Simon Johnson on Banking, Technology, and Prosperity

22:19I mean, it's never been a major concern of mine I what bothers me more is lack of good wages rising wages for people who haven't completed college I think that's where it's the stagnation of that since the 1970s, which was quite different of course from what happened for the 30 or 40 years before that. And I think that's unnecessary and we can do better, but it's a very hard process to reverse. It's not a new process, and it's a process that's very rooted in the fact that in early industrial revolution people like Henry Ford, when they brought in automation, also created a lot of new tasks for workers that didn't previous exist, and workers, even without a lot of skill became much more productive, that productivity was shared with them through higher wages, through unions and other things.

22:59That whole mechanism has broken down more recently. And I think with AI, there's a lot of, obviously, huge discussion about all kinds of dimensions. But the piece that we really focus on and are concerned about is that more workers may be displaced from previously well -paying jobs and without creating new tasks, therefore, work productivity doesn't come up. You may pay some people, maybe the designers as designers of AI algorithms more money, but most people may well be paid less than real terms. You've probably seen estimates that chat GPT is the most rapidly adopted computer application in all of human history compared to any technology.

23:35Now if that's the case, why is it that open AI has only a market valuation of about 30 billion, which is high, but it's not close to Apple, in a way it's remarkably low. Doesn't that suggest most of the gains from AI will go to other parties and not to the people who own and design the algorithms? That's a great question, Todd. I suppose we should go back and look at when exactly people started to think Microsoft was, or IBM was so valuable, Microsoft was so valuable, Google was so valuable. There is certainly a lot of discussion about the value chain of AI and whether the place to be is this more fundamental, generative algorithm or whether it's going to be in the applications sort of the downstream part of AI.

24:11I think it's all up for grabs personally. And I think it's also correct that we, many times, it's a cliche, but a correct cliche that we underestimate the immediate impact, we overestimate the immediate impact of technology and underestimate the longer term impact of technology, presumably the stock price would reflect people's views of the longer term impact. And shares of Nvidia, they're definitely up, but they're not up by so much. It's not become one of the world's largest companies, and there seems to be more and more evidence that AI can be commodified. You have a lot of competitors, this talk of training systems on a single GPU.

24:42So it doesn't AI mean we've entered this new age again, where the gains mostly don't go to corporations? Well, possibly, and that I think could be quite positive. Of course, we thought that about crypto as well at the beginning. And there were many discussions, I recall, I'm sure you recall, around the beginning of the internet where there were thoughts that, oh, this could become a more distributive model, maybe power seeps away from large corporations. I think we tend to recombine things in this country, in particular, Tyler. We tend, again, we get big quickly and we let people get powerful quickly.

25:11And I think in the case of social media, we kind of regretted that. I think it's very hard to stand on the way in these powerful social processes like the adoption of technology like GPT. We can maybe find some policy adjustments along the way. I think we can certainly push people to find ways to use the technology, if that way, to use the technology, that would enhance creativity and enhance productivity in a distributed way. So all the insta don't go to corporations, but no guarantee at all we're going to get that outcome. The people who set all along, the social media are more competitive than they look.

25:42haven't they been proven right? TikTok and Facebook, Google competing with Bing, Amazon, laying people off repeatedly. Right, those companies have lost their luster. They don't look like unassailable giants anymore to say the least. You know, meta -shares or down what, three quarters and value not too long ago? Well, sure, there's definitely competition in that sector and there's definitely been overexpansion and over exuberance. I think the regret actually there, Tyler, is much more about the impact of social media on political economic and social discourse, the way that he will talk to each other, the way what has happened to civility and of course there's lots of concern which is still concern, I'm not saying this has been completely established about the impact of social media on young people, young people's minds, young people's mental wellness and so on.

26:28I think some of those social media companies could have been and should still be much more responsible and much more careful, perhaps it's just a natural learning process, perhaps we have to go through this and figure out how to be more responsible. I think there are some encouraging uses of technology out there. And that's one thing we emphasize in our book, right, Tyler? It's all about choices. The choices that we make, choices that we make socially. And choices that you and I can argue about, or discuss of this kind of show, that can impact what people develop and how they use it, in addition to whatever the levers the government may find available that perhaps could be pulled or not pulled.

