Imagine doge with empathy. We're not talking about firing
people, but take a resource strapped organization like city
government that has the most antiquated technology you can
imagine and think about how you can identify savings within that
framework to make city government work better for New
Yorkers. This week on the podcast, I had
Julie Samuels, the head of Tech NYC.
Julie has spent her career at the intersection of innovation
and policy, and as the head of Tech NYC, she's become the most
important voice in the room when it comes to the future of this
city, these tech industry. And hey, it wouldn't be an
episode without a little politics.
What is the tech industry's plan post?
Trump, I've been thinking a lot about that.
Welcome to the newcomer podcast. Julie Samuels, Tech NYC.
Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
Thank you for having me. You work on sort of New York
politics, New York State and then obviously that all fits
into sort of the federal landscape and sort of advocate
on behalf of the tech crowd. And I feel like we share a
similar sort of frame of reference where, you know,
believe in tech, want it to work, but also believe in sort
of the normal democratic reality and have to navigate that.
So excited to have this whole to have a.
Conversation. We've been talking for a long
time, you and I. Yeah, I know it's more than a
decade. More than a decade, yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, let's start with the Mum Donnie Trump
meeting. Yeah, in some ways, you know,
the tech community, you know, it's hard to paint with too
broad of a brush is what wouldn't have picked Mom Donnie
as their mayor. I think among the different
candidates, his ability to sort of like cozy up to Trump, is
that a sign that he can sort of win over the business community
or what do you take of? Yeah, that's really.
Popularity. Well.
Firstly, I think his popularity is also, well, firstly, he's
uniquely, uniquely talented. Greater retail politics, just
really good media presence. But so much of that is also that
he knows how to use the tech platforms.
He's the first, not the first, but one of the first mainstream
politicians who's just nailed that, who knows how to use the
media to speak to people in a way that most politicians,
surely most Democrats, have just not figured out at all.
You know who else has, though is of course Donald Trump, right,
Right. Right.
So the politicians that maybe tech did not, you know,
certainly, you know, plenty of people embrace tech, Trump in
tech. But you know, it took them a
while. He wasn't their first choice.
And yeah, and then AOC obviously is pretty good at it, too.
None of the candidates that tech leaders might have chosen to
lead the United States are the best.
That's right. That's it's very interesting and
you know, part of this is the second time Zoran Mamdani has
gone to the to The West Wing to to the Oval to see Trump.
And I think both times the kind of take away was like, oh, you
know, game recognizes game and that Donald Trump, he gets it.
And that's the people should go look up the photo from The West
Wing where Trump is holding up these two newspapers, one with
the famous headline Ford to NYC drop dead.
And the other one which is a mock up base, you know, the same
but Trump to NYC let's build. And you know that it's all about
getting funding to build a more affordable.
Housing, sunshine development or what?
Sunnyside. OK, what is the big?
Affordable housing development. And basically, as I understand,
the mayor went and asked for $21 billion in federal funding to
help build this really big affordable housing project,
which, you know, everyone wants to build more housing.
Everyone's a winner, Trump, you can take credit.
And, and the picture is so telling because clearly the
mayor's team brought these mock ups, but Trump is holding them
and he's got a big smile. Like, you know, you can tell
it's not a fake smile. It's like, I mean, I don't know,
listen, I can't get in Trump's head, but he's smiling like it's
a smile. And it wasn't just the
newspapers. They also, you know, kept
emphasizing how historic this would be.
One of the biggest projects. That's right.
Obviously, this is a New York real estate developer.
This is what he wants. So what?
What is? What is the tech?
Read on Mumdata. Well, let me go back for a
second. You said that a lot of people in
tech didn't, you wouldn't be tech's first choice.
And I, I think I generally agree with that.
But I also want to point to one thing that is so interesting
about tech and why tech is different than the other kind of
traditional industries here, business, industry, whatever, is
that when they went, they went back through the primary, the
mayoral primary and looked where all the donations came from.
The employer, the business with the most employees who wrote
checks to Zoron during the primary was you want to guess.
Google. Is Google yeah and and many
other tech employers were high in that top. 10 was, but was he
Google's most contributed candidate?
I think so, but I'm not, I'm not certain.
I can't say for sure. We should look that up and maybe
put in the notes or something. I'll, I'll double check now.
I think that where the employees are is not always where
management and the executives are, to be fair.
But I also don't think that a lot of the kind of traditional
finance firms, the real estate firms, I don't think they have
that same dichotomy where their employees are all supporting the
the kind of DSA candidate in the primary.
That is a uniquely tech dynamic. And you and I know that that
dynamic has been part of the industry.
When I when I had, you know, Keith Ruboy on the podcast the
other day, you know, conservative pro Trump, he was
sort of making the case that part of why all these, you know,
tech CEOs needed to capitulate so much to Trump was, you know,
because their employees, it all donated to the Democrats.
