week, and now it's like once a month.

00:16:30.260 And you have to pay for it if you want more.

00:16:31.960 All these little things cause people to start getting angry and upset.

00:16:35.860 And they're like, hey, what has happened here?

00:16:38.400 And then it got worse when we had the financial crisis, and suddenly everybody who was rich and powerful got a blank check for having messed up.

00:16:46.280 Right.

00:16:46.800 And everybody else had to pay for it.

00:16:48.640 So the first question that comes up is, how has this happened?

00:16:53.360 And then the next question is, why are you in charge?

00:16:56.660 Now, the moment you ask them, why are you in charge?

00:16:59.340 This is the origin of Brexit, but frankly, Trump, populism in general.

00:17:06.020 It's also the question behind the move to the right that we're seeing across the European Union.

00:17:12.660 China has had its version as well of people challenging the government saying, why are you in charge?

00:17:17.620 What are you delivering?

00:17:18.920 Yeah, definitely.

00:17:19.740 That's fascinating.

00:17:20.420 It doesn't get as much air time, but it's been a very big issue,

00:17:23.500 and partly why we've seen a tightening of the control of power by Xi Jinping.

00:17:28.320 So that's actually a response, as opposed to him just coming in and going,

00:17:31.500 I want to do the Russian-style lifetime president.

00:17:34.040 In my view, it's absolutely responding to the same set of forces, so they're all global in nature.

00:17:39.840 So I don't actually think that it was a racist impetus behind it.

00:17:44.580 It's more that if the finances don't add up and you can't, and the government can't look after me, then what are we going to do with all these other people coming in?

00:17:55.240 And it's a kind of demand and request for decision making to not be made so far away, but to come back to people that I've elected, people that I have a connection with.

00:18:06.360 And I think that's at the core of it, to be honest.

00:18:10.180 And it won't end until we get the finances sorted.

00:18:15.420 So as long as the debt problem is there, we can expect populism to persist.

00:18:20.260 And what I find is people keep thinking that if we elect one politician like President Macron of France,

00:18:26.520 that he can somehow, like, wish it all away and make it better.

00:18:29.480 but until you sort the finances problem then the problem is economies can't grow fast enough to

00:18:37.280 deliver on people's aspirations for the future and that makes them frustrated with politicians

00:18:42.060 and they go okay if you can't fix this I chuck you out until we bring in somebody who can and

00:18:46.860 you get ever more radical results absolutely do you think the conservative policy of austerity

00:18:52.960 indirectly led to Brexit or do you think that was not really connected uh you know what I

00:18:59.460 I think across the board, we're experiencing,

00:19:02.860 now this is a very technical economic term that I'm about to use.

00:19:05.680 Oh, God.

00:19:07.760 Electile dysfunction.

00:19:10.180 I'm really serious.

00:19:11.380 I've never suffered from that connection.

00:19:12.500 Electile dysfunction.

00:19:13.620 You've got the other one.

00:19:15.060 And electile dysfunction, it arises when people really,

00:19:20.140 well, it's when they feel, and I'm serious about this,

00:19:23.220 they feel castration.

00:19:25.240 Now, castration is castration.

00:19:28.060 Oh, right.

00:19:28.720 Now, that is when you look at your bank account and you realize that more than 50% of your income is needed to cover your rent or your mortgage, and that is before your groceries and anything else.

00:19:39.740 And at that point, you just are so upset, and you are like, well, I want something to change.

00:19:47.340 And I think this is, again, if you really want to know what's behind populism, it's not any specific policy decision.

00:19:54.680 It's the inability to get the public past their castration feeling.

00:20:00.720 Wow.

00:20:00.900 What about the cultural side of it, Pippa?

00:20:02.440 Because I'm an immigrant here in the UK as a youth.

00:20:05.920 Oh, my God, Adam.

00:20:08.820 I talk about being Russian too much. 0.68

00:20:11.840 I'm an immigrant here.

00:20:12.980 Right, that's my point.

00:20:13.740 Yeah, I'm American.

00:20:14.480 Everyone involved in this podcast and in this show is an immigrant.

00:20:17.780 I was born in this country.

00:20:19.600 All right, man, all right.

00:20:20.400 I've got a passport as well.

00:20:21.580 But my question is, this narrative in the run-up to Brexit and since Brexit has been the British people are these monstrous racist xenophobes, which I really haven't found to be my personal experience as an immigrant in this country.

00:20:35.700 So my curiosity about that is, do you think the narrative in the run up in the last 15 years, there has been this narrative in politics, this idea that if you bring up the issue of immigration, if you're concerned about large numbers of people coming to this country from Poland and from other countries, particularly when under Blair's government, there was no, what do you call it, the period where the adjustment period when the countries joined, all the other countries put restrictions on immigration in the European Union, but Britain didn't.

00:21:04.800 So that kind of forced everybody who wanted to leave their country, Poland or others, to come to Britain, right?

00:21:11.000 There was a period of a large inflow.

00:21:12.860 And at that time, there was this notion that anyone who brings up the issue of immigration must be racist.

