Adewale Adeyemo on Obama, Biden’s Economy & America’s Global Power | NXT Chapter with T.D. Jakes

I joined the Obama administration during the financial crisis. And I'll share a quick story about one of my early interactions with the president because there were a number of other colleagues around and one of them called me Wally. And the president looked and he said, that's not his name. And he turns to me and he's like, what does your mother call you? And I was like, Mr. President, he calls me Ade Wally. I'm going to call him that. To all of my listening audience, I want to thank you for tuning in to my next chapter. I want you to know that you can have a next chapter. And I think that inspiration comes from information. Accurate information is the catalysts of great decisions. You cannot make great decisions if you have inaccurate information. Accurate information has become hard to find in the times that we're living in. With technology has come many, many good things, but it has also come the deficit of true accurate information. So we want to bring you accurate information. I am very proud to have as a guest today, Wally at the M.O. to those of you who don't know him, Wally made history as the first black American to serve as the United States deputy secretary of the treasury, where his leadership helps steer the nation throughout turbulent economic landscapes before that he was the first president of the Obama Foundation and a key architect of international economic strategy serving as deputy national security advisor for international economics. And would you welcome my guest Wally at the M.O. It is always great to be with you, Bishop. Thank you so much for having me. I am pleased to have you excited to have you. Anytime we get an opportunity to talk and I can learn something and share something with our audience from your experiences, your very, very rich experiences, it is very, very, very important to us. We are here in Martha's Vineyard in Oak Bluffs where the first many, not the first, but many slaves owned property and continued owned property at a time back in the 1800s. That was really hard to come by and it's become a bit of a mecca. What an appropriate place to have a conversation with you. Chapter one, working with presidents. I'm not your end to sin has worked in this country for the United States of America on various levels and been able to share your expertise. And I'm going to start off by talking to you. You served as the president for the Obama's. You served a foundation. You also served as deputy secretary for the Biden administration. What was it like to work in that environment? Yeah, and I think the reality was that it was definitely a blessing and it was the type of, you know, there's a sting that my pastor often says, which is that God doesn't call the prepared. He calls the available. And that was definitely true for me because I joined the Obama administration during the financial crisis. And at that point, I went to go work for Tim Guyton of the Secretary of the Treasury. And the reason I got that job was because I was working for a friend of his at the moment when they were desperate to find people who knew anything about economics to go work in the administration. And as you all know, the people who were hit the hardest by that financial crisis were black and brown homeowners, including in the communities that I was from. I'm from a part of Los Angeles, East of Los Angeles called the Elon Empire. You could walk down my street and you could see the foreclosure signs across that street. And the opportunity I had to try and contribute in a small way to addressing that crisis was definitely something that wasn't of my own making, but was because divine intervention met the skills that I developed in life. And I spent a great deal of time working in the Treasury Department before getting a chance to work for the president in the White House. And I'll share a quick story about one of my early interactions with the president because he spoke to a conversation we just had. And I was in the Oval Office with the president and there were a number of other colleagues around and one of them called me Wally. And the president looked and he said, that's not his name. And they said, no, no, Mr. President, they thought maybe it was having a moment. He's like, no, that's his name. And he turns to me and he's like, what does your mother call you? I was like, Mr. President, he calls me Adewale. I'm going to call him that. It was one of those moments where you're sitting in the Oval Office with the president who, like no other president before, understood your lived experience in a way that didn't need to be said. And it struck me as one of those few moments in life where as a black professional, you were fully seen. And that doesn't, for those of you who have been in professional settings your entire life, that doesn't have an often, we're often in settings where our lived experiences, the pain, the beauty of them are not fully seen. And it was such an honor to get a chance to work for a president who saw all of me. Yes, I can understand that. I'm going to take the risk of embarrassing myself. But I would assume that if your name was Adewale, you would be a European. That is definitely true. Oh, good. Good. See, I'm getting good. You're better than good. I think you've had an amazing experience. I was speaking to a friend of mine about you from Nigeria. And he made a statement about you that was quite memorable. He said, we wear him as our crown. That is too kind for them to say. Yeah. But it speaks to the pride of the Nigerian people of the roles that you have played in the dignity with which you have carried yourself through turbulent times. As I remember, the financial crisis that the Obama stepped into started up under the Bush administration. So it started up under the Bush administration, bled over into the early years of the Obama administration. And they took the administration at one of the toughest times of history at that time. I don't know whether it unravels what we're going through now. But at that time, it was a really, really tough time. And you were in a hot seat. That kind of stress, that kind of pressure, that kind of accountability, that kind of scrutiny, that kind of making yourself available for criticism as a man of any color, but particularly an African man, how did you manage to adjust to that kind of constant scrutiny? Over every decision you made. Yeah. And I think, frankly, in the Obama administration, it was far easier than in the Biden administration a few years later. I think it rhymes because we inherited a crisis in the Obama administration from the Bush administration, a financial crisis. We inherited a pandemic from the Trump administration when we came in office. And I had gone at that point from being a relatively junior member of the Obama administration when I started to being the first black deputy secretary of the treasury in the Biden administration. And I think there was a great deal scrutiny. My boss at that point was a woman named Janet Yellen, who already had history books written about her. And here I was at that point in my 30s, a black man taking this job of being the chief operating officer of a department of 100,000 people responsible for getting money into the hands of all Americans. And the re-wild, you would want to pretend that it was because of me. It wasn't. I stood on the shoulders of so many people who invested in me, but also came before me and roles. Think about the investment. President Obama made it in me. Susan Rice, the work that people like you have done to create opportunities for my generation. So I was in lots of ways. You're right in a place where there was a great deal scrutiny. But I wouldn't have even been in that place. But before the fact that other people had come before me, and the thing that got me through it was the fact that even in a role like that, there were people like you and others who were both praying for me and