And this was make good sort of a contorted argument, but it's
funny to hear it. So yes, the the rank and file in
Silicon Valley and New York of these tech companies is fairly
liberal and sometimes even to the point of supporting DSA.
It also makes the even the executives who by and large
might be more even anti mom Donnie.
It, it kind of numbs that a little bit because even now,
even with AI, so much about success in tech is attracting
the right talent. And this is all part of their
competitive landscape too, you know, to be able to attract the
right, smartest, best young people to come work at your
company. So it's there's a balance for
tech execs when you think about politics that is different than
in other industries, I think. Who do you represent in tech?
I mean, it's interesting because you represent a lot of startups
and those startup founders are often more similar, I imagine to
some of the rank and file in terms of their outlook.
And then then the execs or how do you think about who you
represent? I'll tell you quickly how Tech
NYC is set up at a high level. We can dig in.
So Tech NYC has got about 500 members and it is a sliding
scale. So it's free for startups to
join and then you know, the largest employers pay $60,000 a
year to be members and and then investors have their own scale.
So we have 500 total members. We have a board of about 60
people. They are executives, CE OS,
founders, GPS and firms, other senior execs from companies.
So it's really, even though we spend a lot of time on politics,
we're our main goal is to ensure that New York is the best place
to build and grow a tech company.
So, so that's everything we do is through that vision.
So we work with policy people, but we also really work with the
executives themselves. So who do we represent?
Tends to be the executives, yeah.
And do you survey like how do you decide what state has to
take on an issue given you know, we can talk about tech with a
broad brush, but then. It's really complicated.
Well, yeah, this is, I don't have a very satisfying answer to
this because I would tell you when we built the organization,
I was really worried about this. How do we do the right process?
How do we make sure we're getting it right?
And something I've learned, we started the organization 10
years ago. This is our 10th anniversary
this year. Something I've learned that's so
interesting is that part is actually pretty easy.
There is not a lot of space, not space.
There's there's not a lot. It's much more aligned and
almost much more obvious which issues we should work on and why
and how. Then I than I really feared
going. I thought that would be much
harder. Than what are the top three
right now? I imagine like AI.
Fear. Yeah, it's.
All AI, it's like energy data centers.
Everything that like can touch right.
Obviously, listen, I think something that's been really
interesting over the past decade that's shifted in our work is
when we first started the organization, the issues were
all kind of core tech policy, like what impacts the company's
bottom line, data privacy, There was a marketplace tax, like very
tech specific issues. The work has broadened
significantly over the past 10 years for many reasons, but one
of the reasons that I find the most interesting is that
increasingly every company is a tech company.
Obviously, I mean it's like kind of a trite thing to say, but
it's true. And increasingly, tech is
becoming one of the biggest, if not the biggest industries here
in New York City. And, and what that means is that
now the industry is more and more made-up of New Yorkers than
than people for whom tech is their primary.
They care about everything, and so you're reflecting a broad set
of interests. That's right.
So we already listen, we already talked about the Sunnyside like
we're talking about housing, we're talking about public
safety, we're talking about good schools, functioning public
transit. We are talking more and more
about the things that make it so that people who work in tech
want to live here. Because if people who work in
tech want to live here, then the companies will continue to
locate here, we think. And then everything.
Everything. AIAIAI.
Yeah. I want, you know, I, I recently
had last year, Daniel Laurie, the mayor of San Francisco on
stage one of my events. I was interviewing him.
He was the most warmly received person on stage all day, you
know, probably at any of our events, you know, like Dario,
the CEO of Anthropic. I mean, politicians, you know,
are much more charismatic than CEOs.
And, you know, so he really had the crowd.
They really were a believer. He was good at staying on
message. It's funny, though, when I was
interviewing him, you know, I was like, yeah, the tech people
love you. Like, why is that?
And he sort of made something, he made a point that, you know,
they weren't, they didn't necessarily love him the whole
campaign. You know, he wasn't necessarily
their first choice. Some of them stuck with London
breeding. But we don't need to get in the
particulars of San Francisco. But now he has this warm
embrace. And I think part of it is just
he likes tech, defends tech, says positive things about tech,
like what? What is what?
What do you think he's figured out?
And what would you like Zoram Amdani to, like, learn from it?
That's realistic, given he is to the left a little bit of Lori,
but Lori's the mayor of San Francisco.
I, I don't think the politics are that fundamentally different
from a right, left balance, but the messaging is different.
I think that that what he's plugged into.
Also, you have to remember, of course, that it came on the
backside of years of the city of San Francisco beating up on
tech. And we were talking about this
earlier before we started recording.
There's this political dynamic. I think This is why so many tech
leaders have kind of gone to the Trump side where, you know,
these these people, they built companies, their grow jobs, they
make big investments. They feel like they've done
everything right. We did everything we we set out
to do. We followed the rules.