27:00From my point of view, it seems that you and Darren overestimate how much market concentration matters. So there's one passage you have where you're criticizing the soft drink market for being highly concentrated, Coca -Cola, dominates, and so on. But I use Google, I use GPT, and everything I could find tells me the price of soft drinks in real terms has been falling. There's also a lot more choice. You go to an airport, you see the slong array of likeidious colored things that I don't even want to touch. But they're not in general put out by Coca -Cola. So for I, he's going up. And if real price is falling compared to inflation, why be upset about concentration in the soft drink market?

27:37Oh, I think that was just an attempt to illustrate what market concentration means Tyler Bamsal. I'll go back and look and see if we need to insert some a ratchet on that. But I think in general, we're just trying to get across the point that if concentration prevents innovation, if concentration prevents development of varieties, the concentration keeps prices high. And of course, there's a long history of concentration in various sectors where some aspect of that is true, then is problematic. If it's fully satisfying the consumers and if you have enough progress innovation in a particular sector then yes sure There's there's less to object to What do you think is the main thing you changed your mind on over the course of writing this book the middle ages And how did you change I kind of bought into this idea that you know you get from school books and so on about the There was a dark age of very little innovation between the fall of Rome and the emergence of the Renaissance turns out when you look more closely there was a huge amount of innovation in agriculture, in commerce, even in early industry.

28:29But what didn't happen, it didn't filter down to regular people. There was an increase in wealth or money that was came to the church and to the state, for example, in Medieval, England, other parts of Western Europe. But a lot of that was funneled into these massive cathedrals that you see. And actually, when it had dug up some of the economics of cathedrals and cathedral building, which is fascinating, never paid attention to that. And you could sort of see, because these were simple economies, how the money was squeezed out of peasants who this was not free labor obviously. They were you know coerced or pressed and restricted in their choices of employer.

29:00So they became more productive but they were also squeezed harder. The normals were very good at squeezing the English for example and those resources came to those that higher let's say 5 % or 3 % of society and they spent it building cathedrals. Next time you see a cathedral, next time anyone sees a cathedral, think about them as symbols of medieval despair and increasing productivity but the failure to create share prosperity in a very particular labor system that was with us not too long ago. But wasn't your original view correct for at least 400 years? Say centuries six through nine and the revival you're talking about like maybe that's 10th century and then for England the Normans in 1066.

29:37But if the view you held earlier is correct for four to five hundred years, it's not that bad of you, right? Good point. I think it was certainly right for several hundred years whether it started in 800 or 900, I think you can sort of debate that. The record is not very good. But I think the general idea that was put around by Renaissance scholars like Petrach was that nothing good had happened From the fall of Rome for 900 years and that turns out not to be true If you think about how how you read your own book and how Darren reads the book I'm not saying the two of you disagree But if you had to explain the difference in emphasis how each of you views the book How would you present that to your potential readers?

30:13Well, I think to Ron spends a lot of time thinking about the future of AI He's very deeply in discussions with that community You know, he's always looking down the road and Doron is very good at sort of seeing what's on the horizon Analyzing it and then you know putting a sort of structure on it. I think I tend to look back at history a lot more Tyler, you know, I'm reading a lot about you know a lot more I mean I like the book. I'm reading more about Henry Ford I'm really more about the use of technology in World War II I like to go back and read some of those medieval type sources again and think about how that played out So I found the book has helped me understand a lot of things, but I tend to look at the historical experiences and try to drill down into those.

30:52Drone's a very forward -looking person. And working with Durant, how would you describe what that's like? Obviously, he's super productive as are you, but he might be renowned as the very most productive person in the entire profession. How does that manifest itself through daily interactions? It's hard to keep up with Durant, if we totally honest. We talked about writing this book and we kicked ideas around for about five years and then all of a sudden It was a pre -planned moment But all of a sudden pretty much show January last year to answer right. Let's start writing You know, we'd got some pieces already But we worked flat out for six months and that was super intense and then we spent a lot of time doing fact checking and Cleaning things up and tightening text, but it was a it immensely probably the most intense six months of my my working life I would say and that's more intense than working at the IMF during the financial crisis Okay, so that's quite a benchmark.