supporting me as I was doing the work. And there were tough moments where we made decisions that not everybody agreed with where I made mistakes like any other human. But the difference between me making a mistake and the 14 other people who looked different than me making a mistake in that moment was something I clearly every day recognized and wanted to make sure that I did my best to make sure that while I was the first, I wouldn't be the last. Chapter 2. Weight of being first. When you are the first, there's a certain amount of weight that is placed on you because you don't have the luxury of being a person. You become a representative of all of your kind and all those that will ever be considered to come after you. That weight doesn't come off when the day is over. That weight continues when you come home at night. How did you, as a person, manage to expel that weight in such a way that you could continue to go forward? The reason I asked you, is that many of our listeners said, are listening at us right now, have an undue amount of weight because they're the only woman because they're short because they're tall because they're black because they're right or Chinese or Asian. The steps that you use to manage the weight of not being just one person but representing all of your people. I think you're right to point out that in many ways, so many different people are carrying that same weight. You're the first one or the only one in your firm in your community. The hardest part about it is that most of the people who surround you don't see it. They don't understand it. For a long time, I think I didn't carry it well. I think during the Obama administration, in particular, I didn't carry it well because I was in a room where I was the only person who looked like me, who had the same lived experience. We would often be talking about a financial crisis and the housing crisis. For many of the people in the room, it was an academic conversation about numbers. I was probably the only person who some neighbor had lost a house, who knew what it was like in these communities. I felt then that I should have spoken up more. I learned from that as I went to the Biden administration and I made clear to myself that I was going to speak to not just the economic data, which is the easy thing to speak to, but to the lived experiences that I had personally had and the people that I knew had in those rooms where it mattered. That's a hard thing, because that makes yourself vulnerable because you're talking about people you love and people you care about. The things I did to try and find relief were really around three things. Faith, fitness, and family. Those are my three things that they got me through. I think it took me too long, but I found a great faith community in DC where many of these old black women are big fans of yours. Part of the reason that I will do anything you want is because it gets me a great deal. I don't want to go to church. But they put hands on me. They prayed for me. There was a place where I always felt safe and comfortable. The other thing I did was I just focused on my fitness because one of the things that I've also seen is that for so many people like us, we don't focus on our fitness and it leads to not only bad health outcomes, but lead support decision making. The spiral is just real, so I focused on my fitness in a real way. Finally, I'm just blessed to have a family that has there to support me in lots of ways. I tried to make sure that I pressed into that because I think earlier on in my career, one of the things that I did we were talking about this earlier was I made work an idol. Instead of knowing that I was called to do this, this was my vocation, I turned into an idol and I ignored the people who loved me, ignored taking care of myself. And despite the fact that during a pandemic, I had to remember that ultimately I was a tool being used. I wasn't ultimately the person responsible. And President Biden was very helpful in this regard because he is a man of deep and abiding faith. And it's one of the things I loved most about him. And our first conversation about me taking this job was of course over Zoom because we're sitting here in the middle of a pandemic. And before he even gets to the job, he of course, because he is a deeply caring person, is asking my family about my family and how they're doing. And halfway through, he tells me, I have to leave early because I need to get to service. But after service, you can call me. I'm happy to talk some more, but I need to go to service. And just the fact that he always was focused on his relationship with God, created a permission structure for the rest of us who wanted to do that as well. So even in the darkest moments, he allowed us to be in a place where we were focused on the most important thing, which was our faith. You know, I want to back up a little bit to the part about family. You had the unique experience of also working with Michelle Obama, who is wildly popular around most of the world today. What was it like inside those walls working for Michelle or working with Michelle Obama? It was wonderful to get to work with both of them, especially at a moment where they were investing in thinking about focused on how they build a legacy. And like many giving people like yourself, they are thinking about that legacy, not in terms of their own personal wealth or their, or the Obama's, but how do they invest in the communities in the places they came from? And for the president and the foundation, the thing that he is focused on doing is investing in the next generation of leaders around the world. And the thing he's focused on is not one policy idea, but our character. The idea that we need leaders of character, people who care deeply about their communities, who are based in those communities, who care deeply about making the world a better place. And the first lady is focused on making sure that there are women who are part of that cohort, investing in women from the, from the beginning of their lives through all of their lives is something she's been completely focused on. And one of the things that the most inspiring to me was watching their marriage. And the way that Barack Obama wouldn't have been Barack Obama without Michelle Obama, and Michelle Obama wouldn't have been Michelle Obama without Barack Obama was an inspirational thing because I often think one of the things we don't focus enough on is how to have successful marriages. And I remember when I was a late bloomer, so I only got married a few years ago. And before I got married, I went to go ask for advice from the president in terms of what makes the successful marriage. And I think that, you know, President Obama is a wise man about many things. And this is one of those places where the idea of the way he thinks about talks about that partnership to me was so inspirational in terms of how you build something over time that isn't just about love in the moment, but about how you learn to love each other in different seasons of life. And it's been great to both work for them, but also just experience the way that they move through the world together. Are there particular moments that you've got to see Michelle or President Obama in a light or moment that stand out in your mind that helps to shape or define things that everybody wouldn't see or get to know? So I think that, you know, for most politicians, they have armies of people who do things for them, including writing for them. And for Barack Obama, he had a number of people who helped him with these things as well. But there are two moments that I remember where I watched him go through the writing process that just demonstrated to me how special he truly is, just as not just a president, but as a human. And one was when, and I think the anniversary just happened, we were in Japan for a meeting of global leaders, but he was going to go to Hiroshima, the place where the United States dropped the first and only nuclear bombs. And