Sometimes we broke the rules, but we broke the rules in, in
the conquest of bringing new technology to the world and
employing so many people. And, you know, that's, that's
the tech world that I come from, that techno optimist world that
gets made fun of a lot now, but it's actually like, it's pretty
lovely. It's like a vision for the world
that I wish were, were fundamentally true.
And I think it is actually fundamentally true complex.
Anyway, I think then we've seen we see this backlash and these
are people. They're not, they're not robots,
they're not companies, they're people.
And these people feel like, you know what?
What did I do wrong all of a sudden?
Why are you beating up on me? I.
Right. I think one thing, and the
YouTube commenters might not agree with this, but I think we
both have concluded is that, yeah, tech people and rich
people really want to be like loved and appreciated and
sometimes they care more, right? Everybody does, right?
Right. It is a fun.
They don't lose sight of that and it is sometimes less about
the money seemingly. And more about always less about
the money. But I think what happens is a
lot of the politicians, both on the far left and the far right,
they think it's about the money, you know, and they're well,
they're so rich, why do why would they care?
Why does it matter? But but again, I think they
sometimes, and Daniel Laurie's done a great job of this.
They forget that under all these are still just people.
And when they are feeling attacked as people, they're
going to react. And their reaction can be like,
well, screw you. Like I'm gonna go to the White
House now. But Daniel, Lori speaks their.
Language, right, Daniel? Lori compliments them, says
thank you, even as he knows he represents broader San Francisco
and it's not really their town to run.
I mean, the, you know, the classic madman madman line.
That is what the money is for. You know, there.
I think the the response is often like, you're getting paid
well. Why do you also need to get
thanked by politicians? There are lots of, you know,
politicians need to be looking out for the rank and file
person, not spending all their time thanking people who have
already been rewarded by society.
I mean, I don't know what's. It's really interesting.
I mean, I think from the way I see the world, which, you know,
this is just an opinion, of course, I think you can get
farther if you try and work together in that way that like
making that person an enemy because it's politically
expedient is I think long term more harmful given the realities
of the world we live in. Like the example I always go
back to, the first time I really saw this was when I was in San
Francisco and everyone was throwing rocks at the Google
buses. And I was like, what are you
doing? Like those engineers, you want
those people to be with you. The people on the bus, they're
actually, most of them are young, most of them are early in
their career. Most of them don't have families
or else they wouldn't be living in these apartments and
commuting at the Google bus. And you're turning them into
enemies. And I think we'd all have been
better served had we had the Democrats done a better job of
bringing those people in the fold, because those people who
had rocks thrown at their buses are now, many of them, I'm sure,
people supporting Trump. So can the tech business
community have a strong working relationship with Zoram?
I'm Donnie Given seems unlikely that he's going to run around
saying I love the tech business community.
I guess that's sort of the existential question.
I think they can. I think we will.
I think there will be things we disagree on and I think there
will be things we agree on. And what we're trying to do at
Tech NYC is identify the things we can agree on and, and make
real progress there. And let me just tell you what I
think some of those are. And I think this is true, by the
way, for every city. I think New York has unique
scale and we should be really doing some of this work here
immediately. But I think it's true
everywhere. Tech in government start with
that especially, especially when we are talking about the
affordability crisis. The mayor just announced that
every city agency is going to have a chief savings officer who
will have 45 days to identify savings within the agencies.
It is like a an ideal situation to use tech and dare I say AI to
identify savings. Democrats are traumatized by the
Doge experience. Here, I mean, but this I've
been, I can't not stop talking about this.
Like imagine doge with empathy, like imagine doge in in in a way
that felt more culturally aligned with New York City.
You can totally envision that, right?
You can. We're not talking about firing
people, but take a resource trapped organization like city
government that has the most antiquated technology you can
imagine and think about how you can identify savings within that
framework to make city government work better for New
Yorkers. It's like it's so obvious,
right? So, OK, that I think that's one
place, right? And everybody on the face wants
a productive yes city government, so it's hard to
disagree with. It and in fact some of this I
think has to do with age. We have a young mayor, he has a
young team, is the first time that I, I don't know what the
exact numbers are, but I imagine there are more digital natives
working in City Hall right now than there have ever.
Been and one of the things you know, I ultimately did, you
know, certainly ranked mum Donnie above Cuomo.
He was you know, I was I think it was Brad Lander.
But like the he understands that city government needs to work
and the government needs to work if people are going to sign up
for the progressive agenda and that you can't have sort of, you
know, bleeding heart without like the governance you have to.
Deliver zone. You have to deliver, right?
Right. And clearly you live in a world.
I mean, the great example of seeing technology work in
practice in government to me is Omni tapped to pay on the
subway. We all swiped our subway cards
and then during Covad they redid the entire subway system.