00:21:18.240 Do you think that is something that pushed a lot of people into the arms of UKIP, into the arms of the Brexiteers?

00:21:24.640 I also haven't really come across this racist element.

00:21:29.080 At the time that Brexit was unfolding, I had my book out, my book Signals, and I was up in the north and talking to people about how they felt.

00:21:40.060 And what they kept saying was, I have no problem with immigrants.

00:21:43.280 I've had immigrants in my community all my life, my parents' life, ever since empire.

00:21:47.520 My problem is immigrants getting a check for a new car. 1.00

00:21:51.900 And I live here and I don't get a check for a new car.

00:21:54.280 In other words, they were aggravated about what the British call queuing.

00:21:59.080 that somehow the outsiders were jumping the line

00:22:02.460 and getting an advantage.

00:22:03.740 I think that was more the issue.

00:22:05.440 But I actually think this whole discussion

00:22:07.260 about immigration is a bit of a red herring.

00:22:09.540 It's a much bigger issue.

00:22:11.480 What it is is a breakdown of trust in institutions

00:22:15.040 across the board, right?

00:22:16.500 So we've had the media and trust in the media

00:22:20.100 has broken down.

00:22:21.200 The church, trust in the church has broken down.

00:22:24.520 Trust in literally every institution of society.

00:22:28.060 And as that trust breaks, then people become more closed in in their thought process.

00:22:34.760 Immigration becomes an element of that.

00:22:37.840 In other words, I don't know that it's a cause.

00:22:39.760 I think it's a response.

00:22:41.820 The other thing, too, is we talk about inequality.

00:22:45.600 And everybody thinks that this is a really huge problem.

00:22:49.420 I think, actually, there's a slightly different problem that's much more serious.

00:22:53.260 And I say what it is is the elevators are broken.

00:22:56.580 And by that, what I mean is you can handle inequality in a society if the elevators work.

00:23:05.260 That is to say, if people who are up at the top, if they screw up, they should come down.

00:23:10.520 But what we do now is we write a big check and bail them out.

00:23:13.360 So they get to stay.

00:23:14.620 They get to continue to own all the assets, even though they messed up.

00:23:17.860 And the people at the bottom, the immigrants who don't have the connections, the education, 1.00

00:23:23.320 the doors of opportunity are closed to them.

00:23:25.980 and that this is a serious problem because the inequality people could live with that if they

00:23:32.260 knew they had a fluid ability that you could make it if you worked really hard if you were bright

00:23:37.720 if you put your elbow grease in and that there would be consequences if you messed up but all

00:23:42.480 that is frozen now so I talk to a lot of cheap executives and they complain about populism and

00:23:47.540 I'm always like okay so when is the last time you hired someone who didn't have a university degree 0.98

00:23:52.900 or who came from a displaced background in some way.

00:23:56.320 And they're like, oh, well, I don't hire any of those people.

00:23:58.220 And I'm like, well, you know, you hold the doors of opportunity.

00:24:00.940 And if you hold them shut to those people, you can't be surprised that populism results.

00:24:06.620 And by the way, the public is going to push you out of the way if you don't open the doors of opportunity.

00:24:11.760 So that's why I think the immigration question, we can focus on it, but it's part of a much bigger problem.

00:24:19.440 And let's face it, in Western Europe, we've got aging demographics, all innovation benefits from diversity of thought, from new energy, younger people.

00:24:31.420 So immigration absolutely is working in our favor. 0.94

00:24:36.940 The question is, how do you manage the movement of people?

00:24:40.140 And I think that's another thing, is to expect immigrants to show up in an entirely new society, entirely new culture, and that they should just fit in right away and go get a job. 0.96

00:24:49.440 yeah this takes some education on the part of the the locals how do you integrate i mean heck

00:24:56.080 in in our militaries we're not integrating the former military guys into society right 1.00

00:25:03.600 we have a lot of vets who are not employed this is insane right that we can't even integrate people 1.00

00:25:10.720 who've come from our society and gone off and fought our wars so i think there's something about

00:25:16.560 about how do we create structures that are more inclusive more generally and um so that's why i

00:25:25.720 don't know i just don't think immigration by itself is the either the question or the answer

00:25:30.260 that's absolutely fascinating thank you pippa i was going to say do you envisage brexit becoming

00:25:34.960 a success or do you think it is going to be this financial disaster as it's painted in some of the

00:25:40.200 more left-wing press? I think it's painted a disaster in all the press. I think I'm the only

00:25:47.040 one who is saying, actually, the country's going to be fine. My personal view is Britain would have

00:25:54.420 been fine either way. It's just easier to have the economy grow more strongly out, and I'll explain

00:26:02.940 why. But it's not like it's a binary win-lose. And also, it's not a case that it's either Britain

00:26:09.360 is successful, or the European Union. Both of them can be successful. I mean, the world economy

00:26:13.940 is full of many economies. They're all successful in their own different ways. So what really bugs

00:26:19.280 me is this idea that the British economy is going to slide into the North Sea and just sink.