I came to his room early in the morning to come pick him up because we're supposed to go to a set of meetings. And I walk in and he hands me, and I was told by the speech writing team, we need to get a copy of the speech. We sent him the final draft. He may have some light edits. So would you just grab them for us on the way? I walk in and we were talking for a few minutes and you don't want to ask the president of the United States about his homework. So I'm trying to dance around the topic of, how am I going to get the speech out of him? I don't want the messenger to get shot here. And I asked him about the speech and he hands me seven pages of lined paper. And I was like, oh no, I wanted the speech, the speech writers gave you. And he said, yeah, I stayed up all night and rewrote it. Because he knew about the meaning of the moment. And he wanted to make sure that what he said met the moment. And the same thing happened after the murder of George Floyd, where the president was thinking about what to say in a moment, when the country was grieving and he was helping think about, not just grief, but how do we make sure that this becomes a movement, not a moment in the country? And I just remember, of course, at that point, we're on the phone because of the pandemic. And him going over every word and thinking about how to pick the right words that would both help a country that was mourning, but one that he wanted to make sure was moving as well. And it just spoke to how special he was as a leader and a thoughtful person about how to use words to move people in the right direction. Sounds very inspiring. And underscores how important it is, the power of what we say, where you blightlisted by Putin. I was. Mosque was one of those places I will never visit. I have plenty of other destinations on my bucket list. I probably should rephrase the question and say, why were you blightlisted by Putin? Well, one of the things I was responsible for at the Treasury Department was our national security portfolio. And that included putting sanctions on Russia after they invaded Ukraine. I had the honor that I shared with a number of other people of being blacklisted by Russia, by Moscow in the Kremlin for doing that, which means that I will never visit Russia. But I think the we often, because it's so far away, forget to realize that what people in Ukraine are doing is similar to what we fought for here in this country when we gained dependence, what people fought for in order to get the right to vote, but which is maintaining their democracy in the face of a oppressor. So I was proud to do that work. And I was proud to be blacklisted for doing that work. And I would do it again. I understand that you had to interview with Kamala Harris to get that position. Was she a tough interview? The vice president is a tough interview because she is very smart. And she, you have to remember, she's a prosecutor. Right. She asked really good questions. The thing I was fortunate about was that I knew the vice president before she was vice president because like me, she's from California. And I had been a huge fan of the vice president for years before that. But the thing she pressed me on during the interview, which further the reason why I care so deeply for her was, what are we going to do to help get capital into communities that have been left out and left behind for so long? So there's this financial, called the CDFI community development financial institutions. Many of these are owned by people of color, black and brown people in this country. And we spent the entire interview with her pressing me on what can we do to help build up this ecosystem, build up an economy that will help people not only in urban communities, but rural communities who have been left out and left behind for so long. And I want to work directly with you. And the thing you know often is when people say they want to do something after time, it's like when they say, oh, it'd be good to see you. That means they're probably not going to see you for another year. That was not the vice president. She followed up with me right away. And it became one of those things where she was laser focused on the idea that we need to not only make sure that the economy works, but how do we build wealth? How do we build opportunity in parts of the economy that had been left out well before the pandemic? And I both appreciated that early conversation, but I appreciated how laser focused she was on making sure that those communities had access to the resources they needed to grow. Chapter three, small businesses. When you talk about CDFI's community development financial institution, can you delineate for our audience the difference between a CDFI, a traditional bank and an MBA? And many, and MDI is a minority owned depository institution. There's about 20 black owned banks in this country that's far fewer than there used to be. But the, and they're traditionally smaller than many of the large banks in this country. So CDFI's sometimes are minority owned depository institutions, but CDFI's are focused on, in the name, serving a particular community and helping to get capital to them. There are 4,000 banks in the United States of America. But most of the money is in very few of those banks. And you can, I could give you the letters, many of you bank with these bigger banks, but the challenge with these bigger banks is they don't lend in all the communities in this country. They're not giving a housing loan in certain communities, they're not helping businesses grow in certain communities. So what the CDFI's were created to do, which were what we hope they do is they help fill this gap. The problem, of course, is that they're under, they're under scale. This is one of those places where you've had bipartisan support for a while here, but in the Trump administration, they approved $9 billion of capital to put into CDFI's and MDI's. My job was to distribute that money to these institutions and we did that, but the problem they all had was they had all this capital, which is equity, but they didn't have any money to lend because they didn't have any deposit. So we worked, and we worked really hard to make sure these banks had the ability to lend by working with a bunch of companies in the economy to help drive lending. But the challenge we have today is that in so many of the communities that we come from, talent, I believe in this country is equally distributed. The problem we face is that opportunity is not. And the key to opportunity in many of these communities is capital. You need money to be able to take that good idea to turn it into a business. You need money to be able to afford that first home that allows you to build equity, to be able to afford to send your kids to school. But both because of the historical prejudices existed in our society, but also because of the ways that we have defined communities, it is hard for that capital to reach black and brown communities throughout this country. You've done a lot to try and change that yourself, but I think we've also done that through this ecosystem of CDFI's. And the key now is how do we grow that ecosystem? How do we grow opportunity? How do we get scale in a way that allows us to have transformative opportunities in our communities, the key? Very, very important. Our families depend on it, home ownership depends on it. The growth of our small business depends on it. Our Americans are hired by small businesses and major corporations, though the major corporations seem to have all the weight when it comes to getting things done. Chapter four, system is broken. Recently you mentioned being from California and Kamala Harris being from California. Recently, she was interviewed and asked, well, is she going to run for governor? And her response was, no, she wasn't going to run for governor because the system is broken. Do you agree that the system is broken and what would it take to fix it? I think it's impossible to look at the system