They put in tap to pay technology and it just works
and. It's great for tourists.
I mean, it's great as local, but it's amazing for tourists.
And I think about it a lot in this context.
Tap to Pay technology using Apple Pay on your iPhone every.
I mean, how many times a day do you use Apple Pay?
All the time. It should be table stakes,
right? It right, It should be table
stakes. And when you use the New York
City subway, it is table stakes now.
But we're not even talking about like jumping, leapfrogging to
the next technology. We're talking about getting to
the level of technology that everyone has in their pocket all
the time anyway. So #1 embrace tech, deliver on
the efficient. Progressive number 2 is really
focus on education and think hard about.
I mean, this one's very. Is this.
Gifted in tracking or no, not to.
I'm curious what you're using on education.
But it's funny, like, you know, Gary Tan in San Francisco, I
think tweeted or he has this Garry's listing now that a New
York Post story where it says Zoran's gonna get rid of gifted.
And it's not even clear if they've really done anything
more there. But people keep the right wing
media keeps putting that one front and center.
They love this one. Right.
And obviously the tech community is very sensitive.
I will say that. Not elevating, You know, the
geniuses among us. The the New York City education
is very complicated. It's very complicated.
And on the GNT in particular, like gifted and talented, gifted
and talented, like tech, the tech industry, I would say by
and large would not be happy if that were eliminated.
I mean, they're very happy if it were eliminated, Definitely
wouldn't be happy if it were cut back on.
So I think, but we haven't really, there's a lot of
rhetoric, but we haven't seen what's going to exactly happen
there. So like, maybe I'll come back
when we know more. I know it is sort of one of
those distraction issues in that it gets everybody who's sort of
fired up. Another big one here is charter
schools. That's something that the tech
industry has been very supportive of, and that's
something that the Mamdani administration seems less
supportive of. So that also might come to a
head. Again, we'll see.
Where can they agree on education?
Thinking about curriculum, OK, Thinking about curriculum,
thinking about how we are preparing students not just for
jobs of the future important, but also preparing students to
like, live in a world where these tools are out there.
You know, one of the things that I've been thinking about
politically is 10/11/12 years ago when when Bill de Blasio
first became mayor, Fred Wilson, former chair of Techno ICS
board, venture capitalist of course from Union Square
Ventures, kind of went in, saw the new mayor and said, I think
we should work together to ensure that there's computer
science education in every school.
And they launched A10 year public private partnership
called CS for All and they ensured that there was.
Computer science education in every city, in New York, in
every single New York City public school.
And that that's the answer, right?
Maybe that answer looks a little different now.
The CS education of, you know, 2014 is not the same as what we
think the tech education should look like in 2026.
But those are the places I think where we really can and should
be working together to support the kids in the schools.
Is tech a barrier to getting cell phones out of school?
Or no, we supported that. Yeah.
That was something that we did with the governor last year, the
cell phone ban that, you know, this was so funny.
We could talk. The politics around tech are so
interesting. So we, Tech NYC supported the
governor's proposal for the Belle de Belle ban to get cell
phones out of schools. And we did that very publicly.
And a lot of people called me after, and they were like, wow,
I can't believe you did that, You know, that that was great.
Or that whatever they said. But I got a lot of incoming and
I was like, I don't understand how our politics have gotten so
calcified that you can't understand how I run an
organization who's literally main goal is to support the tech
ecosystem in New York City and state, but also understand that
kids shouldn't have cell phones in classes like these.
This is very weak. And obviously a lot of these
tech executives themselves are very careful about their own
children, yeah, using devices. So they understand that it is a.
I think it's a device. What's made a lot of our
politics actually really hard is that you people feel like you
can't say those two types of truths, that you can't hold
those two truths together. Like, of course both those
things can be true. In fact, I think they need to be
true. I think the tech ecosystem will
thrive if we are more open about the challenges, which is that
like, kids shouldn't be on phones during class.
Like, of course they shouldn't be.
That's insane. So education is number 2.
It seemed like you had a third one.
I mean, I have a lot. I think those are like the first
kind of places we're looking and then, you know, I think that.
Are you on the YIMBY train as an organization?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm definitely on the
YIMBY train. I think we've always been on the
YIMBY train. I think that's also it's
interesting to see which pieces of the kind of tech zeitgeist
are the same here and in the Valley, and which ones are
different and like the MB train, Same, same, same.
Well, in some ways California needs it.
I mean, New York is getting on it after California.