00:26:24.220 I'm like, this is not what happens to the fifth largest economy in the world. So here's how I

00:26:29.560 think about it. The decision's been made. So money is a lot like water. It literally flows to

00:26:38.200 wherever it faces the least resistance so unless the british are going to raise their taxes and

00:26:43.840 their regulatory red tape to be at or above the eu levels which personally i think is an impossible

00:26:49.360 task the british couldn't do it even if they want to do it's not going to happen uh so and also if

00:26:55.620 they were to abandon the traditional british rule of law and be comfortable moving to the napoleonic

00:27:00.700 code environment that dominates the continent yeah then maybe but the fact is that's not where

00:27:07.080 the british are and so i think actually the economy is turning out to be just fine and we

00:27:13.260 can see the data is all better right employment is higher unemployment is lower growth has gone up

00:27:19.080 well we haven't left yet well i know but you know what markets discount all that in advance so this

00:27:23.780 idea that somehow we just haven't hit that wall yet doesn't really work for me and i'm working

00:27:29.700 with the world's biggest investors right i'm talking to the biggest institutional investors

00:27:33.720 sovereign wealth funds, a pension fund. Here's what they say. They say, I may not like the

00:27:38.320 uncertainty of Brexit, but I still can't make any money in Italy, in France, in Germany, because

00:27:44.280 the economies are too slow. They're not growing fast enough. They're not dynamic enough. You don't

00:27:49.440 have enough innovation going on. You still have, you know, in Italy, nearly 40% unemployment of

00:27:56.680 people age 25 and under, which is why they're all in the UK, because there's nothing for them to do 1.00

00:28:00.940 at home. So all that innovation came here. So they're all saying, you know, I'm going to continue

00:28:06.480 to deploy foreign direct investment into the UK, even though Brexit has happened. So my hope is

00:28:12.140 that what happens in the EU is they move more in the British direction, which is to free up

00:28:19.580 and to have less regulatory red tape, less sort of top down state control. But I fear they're

00:28:26.740 moving in the other direction. And that's something people haven't talked about yet is

00:28:30.660 you know, the new EU without Britain may be much more centralizing, much more centralizing power

00:28:39.220 than before. And I think this is partly why we're seeing the voters say no. And so you see the rise

00:28:45.520 of the right voters, the right wing voters in Italy, in Germany, in Denmark, in Sweden, in

00:28:53.600 Austria. Well, is this coming from the blue? No, it's coming because the more the EU try to tighten

00:28:59.020 and centralized and top-down control,

00:29:01.780 the more the public says,

00:29:03.140 well, actually, I'd rather have the decisions made

00:29:05.500 at the level of my government where I know.

00:29:07.840 So in a sense, they're having their own Brexit phenomenon.

00:29:11.400 It may not end in anybody leaving,

00:29:13.820 but it's the same set of questions.

00:29:16.140 It's the exact same set of questions.

00:29:18.100 But I find that fascinating

00:29:19.680 because my father voted for Brexit,

00:29:21.500 and my dad's not racist.

00:29:22.600 He married an immigrant,

00:29:23.760 and I remember talking to him about why he voted,

00:29:26.020 and he went, because Europe wants a federal republic

00:29:28.780 of europe and i don't want that you know i love going to europe i love being but i'm not i don't

00:29:33.580 want that well i think this is the key thing i i love europe i've lived in france for many years

00:29:38.940 i have great admiration for everything that all the european ideals etc i think there's a question

00:29:45.900 about the philosophical direction that the leadership of the commission has taken and they

00:29:52.300 are moving in a much more as you say federalist you know and the first speeches after brexit were

00:29:57.420 We're in a one European army, one European policy stance.

00:30:03.320 And countries like Ireland, they're like, wait, does that mean we have to raise our tax rates to be the same as the rest of Europe?

00:30:09.920 And the answer is yes.

00:30:11.360 That's what they want to have happen.

00:30:13.460 And so if you believe there should be competition between these nations to see who can be most competitive, then you're not really comfortable with where the European Union is going.

00:30:23.980 but that doesn't mean you don't love Europe or you don't admire the ideals of of a unified Europe

00:30:30.120 the question is what is the right direction and the voters in Europe are going to express

00:30:35.000 themselves and we're we're seeing that so that's totally their call where they want to go with that

00:30:40.040 because it's fascinating how I mean because working in comedy in the comedy industry it's

00:30:45.160 incredibly left-wing and a number of people I mean I voted remain but a lot of people were saying well

00:30:51.080 we should have another referendum and that to me is undemocratic do you agree with that or do you

00:30:56.480 think we should absolutely stand by the referendum yeah I find it you know hard to imagine going to

00:31:02.820 another referendum I don't see I don't see how it would make things better and I could see how it

00:31:08.320 make things worse my big question is why they threw it out on the table to begin with you know

00:31:13.280 and I don't think enough people kind of go back and ask David Cameron what were you thinking you

00:31:18.320 know what was that about exactly and it's a good example of of uh politicians who assumed

00:31:25.920 they just assumed and actually the public's in a different place from what they assumed

00:31:31.260 and this is part of the problem he thought he was gonna win 100 for sure and everybody working in