and think that it's not broken. And I think a big part of what has broken it is money, frankly. And you mentioned big companies for some reason having more say than small businesses, which employ millions of Americans, the big reason that many of these businesses have more say is because they are using money to gain influence. And one of the things that is saddest about our system is that we don't have campaign finance reform, which means that money would be moved out of politics. And we allow us to be in a place where good people have the ability to run for office without having to raise millions of dollars to do so. You think about California? In order to run for governor in California, it's going to cost you about $30 million, at least. Expensive media markets. You've got to raise the money to do that. That means that you are leaving out a number of people who may be great governors who don't have the ability to raise the money. I think fixing that piece of the system in and of itself is probably the most important reform to trying to change the nature of politics and giving us a fair shot. There's a lot of other things that I could mention, but I do think the corrosive nature of the way that we're allowing money to influence our politics makes it very hard to get the type of policy that we need as Americans. Would you say that or is it something else that is the biggest hurdle you've had to pay for politics? So I'd say that money is probably the universal thing that gets in the way. I do think that fundamentally one of the things that we are still grappling with in a country is a system that was set up to do less. Because when we created our system of government, people created it in a way to be a conservative one that meant the people who had value were able to keep that value and making it harder for new people to be brought into the system. So you have things like the electoral college, which made no sense then makes even less sense now, but was created in order to make sure that certain states continue to have the same kind of power in the system. So I think that there are systemic issues, but fundamentally the way that money further enables those systemic issues to play out, I think is probably the most corrosive thing from my point of view. In my own state, Texas, there's a big problem right now. Yeah, we have a fight going on right now about redlining. What are your thoughts about it? To me, this is one of those political fights that speak to the nature of ultimately we have a system that was built around one person, one vote. We redistrict every 10 years. The idea of doing this, I think, further erodes the trust that people have in the system when they see that politicians instead of being focused on the thing that matters most, and right now the thing that matters most is lowering cost because things cost too much from housing to food to electricity. Instead of doing that, what they're focused on right now is trying to find ways to preserve power. And that speaks to what makes people so frustrated about government and politics. And my hope is that what's going to happen is that the governor will realize that in Texas, what people want to see happen is bring down the electrical bills in Texas, help people get access to housing in Texas. If you do the right thing, the American people will reward you by voting for you. But being distracted by trying to redistrict in order to create an unfair advantage for your side, I just don't think the American people like the idea of changing the rules mid-game on a system that they're already worried about. So I think that you're right that one of the challenges, I think, in any system is that people who have power want to hold on to it. And when they want to do that at the cost of focusing on the things that there are people who voted for them care about, I think that is a recipe for losing power that democracies when allowed to function have done. So I think the key is making sure that it's allowed to function. Do you think that the erosion of trust in the system by the American people has something to do with the slowing of the economy and the impact that it's having on the GDP? No question. I don't think it's just here in America. I was just in Europe and you go throughout Western Europe and working class people around the world feel as if the economy doesn't work for them. They're not seen. They don't feel, and I think my view is that this started during that financial crisis that I mentioned where for many Americans, we told them, go buy a house. That'll be your greatest investment. Over time that investment will grow. It'll make you wealthy. You'll be able to put your kids to school. You can hold your job and your income is going to grow over time. Everything will be fine. All of a sudden you have a crisis that means if you own a home, the value might be less, especially if you don't live on the coast. That job you had that was a union job that paid well, probably disappeared. The job you got now, while it pays you a decent income, you have no clue what your career trajectory is. You can be fired tomorrow. Costs keep going up. We focused on inflation. When, frankly, we should have spent a lot more time focused on the cost of living. They're often related, but they could also be different. The truth was since the second term of the Obama administration, the cost of housing, the cost of health care, the cost of education, be it childcare if your kid is young or higher education, growing far faster than anyone's wages, especially for the working class. Of course, these people who don't feel like the governments that they've elected are paying enough attention to these issues are likely to vote for whoever they think may solve it. If you look at every election since 2016, the American people have voted to remove the party in power in some way. In 2018, they elected New Congress. In 2020, they elected New President. In 2022, the New Congress, in 2024, the New President, all I think driven by the point you made. You were in the room during the Great Recession of 2009. Take me in the room. Is it a fight? Is it silence? Is it indifference? Is it apathy? Is it everybody holding on to their chair? What does it feel like to be in the room when the country is literally, almost literally, on fire? I think there's the fire fighting stage where the challenge is the challenge of the fire isn't actually the fire. It's the smoke because the smoke fills the room and it makes it really hard to figure out where the fire is. That was true during the crisis because ultimately everyone saw the crisis developing but the question was, what's the solution? And it's really easy and hindsight to be like, oh, this is what you should have done. But when you're in that fire and the smoke is filled the room, you are in a place where you're trying to make the best decision possible. The challenge, I think, for us wasn't so much putting out the fire. It was how do you rebuild? Yeah. We didn't, we got putting out the fire as good as I think you could have given the circumstances. But the challenge we had was we didn't focus enough on how to rebuild the communities and the wealth that was destroyed when those fires happened. The best example for me was our housing programs where we had a program called HAMP, which was intended to keep people in their houses. Ultimately, we had this program and it was almost impossible for the people who needed the most access to the program because we were so worried about three magic words, ways to fraud an abuse. So that you told people that you had to be able to prove your income. For many people, they didn't have a W2 income. They were making money here. They're making money. They're making small things like that made it very hard for many of the communities we came from to be able to access so many of the programs that existed. And I think that put us in a place where if you lose a house, it's not only about those four walls, it's about your kid can't go to