California got to more of like a crisis point, whereas obviously
New York is. Large city California got to
such a crisis. There's a number of reasons, of
course, but we should talk about the subway and public transit
and how transformative it is to have such a huge, 24/7
functioning public transit system, which means you can here
in New York, which means you can live, you know, you have much
more geographic diversity and where you can live and get to
work. And that's a huge
differentiator. How do taxes play into all of
this? I mean, we, you know, I talked
earlier about earlier about the mayor of San Francisco who's
been pro tech, but obviously now California, you have
billionaires literally fleeing the state because they're
worried about a referendum. I mean, referendums themselves
are funny because obviously it's like there's no politician
necessarily to stop it. It's, you know, the public could
do it and there's nothing to be done in so there, you know, we
have the Google Co founders leaving the state and it's crazy
people to get they're not coming to New York, right, They're
going to Florida. I mean, I guess if you're going
to run from taxes, you're going to run.
If you're running from taxes, this is probably not the place
you run to. Have you tried to get it?
Have you made the pitch to anybody, like moved to New York
because of the billionaire tax issue?
Every time a politician says they're going to raise taxes,
people who represent companies, wealthy people, we're always
like everyone's going to leave. And the politicians are like,
they're never, you're never going to leave.
You always say that. And it's this kind of like game
of chicken and mouse. Chicken and mouse?
Is that no cat mouse cat? Mouse, Chicken and egg, Cotton
mouse. It's like it's.
Fine, whatever. It's, it's like, you know, it's
this little or, or that isn't even the right analogy.
The actually the right analogy is it's a little bit of like the
boy who cried wolf, which is to say like, you're never really
going to leave. And then they're like, no, we
will leave. But what's happened in
California has been like, no, no, no, they're going to leave
like, so I think that is interesting to know at what is
the number, you know what, what is enough to push you out.
And I don't think it's ever just a tax proposal alone.
But again, I think it gets to what we're.
Talking about in the California 1, it seems like there's
potential to tax unrealized gains.
Yeah, control of companies. It was constructed and so it did
really poorly. There was a high risk that if it
went. Through it could yeah, hit
specific people in a. And it would hit people before
they're liquid in a way that would be really is right
unrealized gains part. You said that like so I mean
that is its own disaster there. But I think there is a feeling
in tech this kind of like we've been a punching bag for so long
and we're just sick of being your punching bag.
You know, I'd note that most of the billionaires that I've seen
reported having left California are a little bit older.
They don't have school age kids. Much tougher to pick up and move
when you know you don't have school age kids because everyone
uses that app where you count your nights.
Like these people aren't selling their California homes.
Some might be, but they're just going to spend like, you know,
51% of their nights somewhere else or whatever it is.
But but with that goes the tax revenue, which is significant
for a state. So what is?
What's the How much time are you spending opposing taxes on
behalf of the tech? Community right now.
Because I'm Donnie is saying we need more money.
And it's. Like we'll do property.
Tax, I think that's a good that's there isn't really a live
proposal, if there were a tax proposal.
So we're actually in a really interesting time in New York
State's political cycle. We're in the budget process in
Albany right now, which will go on for another month or two,
yeah, two months. And then, you know, our session
here goes until summer. And so right now, this is the
busiest time on a lot of these political things.
There really isn't a tax proposal to react to.
If there was some live tax proposal, but the governor's
been really consistent that she will not raise income taxes and
you can't do it without her. She's done an amazing job.
It's been amazing. She's amazing.
I'm. I mean, maybe you're not
shocked, but it took me a while. But not shocked like when she
delayed congestion. Pricing, I was like, terrible.
And then it was like, oh, you're totally right.
That was the savvy move. She has been she's she's just
she's great, but she she's done things for the state and for
tech specifically that have been so good.
And she just does the work. You know, one thing well,
there's a handful of things. One one of the things she's done
that is the coolest is she has funded a public private
partnership. So there's private dollars too,
called Empire AI, which is amazing.
It is a independent 5O1C3 that she's funded.
It's a coalition of research institutions.
It includes our city system, CUNY, our state system, SUNY,
Columbia, Cornell, NYURPI, Rochester schools, you know, all
these private and public institutions.
They are building a supercomputer in Buffalo.
They already have the first version up and going.
But the eventual final state will be huge It it will be I
think 1 of, if not in the end, the most powerful, the biggest
academic research computer surely in the country, maybe the
world. And New York academics are the
only people who have access to it.
And it's amazing. And right now really only
private sector has access to the kind of compute that our
academics have because of Empire AI.
It is incredibly forward-looking, incredible for
the state. I mean that when you think about
what Stanford did for the Valley, I think that's what
Empire AI will do for New York. Because what happens is you've
got these postdocs and and other professors and they're choosing
which school to go to, and they're going to find out that
the only computer on which they can do their research is in New
York. Part part of me is skeptical
just because, you know, the scale of investment on private
enterprise in San Francisco is so large that if these, you
know, Neo Labs and, you know, opening Anthropic, they get so
much money. On the other hand, obviously,
you know, Mayor Bloomberg's work in New York establishing, you
know, a tech campus here really did change sort of the
penetration. So some of these government
projects do. Can't turn into something I
totally support the companies creating compute for academics.