00:31:36.180 the cabinet office was like we were completely shocked totally shocked i'm like have you been

00:31:40.540 outside of london at all you know all you have to do is get outside of london and you hear it

00:31:45.780 right away um you know it's a question of perspective i think that's one of the problems

00:31:50.580 i would just i'm just finishing a book on leadership leadership in the 21st century and

00:31:55.360 and one of the things that's interesting is we move so fluidly right we get on a plane we go to

00:32:01.040 china we're in the united states so we go oh i know what's happening but just because you go

00:32:06.260 somewhere doesn't mean you know what is happening and i think that's one thing we've all got to be

00:32:11.820 better at is to not just go and assume but to go and listen and you'll hear people tell you things

00:32:20.000 that won't be consistent with what you thought well it's fascinating and we'll make this the

00:32:24.240 final point on brexit it's fascinating to me because uh the reason we're doing the show

00:32:29.700 is that for us i think brexit and trump they were massive wake-up calls i can certainly speak for

00:32:35.280 myself it was it was like i knew what was the truth and then suddenly the next day it wasn't

00:32:40.460 true anymore we and i realized in how much of an eco chamber we've been living and that's why we

00:32:46.400 really want to talk to different people who have different ideas and different input on these

00:32:50.360 issues because i feel like if you just go online for your news like we have been doing you are

00:32:55.840 really not getting a full picture at all no not at all so this is a reason i started to to write

00:33:02.140 my book signals because i feel like what what happens is it's literally like everybody's going

00:33:07.020 through life blind in one eye because they'll only look through a mathematical lens at data

00:33:13.380 and models this deep almost religious belief that all the answers are things that can be quantified

00:33:20.460 and all of the models missed what has happened and i'm like okay so why don't we open the other eye

00:33:27.460 that just looks at all the common sense things right in front of you and begins to detect you

00:33:32.660 know, how much pain are people feeling? I mean, show me a metric that measures the amount of pain

00:33:37.760 people are feeling. But if your rent is going up and your job security is going down, you're going

00:33:43.660 to feel pain. So I'm very big on reintroducing into the study of economics, the discussion of

00:33:50.040 economics, the qualitative factors, which should weigh just as much and count for just as much as

00:33:56.900 the quantitative factors but it's a really hard argument because everybody in economics is like

00:34:02.940 these quant math guys and they want to all argue about the numbers and it's 0.04 and you're like

00:34:09.060 but the person is crying they're clearly in pain about their situation how do you put that in the

00:34:13.800 model

00:34:14.120 pippa so russia's been in the news as you know i'm from russia

00:34:25.620 and obviously by the time this podcast goes out we could be in the state of world war three we

00:34:31.660 could all be dead who knows right uh but russia has been in the news and just looking at the

00:34:37.360 broad picture of what's been happening vis-a-vis russia and the west what is going on so

00:34:43.540 the first thing is there's such a disparity in the way russia is viewed so for example the russians

00:34:51.760 have said in recent years that they want to establish a permanent naval presence in the

00:34:56.420 mediterranean right right and that's connected to their presence in syria and the view you get from

00:35:01.720 the americans you know the pentagon guys is well do you think their ships will sink on the way or

00:35:06.720 on the way back like literally they're totally dismissive because their view is russia's this

00:35:12.000 tiny rinky dinky little country that happens to have nuclear weapons and russia's view is we are

00:35:18.640 superpower and the fact their economy is not functioning very well is by the by we are a

00:35:23.360 nuclear superpower so it creates this disparity and a perception gap and sorry i appreciate you

00:35:29.400 not doing a russian accent there by the way yeah i i wasn't even gonna do it are you kidding no

00:35:34.260 we are super powerful thank you francis i can always trust you to lower the tone my friend

00:35:40.700 but uh but but the other thing is there's this tendency to view russia as a small player not

00:35:48.000 really very significant i think also means that we miss some materially important events like

00:35:53.280 we're seeing something that the deputy head of nato called the arc of steel which is the russians

00:35:59.420 are building physical military bases through the arctic they're becoming much more confrontational

00:36:05.500 and aggressive in the baltics lithuanian sweden have reintroduced conscription they're so nervous

00:36:11.820 about what's happening and all all the way through down to the mediterranean we see the first russian

00:36:16.780 military exercises in libya in egypt places that we don't normally think of russians being present

00:36:22.540 so there's definitely something up right geopolitics is definitely back on the landscape

00:36:29.000 the peace dividend has diminished right uh and there's no question we're still in a nuclear

00:36:35.520 world and one of the things i find interesting is younger people who have no memory of the cold war 0.88

00:36:40.840 and mutual assured destruction they don't take this very seriously they're like don't be ridiculous

00:36:45.840 nobody's actually going to use these things and i'm like you know i remember because my dad was

00:36:51.660 in charge of the missile trajectories during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And at one point,

00:36:57.200 we were down to about four hours. And that was the window. And they literally started preparing

00:37:02.300 on both sides to evacuate for a direct nuclear hit. And interestingly, that's the moment when

00:37:08.560 it all stopped, because everybody in government went, can I take my, at that time, wife and

00:37:14.080 children, right, because it was all guys in charge. And they all went, well, I'm not going if I can't

00:37:19.540 take my family. And as soon as they reached that point, they all went, okay, let's get this thing

00:37:23.740 to stand down, which I think itself is fascinating. But today, what do we have? We have hypersonic

00:37:29.040 weapons. I mean, you won't have four hours, right? This is a totally different world with

00:37:34.240 much faster speed. And so I think it is important. We need to take these nuclear issues seriously.