school. It's hard to stay in your job. All of a sudden you have this churn and it created what economists call economic scarring. What we all know is just hardship for so many communities. And people we had barely made it back in terms of the economy when the pandemic hit in so many of our communities. And that again, just as you know, hit our communities far more than other communities so that anything that they had built back up since the financial crisis was again being destroyed. Chapter five, Future of America. Okay, I'm going to be selfish and get you to comfort my heart and stop me from staying up at night. Are the tariffs that we are seeing right now, the catalyst of the inflation that continues to rise or are they just being blamed for the problem? So I think it's too early to tell that if they're going to be the key drivers going for it, but they're not helping them come down. So if you thought six months ago, things cost too much, many of those things are just expensive, if not more expensive today because that because of the tariffs, frankly, as you're going back to school and you're going to the store to buy clothes for your children, you'll see the clothes are probably slightly more expensive, if not a lot more expensive, because many of those clothes you're buying either come from a foreign country or parts of them are made in a foreign country. If you're going to go buy a new car and decide that what you want is an F-150, that F-150 is going to be more expensive because the aluminum that makes that F-150 truck, much of that comes from Canada or from another country. So I think that the unfortunate truth is that prices are not coming down. They're likely to go up more over time, which is exactly the opposite of what the economy needed because of the tariffs that have been put in place. Would it be fair to say that we're in a tariff war? I would say that usually that requires two sides. Yeah. It's like saying, are we in a fight when only one of you is punching? Yeah. I don't think it's, I think what's happening is the United States is unilaterally trying to reset the terms of trade with our friends and foes. And the hard part watching it is that we're being far tougher on our friends and our foes. The idea that we have, we're taking hardest steps against Canada now than we are against countries like China, I think, is hard for people to understand. I think we all wish the president's success in terms of trying to build more things in the United States. I think the challenging part is that it feels like in lots of ways a strategy is leading to making things harder on the same people who need the relief at the moment. The reason I called it a war is because Canada is fighting back. China is fighting back. We're getting blows that we weren't getting at first. There are countries that are forbidding us to be able to get visas to go into their countries because we did them. So, it doesn't seem totally one side. We may have initiated it. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, but it seems like the blows are coming both ways and the people are stuck in the middle of the fight. Totally agree. There's a, I think that's just what Healey saying that says the grass suffers when the elephants fight. You're right. And I think the people are the ones who are suffering the most in terms of higher cost. And I think to your point, my view is that we've done a lot more in terms of the actions we've taken against other countries. But I don't think other countries are done reacting to what we've done. They may do it quietly. It may be over time. We may not see it right away. But my big concern, we have a young man in the audience who knows this better than me, is that ultimately one of the strengths of the United States has been that countries like us. They want to be our allies. They want to be our partners. They want to work with us. That has helped us through generations both avoid wars, but also create economic opportunities for our country. People want to wear Nike shoes around the world, not just here in the United States. My fear is that over time, if we're going to be the belligerence against these other countries, they're going to have less favorable views about the America. They're going to buy fewer American things, which is not to our benefit. We have, historically, had the strongest economy in the world. Do you think we're going to maintain that position or have we already lost that position? When I look at my grandchildren, are they going to enjoy the benefits? Or is this the beginning of the slow erosion, like every other empire that we have seen down through history? Are we on the trajectory that leads this country down a hill we can't get back up? So I think right now, the United States continues to have the strongest economy in the world. That's why everybody wants to make deals with us because they ultimately want to be able to sell things to American consumers. I do think we have choices to make. If we make the wrong choices, as you said, our success and not promised to us, it's because of choices we've made over generations to invest in a country, to unlock opportunity for Americans. If we make the wrong choices, I do worry about the fact that America's vision in the world is going to erode. But I think we still have the opportunity to make those choices. We've faced challenges throughout our history. The question is, what do we choose to do in that moment? And right now, my fear is that we're making a set of choices that are going to set us back, that aren't going to benefit your grandchild. What are the choices that, if they were yours to make, that would make us more sustainable and our future more bright? I do think that the place where the president is right is that we do need to make more things in the United States. The thing that I also believe those, that the best way to beat someone in a race is not to tie their shoes together, but instead to run faster. And we've got to invest more in the United States, especially in these communities that have been left out and left behind. So helping to build up that manufacturing base, investing in a small business ecosystem. You are so right that small businesses are the secret sauce to America. The companies that today are in the top of the S&P 500. They weren't there 40 years ago. They were all small businesses. Innovation is the key to our economy. So from my standpoint, the key for us is how do we invest in small businesses? How do we invest in people? How do we unlock that opportunity? And how do we create markets for Americans? I watched a conversation you had recently where you were talking about investment on the continent. And the thing that we often fail to recognize is that the place where the most people in the world are going to live 30, 40, 50 years from now is going to be in Africa. The United States should want to engage in those growing markets in a meaningful way. So to me, the truth is if a different set, the different set of choices I think that we would think about making would be how do we invest in America in our people, but how do we also unlock opportunities for Americans to be able to sell things, to do things with allies and partners around the world? Beyond semantics, once affirmative action now, we've called it a lot of different things. But is it really possible for us to eradicate DE out of the corporate suites and the business offices and not be able to eradicate it out of the streets and the highways of America because our country is becoming increasingly diverse and there is no one group of people that's going to be able to run this country without the assistance of other groups of people? I completely agree. And I think the reality was that a number of companies after the murder of George Floyd decided to slap DE I on things, but not to actually do anything. So many of those companies were the first ones to also take off DE I, but even before you had the term, there were companies who were doing the right