Like the more compute for academics and research I think
the better in general. But there are a number of
academics and there is good reason to think that academics
want access to compute that is their own.
You know no one else, I mean technically in this instance
OF501-C3 owns it, but but they are they have control over it.
No one else can do or say what kind of research can happen on
that machine. You know the role of government,
Yeah, sort of independent, non corporate.
That's right. And, and how can we help
government, especially with, you know, the way the federal
government is clamp, clamping down on funding, research and
just kind of thinking about funding for universities, it's
even more important. And this is the role state
government can play that role. They are in a unique position to
be able to fund at scale. You know, it's going to end up
being like a $700 million machine over time.
And so that's been that's it's amazing.
And she's done a bunch of other great stuff too.
She, we worked really hard with her at the end of last year.
I'm sure we've talked a lot about the SB53 and the Rays Act
here in New York, the two big kind of.
AI Regulation. Yeah.
And one thing we did here with the leadership of Governor
Hochul, she was really, really just great on this.
She kind of took the bill that we had on the table here and it
was after SB53 had become law in California and, and looked at it
and was like, we can do a version of this, but let's make
them work together. And in the absence of
congressional action, in the absence of Congress, like
creating. Match it with California so
there wouldn't be two regimes, right?
So it's like, and it's important and we're going to have
guidelines here and we're not going to just let the companies
run amok. But what we're going to do is
also make it easy or at least make it streamline for the
companies to comply. We're not going to create all
kinds of barriers just because. And so that was great.
That was like real leadership that was hard to get done.
The public seems very concerned about data centers.
They seem more worried about AI than upbeat.
I mean, I think we, we literally saw this week that, you know,
block is laying off like 40% of their workers that they're
attributing to AI. So I guess workers have a right
to be worried about AI on some level.
I don't know. What.
Yeah. What What is your read on text
sentiment with the electorate? I think it's a very good
question. This is something I worry a lot
about too. I think that if we don't get
this moment right, we'll, you know, we'll really be, we could
be shooting ourselves in the foot here, here across the
country. You know, competitiveness
matters, you know, New York versus, let's say Texas, but
also America versus China or whatever.
Like I, for starters, I come at this from the vantage point that
like technology is coming. There's some tweaks around the
side that regulation can shift it a little bit one way or
another, but it's coming. So we can either find a way to
build it here to figure out how to make it work here, or
somewhere else. I agree with that, but yeah, I'm
not sure the. Voters.
They they are trying to kill data centers.
I mean, the data center, well, to go back to Governor Hochul,
she's got a great proposal on this, which is actually it was
in her budget before. Trump has said something
similar, which is you can build it here, but you can't put it on
our grid. You know, you have to pay for
your own power. And that's, you know, that like
more politicians to find a way to get to, yes, within a
framework like that is what I think we need to see.
But I do worry about the sentiment.
I worry too, that like so many politicians, just kind of follow
those poles and then chase, Chase that chase where the
voters are instead of trying to be.
Leaders, the long arc of tech, One lesson sort of politicians
learned and the public was we didn't regulate social media and
then we came to regret it and it was too powerful to put back in
the box. And we don't necessarily enjoy
our time on it. And I'm sort of sympathetic to
that on social media, whereas I like AI.
To me, when AI's done well, it's sort of a truth seeking valuable
thing like improving our quality of life.
Yeah. I don't know.
How do you sort of stop politicians and the electorate
from taking well? Let me tell you some of the
things we're doing right now. One thing we're doing in
particular that is I'm so proud of is we have a project at the
Tech NYC Foundation called Decoded Futures.
You can Google it, learn more. And what it is, is it's all
again through our foundation. So it's free and we take
cohorts. We're in our 4th cohort right
now of about 2025 nonprofits. And we do 8 weeks, We pair them
with volunteers from the tech sector and we do 8 weeks of
training to teach them about AI, how to build AI, how to use AI
internally, how to also just. Change.
These are the frameworks. Or nonprofits, OK.
Nonprofits, OK, but the idea like.
Get them hooked. Yeah, and get them hooked.
I mean it's. Actually no, if people are vibe
coding seeing the value like building something or using.
It right or I mean to go back to the block example that's you
know they today announced how many people the layoffs like
thousands, thousands 4000 or something I don't know yeah I.
Think it was 4000. Yeah, I think it was 4000.
But most nonprofits, city agencies, these are resource
trapped organizations. We're not talking about laying
people off. We're talking about being able
to do more. And, and some of it is so basic.
You know, it, it's, it's thinking about AI tools that
help you automate a spreadsheet. Most people I know who go work
in the social sector, who go work for nonprofits don't go
there because they want to sit in front of Google Sheets all
day. You know, they're, they want to
be out in the field. They want to go do the work that
they're passionate about. That's why they choose to work
in the nonprofit sector. And something AI can do is like.