00:37:42.220 And I think that this is partly what makes the discussion so difficult, because from a Russian 1.00

00:37:48.360 point of view everything is about them as a nuclear power and for the american side everything

00:37:53.860 is about russia being a rinky dinky tiny little nothing of an economy and this is an impasse that

00:37:59.660 they cannot get past and the russians try to demonstrate their power in other ways we've seen 0.87

00:38:06.540 some of that lately um and and i think they will continue to so and and interestingly uh you know

00:38:13.680 in this new book I'm writing on leadership, I wanted to use the phrase, the new Cold War.

00:38:18.560 And my editor said, well, we're really kind of uncomfortable with that. And you're like, well,

00:38:24.480 what do we call it? And you realize we don't really have a word or a phrase for this new

00:38:29.500 phase that we're in. And it's partly collaborative. It's partly confrontational.

00:38:34.820 It's not just between the West and Russia. It's also between the US and China. We're having actual 0.53

00:38:41.380 military incidents i mean we under obama we had this unbelievable moment where obama and xi jinping

00:38:47.700 actually signed a memorandum of understanding that prohibits the military pilots on both sides

00:38:53.100 from making obscene hand gestures at each other while flying and i'm like wait how close do you

00:39:00.040 have to be to the other fighter jet to see the other guy's obscene hand gesture and the answer

00:39:05.940 is like two coats of paint and that's how close we are these guys are literally flying next to

00:39:10.800 each other give each other the finger it's top gun top gun was right this is not made up this is

00:39:17.120 for real so we're in a very very important time in geopolitics and i don't think we have enough

00:39:23.980 people really focused on it because it was not a topic for the last ever since the berlin wall

00:39:28.740 fell it went away as a subject so i mean how at risk are we of war at the moment so i don't think

00:39:36.700 we're at risk of war. However, I would say we used to talk about the European theater of war

00:39:43.220 and the Pacific theater, right, in World War II. We use these euphemisms. Today, the theater has

00:39:50.680 moved off stage. Where are the confrontations occurring? They're typically occurring in places

00:39:55.720 the public and the media can't see. So the race for high altitude military satellites and who can

00:40:02.820 knock out the other guy's military satellites at high altitude. It's occurring in places like the

00:40:08.780 South China Sea that are out of the visibility of the extraterritorial locations. It's occurring

00:40:15.240 in the form of a technology race, right? President Putin recently said artificial intelligence is the

00:40:21.020 new space race, and he's right about that. So this race that actually the public doesn't really

00:40:27.180 understand is occurring, and it's huge. The Chinese have just announced they're building. 0.98

00:40:31.200 uh it's incredible this four million square foot facility in anhuai it will have when they're done

00:40:37.880 it'll be the world's largest quantum computer which is what you need for artificial intelligence

00:40:42.200 and it will literally have 100 million times no i'm wrong see that's why i don't like numbers

00:40:51.140 sorry well one million times the computational capability of the entire planet today when it's

00:40:59.740 finished in three years so when you say are we are we in world war yeah so i'm like 100 million

00:41:05.040 no it's not one minute you're like that guy from us and powers there

00:41:08.120 that's so true i just stay away from the numbers anyway but but here's the key thing are we in a

00:41:15.560 war we have to change what is our definition of war because i don't think we're going to be in

00:41:21.700 a world where it's the kind of boots on the ground that we've been accustomed to but it can be

00:41:26.820 equally important what is occurring now in the high-tech arena so you work in your businesses

00:41:33.280 in this area isn't it and one of the things that is scary as hell about all this stuff is

00:41:38.100 there's technology now that they can basically switch off the brakes in your car is there

00:41:42.260 something of course absolutely there's stuff that can just give you a heart attack and no one can

00:41:46.500 tell why you had one definitely well what else is that we have innovation happening on every

00:41:52.660 possible front um and we're more and more entering what i would call um a new dimension of reality

00:41:59.240 okay now you're gonna think she's lost her marbles but think about it this way we have ubiquitous

00:42:04.520 sensors cameras the signature on your cell phone the rfid chips in the seams of your clothes i

00:42:11.240 mean everything there's chips in this yeah and they're literally one third of the size of the

00:42:17.420 dimple of a golf ball so okay even if you wanted to rip them all out you'll never find i'm

00:42:21.680 artificially triggered okay and what's happening is all this data goes up into the cloud which

00:42:28.000 nobody understands the cloud now that works right um and artificial intelligence triangulates and

00:42:34.560 it connects the dots and it creates almost like a holographic data sphere so that you can see