thing, not only because it's the morally right thing to do, but because it is in their business interest. Ultimately, they know that their customers are people of color. They know that in order to reach those to have the best ideas, to have the brightest people, they need to recruit diverse people. So my view is that ultimately in our society, our highest ideals in our constitution speak to the idea of us being a diverse country where everyone is given a chance to succeed. But if you're a business in America, you're a big business, a small business, the thing that you want us to get the most talented people who can help advance your business success. I'm starting to see some synergy in your conversation between elected officials and corporate America in terms of being more concerned about profit margins and or holding your position than you are doing what's best for the country. And I'm not naive enough to think that business people aren't there to make money, they're absolutely right. But shouldn't there be a fault line between if you killed your client trying to save your bottom line, who's going to value your product tomorrow? Totally true. And I think one of the things that we have done, we have done well in the past and we have to continue to do is we've got to speak with our wallets ultimately. You think about the civil rights movement and the role that boycotts had there. And I won't mention any companies because I know this is a podcast, but I think that ultimately the actions by the black community, by communities of color, to boycott companies who are doing the wrong thing and saying, if you don't want to do the right thing by me, I'm not going to spend my money on you matters. We have economic force and I think that we have allies and partners in the broader economy because in this country, I think the vast majority of people agree on the importance of us having the diversity is our strength. It gives us the ability to use that economic power to have a real impact on the way that companies act because I've had a chance to work in the private sector and the thing that I learned was the companies that did best were the ones who are thinking about how they sustainably operate. And that means also thinking about how do I invest in the people from the communities that are my customers to help build talent there that can help my company do better. And if the companies aren't doing that, they may have short term success, but I don't think that that's a long term recipe for success. Chapter number six, corporate culture. You worked at BlackRock for a while. What did you learn about money and corporate cultures while you were there? Yeah, I worked at BlackRock for a while and I had the benefit of being Larry Fink's chief of staff for a while, which gave me the ability to see corporate culture from a perspective that few people have because BlackRock is probably the largest shareholder in every company in many countries, given the size of its portfolios. And one of the things that Larry was committed to doing was spending time with his clients, but also with people throughout the economy. And it gave me a chance to see not only what made BlackRock a great company, and I think it got back to Larry was very focused on talent, just making sure he had the best people there doing the best work and creating real synergies between the people who worked for his organization. So it left me with the importance of talent being a key part of culture. And the companies we would go visit, the CEOs we would see, almost all of them are focused on the same things. The way that I create value for my ultimate customer is by having great technology because technology does matter, but I need great talent that can use that technology to create value. So it was a good opportunity to see that the thing that matters most, no matter if you're running a big company or a small company, is getting the right people to help work with you. That's also one of the most hardest jobs is to get great talent. When you compare the Obama administration with the Biden administration, who was the most successful at bringing together great talent? Wow, great question. You're asking me that. Pick between presidents now. I just know David said talent. Just said talent. And I think it was different. I think that one of the things that President Obama did that was remarkable, and it was the first time I think it was done at scale, was bring a bunch of talented people who had worked in technology into government for the first time. And it was early enough in the 21st century that we didn't know well enough. The role the technology was going to play over the next several decades. But doing that at that moment was incredibly helpful to starting government thinking about how to utilize technology better throughout the entire enterprise. So let's do another one. First Trump administration, second Trump administration, which aggregation of talent gives you the most comfort. I think that's an easy one in terms of the first Trump administration, included people who had experience, brought a bunch of credibility to the field, and were interested in helping to make the government work in ways that help the people. And while there are people in the second Trump administration who also are talented, I think the difference is that ultimately the benefit of government is how do you invest in not only talent at the top, but talent throughout the organization. Because I think it is true that ultimately really well, good talented leaders, their key has to be to attract other talented leaders. And what we're seeing now is that people in the federal government who work there, who've worked there for decades who are really talented, they're leaving. They're trying to go to the private sector, they're retiring because they don't feel like the government is investing in them or investing in the American people. That's what concerns me the most at the moment is that the people who have dedicated their lives to doing this important work are deciding the step away, which when you lose really good human capital, it's hard to do. It's hard to run any business, including the federal government. My 72 year old sister will kill me if I don't ask you this question. Is her social security retirement safe? It is one of the bedrock principles of government that we want to make sure that everyone gets access to their social security. Medicare, the thing that I worry about is if she has a problem, first she changes her address or something happens where she needs to contact the social security administration. It's harder to do today than at any point because some of the people who used to work there no longer do because they will let go. They're closed down field offices. You can't necessarily rely on the technology. While the money might be there, getting access to it is harder for people who have played by the rules their whole life and deserve it than it should be. I do worry that ultimately while it's safe for her, I worry about it's safety for your grandchild or even for me, frankly, in light of the fact that we continue to give away tax cuts rather than investing. We've got nursing homes shutting down. Yeah. At a moment when the country is getting older, we're having fewer nursing homes. We have the largest group of baby boomers in that age group that we have ever had in the history of this country and less resources to take care of them in their senior years, including veterans. What quick turnaround do we need in order to make it safe to get old? Yeah. I think you're right that the government needs to make investments in this place. But I also think that as a community, this is a place where, frankly, owning these types of facilities, investing in these facilities give you the ability to do two things. One, do well by a community that needs them. But also the economics on this could also be a place where more black and brown people investing in these things could be helpful. How do you get