Skip the bullshit work. Yeah, create capacity, create
capacity. And and we think fundamentally
that a couple things. Number one, you start working.
We started in New York with nonprofits.
Nonprofits, you know, they're hundreds of thousands of
nonprofits here. Nonprofits do so much of the
social services that New Yorkers depend on, you know, meeting New
Yorkers where they are. It doesn't have to be
nonprofits. That's that's our project.
But whatever. You can do this with small
businesses. You can do it with city
government. Imagine any small resource
limited organization that probably doesn't have a lot of
internal technical skill. OK.
So #1 we've been doing that and it's been great.
And the nonprofits, at the end of their eight weeks, tell you
about what they've built. And like, literally might.
Sometimes I tear up. It's transformative for them.
It's amazing. And with the idea that they can
be strong advocates for you if. They're and they're just regular
people too. They're not like tech, you know,
they're not tech Bros saying AI is great.
They're like regular people in the world.
So I think that is that is the actual work.
But the thing I think is crucial about it, and this is like a
little abstract or maybe like a little woo woo or whatever.
It's not woo woo. It's a little like trite maybe,
But there is a moment, I mean, we are living in a moment of
significant technological transformation.
Like whether you like it or not, we are.
And the one of the biggest risks we face is that some people are
going to capitalize on that and everyone else is going to get
left behind. And I think it is incumbent upon
us just as like people in the world, but also on us at Tech
NYC and wherever that we try and like avoid.
That, and especially in New York City, we win at capitalism, yes.
We win at capitalism, but we had to bring everyone along with us.
So that, I mean, that's the kind I think we need more decoded
futures. We need more work like that.
When people actually, to your point, when people play with AI,
they're like, oh, this is awesome Right now.
People are scared. Like we need to do a better job
of demystifying it, of explaining what it actually is,
how it can fit in to a regular person's life or job right now.
Yeah, And I, I think a lot of, you know, people who are just
using Google search results and getting Gemini answers don't
always appreciate that that is the sort of AI we're talking
about. And also the tech industry is
still turning the technology into like direct applications
where it's like, you can do this thing, you know, right now you
sort of have to be a little more proactive and like motivated to
get some of the value out of. It that's the case for New York,
right? Like the way I think a lot of
these technical cycles go is they build the hard tech in the
Valley and it's kind of like just, you know, a bunch of
dudes. It's always dudes.
I wish there were more women like in, you know, in a group
house. It used to be a garage in Palo
Alto. Now maybe it's like a, a
townhouse in Hayes Valley or whatever.
And they're like tinkering away and they've got this great idea.
But then it comes time to figure out, well, who's going to pay
for it? Who's going to actually use it?
What are they going to use it to do?
And I feel very bullish on New York 'cause I think we will
answer those questions here. Right, build the applications,
understand what the companies. And we don't have those answers
yet. We don't.
The I mean, if you, if you were to give like to go back to the
mayor and where we started the mayor or like one piece of
advice to build like an agenda that it is at once progressive
and fitting his values and in the tech industry, like what
would the advice be? It would be to dig in and figure
out how to make technology work better in government.
People see that, they understand it.
I think it aligns with his campaign, with his vision for
New York. I think it aligns with his base.
It aligns with the private sector as well.
Like I think that is, I think for every politician, for every
elected official, there's a different answer.
You know, it's how you ran, it's what you ran on, it's what you
believe in. And I think that what it seems
to me the mayor believes in and where technology can be
deployed, it's very clear that it's in the the space of like
making government work better. What's, you know, this is more
national, but like, the tech industry in California certainly
has cozied up to Trump, like New York.
I mean, we don't necessarily have all the CE OS to do the
cozying, but like what is the tech industry's plan post Trump
or if if if Democrats come back in like I don't I don't know.
I've been thinking a lot about that.
Well, first of all, I think New York will do much better in that
instance because. We and that they have to
navigate. They saw, well, I mean, in
California, they have a Democratic governor, you know.
You know, there's there's something that I think about a
lot. I think this is true.
Surely in tech, I'm not sure it's specific to tech.
I think tech is just a little bit more immature than some
other industries in that it's newer, you know, not, I don't
mean to mature in any way other than it's literally younger, but
something that's really interesting about politics is a
lot of times you'll see people who've seen great success in
business assume that they also get politics and it's different
and it's a different skill set. It's a different set of
equities. And I think that, you know,
you've got some people in tech who are like chasing the thing
they think is the right thing. And there's.
They're going to be some hard lessons, like if a Democrat,
depending on which Democrat is in the White House, which I
personally hope is the case in 2028, again, depending on who
that person is, yeah, I think there's going to be some people
in tech. We're going to have to pay a
price, right? I think that there is space to
show up at certain events. People understand like that,
whether you like it or not, Donald Trump is the
democratically elected president.