00:42:43.000 reality with far more precision than if you are looking at reality with your own eyes do you know

00:42:48.900 something Pippa there is one guy watching us on the internet who smokes a lot seriously it's like

00:42:59.800 we used to talk about black boxes you know data driven black box yeah this is literally like

00:43:05.240 almost a crystal ball because it has so much information so for example imagine that you

00:43:10.580 guys have no fitness apps of course you do have fitness apps on your phones but it's imagine for

00:43:14.780 moment that you don't have any fitness apps your phone is still tracking the gate of your walk

00:43:21.060 the way you walk and apparently apple can literally tell who is about to have a heart

00:43:25.960 attack because the way you walk changes now that information is you know going up or here's another

00:43:32.780 one there's a guy you're scaring i'm telling you about this i'm just giving you as it is

00:43:37.900 some guy literally burned his house down right he poured the gasoline petrol all over all over

00:43:44.300 the place and then he said I wasn't there I was at this other location what he totally forgot is

00:43:48.600 that he has a pacemaker that's broadcasting not only his physical location but the fact that his

00:43:54.580 heart rate has gone through the roof while he's pouring the petrol around so we have to forget

00:43:59.120 all of us are being we're broadcasting all the time even when we don't realize it and this will

00:44:05.420 happen more and more with technological innovation now on the one hand it brings good things because

00:44:09.760 You can answer questions and you can solve cancer.

00:44:13.380 You can fix problems.

00:44:14.760 You can make traffic in urban areas more fluid and free.

00:44:18.700 But it also brings this problem of societal control.

00:44:23.380 And it's a two-edged short.

00:44:25.120 And I think this is the big economic issue that we're all walking into that we need to think about.

00:44:30.880 We're running out of time and we've got one more issue that we want to cover.

00:44:34.200 But this has rapidly become the most depressing podcast I've ever listened to.

00:44:38.020 No, but just that we might solve cancer this way.

00:44:40.580 How can that be depressing?

00:44:42.180 So just to go back, so there is literally trackers in our clothes, you were saying?

00:44:46.200 Yeah, yeah, more and more and more.

00:44:47.340 Absolutely.

00:44:48.200 And just every type of clothes, so you go to Nike, there'll be trackers you will go to?

00:44:51.740 Absolutely, and you're in your sneakers and in your wallet and literally every item, your glasses.

00:44:56.840 There's a company now that's putting trackers in, eyeglasses.

00:44:59.780 Yeah, I was talking to the head of a clothing company recently, and he's like,

00:45:03.300 I know which of my customers goes to synagogue on Sunday.

00:45:06.800 I know who goes to synagogue on Saturday, church on Sunday.

00:45:11.160 I know who likes which bar because you can see where they go.

00:45:14.140 They put on their best clothes.

00:45:15.540 So, yeah, this idea that we're constantly being tracked and broadcast,

00:45:20.280 this is a real phenomena.

00:45:22.660 We're way beyond privacy.

00:45:24.180 But let me finish with an upbeat note because I know it's amazing

00:45:28.420 that people haven't really clocked this.

00:45:30.900 We haven't clocked.

00:45:32.580 It's the whole point of all these sensors that are going in everywhere.

00:45:36.080 hotel rooms right now they're putting the sensors in the floor so they can actually see how you use

00:45:42.780 the hotel room space and i'm like this must be hilarious when i go in a hotel room because the

00:45:46.980 first thing i do is i want to plug my computer in and where do they put the plug they put it like

00:45:51.420 under the desk so the first thing i do is i get down on my hands and knees on the floor

00:45:54.860 that's just got to get the wrong impression when they go to look at the you know what are the

00:46:00.200 censors saying about what she's doing but everything literally the walls everything

00:46:04.860 a lot of office buildings now they've got cameras on the walls that are tracking how you use the

00:46:11.340 space during the day so anyway i don't listen let me get to the good part all right okay okay

00:46:16.380 yeah totally so the good part is we really are in an in an extraordinary industrial revolution

00:46:25.080 The magnitude of innovation that's occurring is truly epic.

00:46:30.000 It's so much people can't even comprehend.

00:46:32.700 And I'm very optimistic about this and the betterment of society.

00:46:37.820 I actually think also that the stock markets and asset prices are not going to crash.

00:46:43.660 Every economist is like, it's imminent, doom, gloom, it's tomorrow.

00:46:48.220 I think quite the opposite.

00:46:49.840 Whatever the old all-time high was, it's now much higher.