funded? I think that's the key reason why you need the CDFI network and you need other networks to be able to get access to the funding you need. But who's going to pay the bill is also the question. And the people who have traditionally paid the bill has been the federal government because we've built a system in which we pay taxes and Americans work throughout their lives and they pay in social security and into these programs, expecting that these programs will be there to take care of them over time. But if there isn't a nursing home to go to, no matter how much money we have in the system, it's not going to work. So I do think that we're in a place where we've made a set of choices, especially in the latest legislation, that are going to lead to tax cuts for people who may not need them. But over time, it's going to degrade the care for the people who need it most. Okay. I'm in this with a funny, when I first met President Obama, he was Senator Obama. And after we had a meeting together, he gave me his number. And I put it in my phone, but I didn't think it was a real number. When he was running for president, just out of a whim, I called the number. He answered the phone. It scared me so bad. I could think of nothing to say. I just started on the phone. I could not believe that he actually answered the phone. I'm sure it doesn't work now. But at the time, he was that hands on. Is that a good description of his propensity to be hands on? And what other presidents have we had that were hands off? And what are the pros and cons of either way? That is such a great story. You should try that number again, who might be the same number. But I do think so. And I think the key thing is for any president, they run a country that is diverse and has a bunch of challenges and opportunities. And the thing that I found with the two that I've worked with is when there is a crisis, when there is a challenge, they rule up their sleeves and they dive deep into it in a way where to go back to the fire analogy. Human instinct is to run away from fires. The thing that I found about great leaders of any party is they run towards the fire. Because the only way to get past the smoke and to know what's happening is actually to head towards the fire. And that's the thing that impressed me most about President Obama during the financial crisis. That's something that I saw with President Biden during the pandemic in terms of running towards the fire. Leaders are humans. So they have their strengths and they have their flaws. But ultimately I think the thing that I respected most, the thing I learned most from the president, Obama was about the importance of both running towards fires but also demonstrating empathy. Not just to the American people when you're speaking to them, but empathy to your staff to the people who you work with. And it's an important lesson that I carry with me to this day. And I hope you try that phone number again. I'll let you know if it works. I have a feeling that you and him get in a car and pick up some hamburgers and french fries and things like that. I'm a little bit jealous. He is way too healthy to eat a hamburger and french fries. But he's definitely the thing that I can say about the president is any time I have interacted with him, I have learned something because he is so thoughtful. And that's true every time I get to hang out with you. That's why I keep doing it. And I appreciate you hosting these types of conversations because the thing you said in them getting is so true that it is so hard to get. I wouldn't even say hard to get information. It's hard to get trusted information. And I appreciate the fact that you're giving this opportunity for the people who listen to you and trust you to hear from other people. Chapter number seven, trust in America. Where do you go to when you want accurate news? So for me, the thing that I try and do because it is really hard to find accurate news is I deal in quantity. So I read five newspapers in the morning, then I also do a bunch of aggregators throughout the day to understand. And part of what I'm doing in my mind is comparing the differences on the same story. So there's a story in the New York Times about tariffs. There's one also in the Washington Post. I'm looking at what the 200 feet sees, trying to figure out what the differences are, and then pressing into where did that difference come from. What's going on? One of the things Larry always said when I work from where I think was be a student of the market. And I think I'm a student of information because ultimately information is power. But most Americans don't have the time nor should they have to read five newspapers or go through feeds. They should be able to find accurate sources of information. And what I found in my job at the Treasury Department, because one of the challenges I had at Treasury was the people who often needed the things we did most didn't take advantage of it because frankly, they didn't trust the federal government. Where should we be? We can't trust the federal government as the way we used to. Where should we be putting our 401Ks, our investments at this point that are going to be safest for our longevity, especially those of us who are close to needing it? Yeah, and you know, I'm not a train. I'm not going to give professional investment advice, but I do think that we've seen over time. So how does the requested requested requested requested requested requested requested requested National or international? You know the reality is that you want to have the right portfolio mix based on your risk tolerance and the younger you are you probably should be willing to take more risk The thing that I think often people I hear from people is like I want to be able to invest around my values So I want to be able to invest more on the continent. I want to be able to invest based on sustainability The truth is that you can do that There are index funds that allow you to have that type of exposure The key for you is to find a good platform that allows you to make these investments You don't have to necessarily for some people paying for an investment advisor makes a great deal sense for other people You can use products online that help you give you that investment advice, but to your point. I think that for everyone You need to be thinking about your savings in a way where you don't just leave it in a bank account Well, it's true. My big dilemma is a lot of our products that are made in America the parts that made overseas True, so You come in it's got a big sticker on the bank made in America, but all of the insights were made overseas and And so it's It's get my point is our economy is so global and so interconnected and so braided together That it's becoming harder and harder to to cherry pick where you want to put the investments I think that's why you want to think about a diversified portfolio to diversify you both your risk, but also your opportunity There are those who think that the integration of the global economy is not a good thing There are those who and I think there's some in this administration who think that but ultimately my view is that it's been hugely beneficial to people The challenge we have and the thing we have to address is the fact that the people who have benefited the most from that integration Are the owners of capital not the workers who have worked on that But if we can we need to figure out ways to make sure that people who are working on those supply chains the people who are building those products Are paid a fair wage that is the that is the truth and I think until we address that fundamental challenge We're going to end up in a place where we feel like our politics is whip-sying back and forth in ways that Don't make sense to us and don't make us stronger. I said the other one was fine a question, but I'm a preacher The banks How safe are they? You know our banking I know what you're supposed to say I know what you're supposed to say. Yeah, yeah I