And there are meetings and things that you go to, but then
there are certain things, donations, certain events,
certain vibes that you don't have to go to.
And I think that there are no hard and fast rules.
But I think that Americans who pay attention to these things,
like have a gut sense of where those lines are with the
difference between kind of responsibly running a business
during this administration. Versus without being Marc
Benioff and saying no send. Without, like, fealty.
He's a dear leader. Yeah.
Yeah, I think that. Who do you think in New York is
doing a good job of like representing the tech industry
or who do you see as sort of like the standard bearers here?
That's a very good question. I mean, I think if you look at
technyc.org and look at my board and you get a sense of who I
think that is. You know, like I said, Fred
chaired my board for 10 years. We have our first news is that
Fred Wilson. Fred Wilson.
I'm guessing who's the Yeah, I mean the VC is like loom a
little larger. Yeah, of course we've got
clearly we have thrive, right? Makes a ton of news.
Neil Blumenthal. Someone from Thrive is on your
board or? Yeah, Josh is not on our board,
but Kelly Sims, a partner that is on your board.
Yeah, I mean, people are really engaged here.
People who live in New York care a lot about the civic
infrastructure. Not just infrastructure, just
like kind of the civic landscape of New York.
NY is a city where people care a lot.
You cannot. It's like kind of logistics in
some ways. You don't get in your car and
drive to work and go to your office.
Like you are constantly among the New Yorkers.
No matter how wealthy you are, no matter how big the business
you run is, it doesn't matter. You are surrounded by New
Yorkers and that creates, I think, a really special dynamic
with the city that makes my work so much more fun.
I mean, that's the beauty of, you know, the subway you feel
and just walk in the streets. You're part of the community in
a way that I think part of what's corroded California is
San Francisco in particular. It's like you can Uber from one
place to the next and be in your little enclave and the next
place and then be like, why is the city letting you know almost
people? It's like the the failures of
San Francisco corroded text politics, I think, in a way that
New York just hasn't. And it won't, but, and there's
other industries here and there's other things going on
and we talk about tech, but we'll talk about Wall Street.
And like, you know, it's, it's not.
New York benefits from the diversity, not just of people,
but of industry and experience. And I think that's why tech
continues to thrive here. Is competition with China like
animating people or do you think that is?
I do think it's animating people.
I think it should animate people.
I think it's it's real. And I think, particularly in
this moment, I think to go back to the data centers like, you
know, are we going to stop building data centers here?
Does do we think that people are just going to stop building data
centers anywhere then like I, I just.
Right. I mean, I do feel like you know
this dumorism well, it's good to be careful.
I'm very supportive anthropic having the Constitution and
pushing back on the Defense Department or but I think.
It's the Department of War now. No.
Well, the Congress hasn't said it's the Department of War.
It depends where, you know, where you take your cues.
You know, they've put Department of War on the wall, but I don't
think, you know, the law has actually been changed.
But you know, the steam engine analogy is basically like, if
you have this great technology coming, do you really not want
to lean into something that is going to ultimately improve your
quality of life? And if you don't do it, whether
it's in Texas or China, it's going to happen somewhere.
I get, and I'm bought into some of the like, we need to build AI
in a sort of ethical and intentional way, but we
shouldn't let that sort of concern stop us from embracing a
technology that will ultimately make our lives much.
Better, absolutely. I think there's, I just see the,
it's funny, the word progressive doesn't really mean this
anymore, but I think of myself as a progressive person in that
like progress to me means looking at how new technology
can make things better. And that history shows as a
guide that whenever these really disruptive moments happen, there
are always more new jobs on the other side, for instance.
But I don't want to be too Pollyanna ish.
The transition to get to what those new jobs are is messy.
And that's the moment we're living in.
And we can either, I think, do the hard work of addressing that
head on and having like the real hard conversations about what
that means for New York City, for New York State, for America.
What's it going to do to the workforce?
How do we prepare people? Or we can like spend our time
debating banning data centers, which in my mind is actually a
real distraction from the hard work of figuring out what a kind
of not post AI world, but what a world with AI prevalent AI tools
is going to look like and how to make sure that transition works
for as many people as possible like that.
To me, that is the question for our time.
Julie Yeah, we'll have you on a year we see.
All right. Turned out all right.
Thanks. For coming on so much for having
me. That's our episode.
I'm Eric Newcomer. Thank you so much for listening
to the Newcomer podcast. If you're new here, I was a long
time tech reporter at Bloomberg and the Information.
I started a sub stack called Newcomer.
It's my last name in 2020 and I've been tirelessly working on
a YouTube channel. I also host the Surreal Valley
AI Summit and have a podcast with my friends Max and James
called the Surreal Valley Show. Here at the Newcomer podcast,
we're trying to get to the heart of what's going on in startups
and venture capital. Sometimes we veer into the
intersection of tech and politics, trying to have honest,
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