00:46:53.780 and for two reasons one because this incredible innovation and the cost savings and i know you

00:46:58.520 know i have a robotics company we make commercial drones so i can see just that alone the cost

00:47:03.220 savings and the better management of environmental issues all that's good stuff but in addition you

00:47:08.820 know everybody remembers this with this awkward phrase quantitative easing right what that was

00:47:13.840 is we threw 20 trillion dollars at the world economy and governments have not taken it back

00:47:19.820 right they've said oh we'll do a couple of rate hikes but it's like taking a cup of water out of

00:47:23.840 the atlantic ocean right they're not taking 20 trillion off the table so it's still there and

00:47:29.700 that means you've got to go somewhere and now we're getting a tiny bit of inflation which

00:47:34.140 everybody is feeling right because the cost of the beer you know the pub's going up right so you're

00:47:38.220 like oh that means i got to get out of cash because you get killed if you're holding cash

00:47:43.260 with inflation so what does everybody do they start to buy equities they start to invest in

00:47:48.020 the economy they buy property so i actually think the risk is that we're going to have what they

00:47:53.060 call melt up not a meltdown everybody's waiting for this huge meltdown disaster on a scale of

00:48:00.200 what the 2008 crisis was like i think the bigger risk is that we're all going oh my god it's going

00:48:06.260 to crash it's a disaster and in fact what's in front of us is an amazing landscape and this

00:48:13.580 pessimism is wrongly placed

00:48:15.520 well there's one other issue

00:48:17.740 that we want to talk about and actually

00:48:19.400 I mean the stuff you were just talking about there

00:48:21.420 if you ever are happy enough to come

00:48:23.780 back I think we could talk about robotics

00:48:25.620 and that for a whole hour

00:48:27.360 that would be incredible

00:48:29.060 all you'd hear is the sound of my brain exploding

00:48:31.520 there's been a lot in the media

00:48:41.780 and also obviously with the Me Too movement as well

00:48:44.260 about the gender pay gap.

00:48:45.860 For instance, so if you could clarify for us

00:48:48.980 what the gender pay gap is and does it exist? 1.00

00:48:51.660 And if it does exist, why does it exist?

00:48:54.200 Well, the gender pay gap is basically you pay someone 0.72

00:48:57.140 because they're female typically less 1.00

00:48:59.860 than you pay someone who's male.

00:49:01.820 I think it extends actually beyond gender.

00:49:04.260 You might be paying people of minority backgrounds 1.00

00:49:07.180 less than you were paying some guy who's been doing it.

00:49:10.940 And so I think it's part of, again, this bigger issue of distrust in authority and questioning

00:49:18.020 why are the rules like this?

00:49:20.100 How come this works this way?

00:49:21.300 I mean, a couple of years ago, I do a lot of public speaking, and literally two or three

00:49:24.940 years ago, I had a public speaking agency say to me, we can't get you the same price

00:49:29.820 as your male peers, even though you're getting higher scores with audiences, and it's because

00:49:35.300 you're female. 0.98

00:49:36.500 And I'm like, well, then you and I cannot work together anymore.

00:49:40.560 so you're not representing me anymore because anybody who thinks this is crazy now on the other

00:49:45.600 hand do i have did i have to change in order to get my my fees up and to get paid what the guys

00:49:51.880 get paid yes i did and that meant i had to be a lot tougher and something as a as a woman i might

00:49:59.180 not have been so comfortable with but you know if you really want to get to the top it's a

00:50:03.420 competitive space and you've got to punch your way there to a degree so some of it you know it's hard

00:50:09.040 to attribute what's the cause what's the bottom line is very few people are willing to accept it

00:50:14.260 anymore and i think we're seeing good signs that that it's going to go away like blackstone which

00:50:20.220 is the world's largest asset manager um they came out and said any company that doesn't have at

00:50:26.220 least two women on the board we're not going to invest in them and suddenly everybody's like oh 0.84

00:50:30.260 okay well then we better do this but one issue i have as well is you know as a person who gets

00:50:36.620 recruited to be a non-executive director uh quite a lot sometimes i feel like you know they really

00:50:42.240 want and this is going to be so controversial i'll probably get killed perfect but they're like 0.62

00:50:46.860 what they really want is a man in a dress in other words they want to say see we got a woman

00:50:51.920 but do they really want you to bring all of the things that you might bring which might be a focus

00:50:58.000 on um things that are not so you know pnl right as a woman i might say well you know empathy

00:51:06.420 might be a corporate consideration that, or I might say, okay, chief executive's totally focused

00:51:12.980 on the company being profitable, but our social media position is terrible, and we could lose

00:51:19.240 the reputation of this company in an hour on social media if we don't pay attention to that.

00:51:23.380 That might be seen by some people as a very feminine approach, you know, focusing on the 1.00

00:51:27.520 soft stuff. My view is actually all people who are in leadership or who want to be, they need

00:51:33.680 to play the whole keyboard you there are times when this more masculine way of thinking is

00:51:38.280 appropriate even for a woman there are times when a more feminine way of thinking is more appropriate

00:51:43.080 even for a man and what you want is to know how to fluidly move back and forth and in the right

00:51:48.900 moment in order to achieve the right outcome but the old-fashioned kind of binary as long as we're

00:51:54.700 profitable everything is good yeah that doesn't really work anymore and adding women to your 1.00

00:52:00.320 board if that's your attitude that doesn't change anything so you don't benefit from any diversity

00:52:05.520 so i guess what i'm saying is it's what matters is the diversity of of thinking and that doesn't

00:52:11.540 get fixed only by having women it gets fixed by having people of totally different backgrounds 0.99

00:52:16.880 completely different angles different life experiences different genders different races