think the thing that people don't do enough is explore where they put their money And I think you have to think about the fact that If you have money and you're putting it into institution you should know something about that institution do a little bit of investigating but What I will say which I think I believe deeply is The American financial system is safer today than it's ever been But that when I say the system is safe that doesn't mean every individual is created equally every Institution is created equally you need to investigate the institution you're putting your money in because I For a long time we haven't had many bank failures in this country But there was a period in the 80s and the 90s where you saw banks and financial institutions fail when the economy struggles Which it could struggle at any point Banks struggle too and so you have to I think you have to pay attention It was a great PR answer That was a great PR you think but I guess What I'm asking you but I'm asking you with The countries that are going to return back the dollar that are moving away from the dollar Yeah, and we're gonna be flooded with the dollar coming into the economy and the value of the dollars going to decrease Yeah, how much should we be worried about the longevity of strong banks? So my views that you're gonna see you you are likely to see more bank failures But you're also gonna you you know you look at the SNL crisis Saving a little crisis that happened there are a number of banks failed some consolidated I think you've got to worry about in a moment of weakness what does happen to financial institutions But I think the biggest risk to our financial system, which I thought we were gonna get a chance to talk to it talk about Under this conversation is crypto And you think about what's happening in terms of digital payments that to me is Technology is the risk to banks today more so than what's happening with tariffs and things that nature and You're seeing many of these banks trying to figure out how do we get into this game? So this game doesn't take over the game we've been playing for the last I just read an article the other day that 98% of our banking institutions are either thinking about studying or engage in some sort of cryptocurrency cyber currency That it's epidemic. It's it's the pandemic that we cannot see Yeah, and I'd worry about the other two percent Honestly because I think if you're not thinking about it if you're not worried about it if you're not engaged in it That means that you're probably Going to be left out of what I think is is a huge transition in the way that banking is happening in this country. It's A question as a matter of when not if that's gonna be a larger part of the economy So I do when I think about the risk to banking. I'm probably more Focused on digital payments on crypto than I am right now on The straight back of money coming back in the country. Yeah, so so when you're vetting the banks we should be vetting them by Their technology and their cryptocurrencies should be a major part of how we vet The likelihood of where we put our money. I would start with cybersecurity Because the truth is that No one People who rob banks today they don't show up at the teller. I know horse. They don't do that anymore they go they do it through code and Many of these banks are not investing in Simple cyber hygiene that you're doing your house. So I think you got to start with cybersecurity And then you got to figure out and that speaks to the technology because Ultimately if you have a good technology stack you're thinking about how you can better serve your customers in a lot of different ways Yeah, thank you for leading me into that question because there was something that I didn't mean to cover with you And I do think it's gonna become more and more I'm saying in the next five years would you put that time frame on it or 30 years? No, I think I'd say sooner rather than later and I think it's you know There's all kinds of things are this crypto there's stable coins. There's blockchain all of which are in the same family of how do we break down the traditional payments system and the reason this matters is Both in terms of thinking about your wealth, but also when you think about sending money to The diaspora I remember as a young child when I would my parents would drive to Western Union And get charged extraordinary fees to spend a small amount of money to family members somewhere else in the world In some ways the changes and payments is going to make his reduce the cost of doing that significantly and this next evolution of crypto and stable coins is likely to even lower that even more now Do you Do you worry about the privacy as we integrate this new system everything you buy Uncle Sam is watching you Everything you do every where you go Every time you turn on your air conditioner We are so integrated into AI That absolutely we have lost all privacy Do you worry about that at all Yeah, but I don't think that's a new problem. I think that the truth is that The integration we have into the world and each one of us is carrying a phone Each one of us is like I'm wearing a smartwatch And all these yeah, but it didn't tie into how we spend our money I spent a lot of money on my phone. Yeah, I just tapped that phone You really are giving me that's true. That's true. I got a I still got a wallet in my back I think you're right that it's becoming more ubiquitous over time and the more ubiquitous it is The truth is that I'm less worried about the government. I'm more worried about these companies and the fact that They don't they're using my data to do all kinds of things. They're selling my data to other people I don't know who those people are. I've made an agreement with you to buy my phone I didn't make a agreement with that company in a third country that has my data I think one of the things we don't pay enough attention to as Americans and people in general is our data Our data is valuable our data is being sold on a regular basis It is probably you know It is data in some ways is the 21st centuries oil And it is being owned and God willed up by very few companies in this country And then being used to train these AI systems It is also going to make them money off of you So I think we don't think enough about our data and how it's being aggregated and used and that does cause me concern So artificial intelligence is learning from human intelligence. Is it not true that the biases and prejudices of humanity is Integrating into the system That is my fear and I think the thing that I'll admit to which is something I'm trying to change is that I don't feel like I'm smart enough on AI I don't know enough and I want to learn more and I'm doing everything I can to learn more But the thing that I am afraid of is exactly what you stated which is that Ultimately the systems are being created by humans. So they're going to have the same challenges that humans have both in terms of biases but also the thing I also worry about is control The people who control these systems that have a great deal of power Don't necessarily look like me come from where I came from Or care about the things I care about and we don't really have a system for regulating or thinking about these things and they're happening very fast Ladies and gentlemen at a wallet at a yomo. Can you give him a big round of applause? You are listening to your next chapter my next chapter our next chapter and it is very interesting the Ambiguity of how that chapter will be written be careful But you write because your children will have to live in it take care Hey everybody. I want to take this time to thank you for watching the next chapter podcast If this conversation inspired you helped you Reflect on an idea or spark something new inside of you make sure to like comment and subscribe So you don't miss future episodes remember Life isn't about how you begin It's about how you finish strong So start your next chapter with us right here every week