00:52:22.260 different cultures if you mix all that up now we're talking so would you be in favor of positive

00:52:28.240 discrimination i'm not in favor i i don't think it works to forcefully mandate so for example the

00:52:37.500 difference between what the norwegians have done where they say by law every company has to have

00:52:43.500 a certain number of women on the board i think in iceland they've said it has to be more than 50

00:52:47.420 percent um i think it works better when blackstone says we're not investing unless you have at least

00:52:54.760 couple. In other words, the market starts to take care of it itself. And I have to say, I still,

00:53:01.580 I absolutely believe in meritocracy. So I think people should be put in place because they're

00:53:06.960 meritorious. What's wrong is to take people who have merit and close the doors of opportunity to

00:53:13.600 them. And that is happening still way too much. I mean, we still get crazy outcomes. I think this

00:53:19.360 last year somebody reviewed the intake of new graduates coming into oxford university and they

00:53:25.040 discovered there wasn't a single british black kid admitted in the in the year i mean that's just

00:53:30.560 crazy that doesn't make any sense so i don't know how we resolve this but what i am confident about

00:53:37.240 is everybody gets it now and so it won't it won't go it won't just fade away it'll get addressed

00:53:45.480 well I think that's we're coming to the end of the podcast well the show I think it's been

00:53:51.700 absolutely fascinating thank you so much and before we let you go is there anything that

00:53:56.420 you think no one is talking about that we absolutely should be talking about you know

00:54:01.460 the thing that I feel is most important is this business about robotics and everybody fearing

00:54:09.260 that a robot's going to replace me

00:54:10.800 and my life and my job.

00:54:11.980 We're fearing that now.

00:54:13.020 No, no, no.

00:54:14.200 And I don't see that at all.

00:54:15.580 I mean, let's think about it this way.

00:54:16.840 We've had 150 years of automation

00:54:19.160 and more robotics being introduced.

00:54:21.440 And what is the end result?

00:54:23.540 Record-level employment.

00:54:25.680 Record-level employment.

00:54:27.180 So what robotics and automation do

00:54:29.200 is they augment human beings.

00:54:31.400 And yes, they will replace some of the jobs.

00:54:34.460 Frankly, what the jobs they're going to replace

00:54:35.940 are the ones that are really repetitive,

00:54:38.180 incredibly boring.

00:54:39.260 So if you are an accountant doing repetitive work or a lawyer doing repetitive work, yes, you've got a problem.

00:54:44.440 But these people are together enough.

00:54:46.120 They can figure out how to go reinvent themselves and find something new and interesting to do.

00:54:50.400 What it will do is force us all to become much more creative and build new businesses, new ideas,

00:54:56.060 come up with entirely new sectors in the economy.

00:54:58.900 And we do this all the time.

00:55:00.500 I mean, if you'd ask anybody four years ago, they would never have thought of marijuana as an entire sector of an economy.

00:55:09.260 They would never have thought of blockchain as an entire second.

00:55:12.400 But here we are.

00:55:13.520 It exists.

00:55:14.780 You know, 20 years ago, who had ever really heard of a coder?

00:55:17.760 Nobody.

00:55:18.740 So we always innovate.

00:55:21.640 And so I'm very confident that actually we will continue to have fantastic levels of employment and innovation.

00:55:30.280 And robotics will work with us to that end.

00:55:33.320 So I just think a little bit of optimism on that front.

00:55:36.580 And, you know, again, why are we all preparing for a car crash when, in fact, we're about to have the best assistance we've ever had in history?

00:55:43.180 Well, I think that's the most amazing way to end the show.

00:55:46.300 Thank you for coming in, Pippa.

00:55:47.380 Thank you for being here.

00:55:47.880 Thank you.

00:55:48.020 Thank you for having me.

00:55:48.960 No, it's been absolutely amazing.

00:55:50.440 Pippa, is there anything before we go that you would like to tell the audience about, whether it's your Twitter handle or your books or whatever else?

00:55:58.360 Sure.

00:55:58.780 Yeah, so Twitter handle is DrPippaM, and that was deliberate because I wanted to put PippaM because nobody can pronounce Malmgren, right?

00:56:06.580 As you know, too many constants.

00:56:09.540 But Pippa M., you get photographs of Pippa Middleton's rear end,

00:56:14.280 which, although it's a good look to be associated with,

00:56:16.740 is not the one I was after, so I had to put the doctor in front.

00:56:19.820 Anyway, Dr. Pippa M., and I try to put stuff up all the time

00:56:23.180 about what's going on in the world economy.

00:56:25.400 And I have a book called Signals that's out.

00:56:27.860 The paperback version is the most up-to-date,

00:56:30.020 and that kind of explains populism and how we got here

00:56:33.260 and how we're going to go forward with a very optimistic take.

00:56:37.540 And I have a book on leadership coming out on September 4th.

00:56:41.460 We'll be getting that.

00:56:42.420 Thank you very much for coming in, Pippa.

00:56:43.780 Thank you.

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TRIGGERnometry - May 13, 2018

Triggernometry - Ep. 4 Pippa Malmgren

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