31:41Have you and he been surprised at how rapidly AI has evolved? Large language models in particular. I have been surprised, Dron has not, I think Dron again because he spends a lot of time with that community and with computer scientists in general. I think he called this in our internal discussion pretty much right. We were lucky that some people gave us sort of a heads up, not exactly what was coming with the GPT but we did have some, let's say, orientation to that. So we were not taken by surprise by some of the things that surprise many people. Let's say, particularly in December of last year, we took that in stride.

32:15I think it would have been quite disorienting if we had not had that fairly clear in our minds already. How do you feel that the progress of AI will influence your future career as an economist? I'm not sure. I'm planning to have quite a long future career by the way, Tyler. But it should change what you do, right? So if I'm not saying it puts you out of work, but you ought to want to work with it in some manner. If it has big impacts, as the book says, it should have an impact on you. Maybe, or maybe it should have an impact on a lot of people and there should be niches for some of us that are less impacted by AI.

32:48I'm not sure, Tyler, it's a very good question. I was working this morning on a plane editing a document that was shared with a colleague over the internet. And it just occurred to me how far we'd come since the 1990s that I was actually using the internet on a plane to edit a document that was shared with a colleague on the other side of the world. I mean, I didn't expect that 10 years ago, let alone 25 years ago. So I think it remains to be seen. I don't see the future that clearly, Tyler, perhaps you need to get drawn on the show as well. We've had him on. A general question, why do institutional arrangements protect a country from the middle income trap?

33:22Well, I think if you think about countries that are really done well but not entirely broken free of being middle income. South Korea is one of my favorite because my wife's parents were born in South Korea and I spent a lot of time talking with them and thinking about the country and talking with Korean economists. I think that you need to spread an education system that really encourages creativity and really helps you break from some of the strictures of the past. I think you need more entrepreneurship. I think you need a lot of integration with the world economy, a lot of exchange of ideas.

33:53Ireland, a Tyler, is one of my favorite countries. And a country that I would say is definitely broken free of the middle income trap. They did it with a lot of direct foreign investment. You don't have to have that. But they did it with an amazingly globalized people. Obviously, a lot of integration into American society and other European societies. And I think it's probably about the human capital and probably about language and probably about being able to be productive in multiple different kinds of organizational settings and cultural settings. I mean, you find fantastic Irish leadership all over the place.

34:21In fact, I believe the chairman of UBS, which we were talking about UBS, who, months ago, is Irish origin. If institutions are the key to economic growth, as many people have argued, Daron and yourself to varying degrees, why then is prospective economic growth so hard to predict? So in 1960, few people thought South Korea would be the big winner. It looked like their institutions were not that good. It was a common view. Oh, Philippines, Sri Lanka, then Sainan, you do quite well. They had English language to some extent. They seem to have okay education. And those two nations have more or less flop.

34:55South Korea took off. It's now per capita income roughly equal to France or Japan. Doesn't that mean it's not about institutions? Because institutions are pretty sticky. Yeah, I think of institutions as being part of the sort of history, so if you can get it in a positive way, that if you grow and you strengthen institutions, which South Korea has done, it makes it much harder to relapse. There are plenty of countries that had spurts of growth without strong institutions and found it hard to sustain that. I mean, you make a very good point about the early 1960s. Tana, there wasn't that much discussion that I've seen about institutions per se, but education, yes absolutely, culture, people made the same comparisons.

35:29They said, Confucian culture is no good or what would lead to growth, and that's a problem for, for example, for South Korea. That turned out to be wrong. So, I think institutions are sticky. I think history matters a lot for them. They're not predestination though. You could absolutely carve your own way, But the caveat on way is harder when you start with institutions that are more problematic, less democratic, more autocratic control, less protection of property rights. All of these things can go massively wrong. But building better institutions and making them sustainable. Well, I think Eastern Europe, the parts of the former Soviet Empire that managed to escape the Soviet influence after 1989 -1991, I think those countries have worked long and hard with very mixed results in some places to build better institutions and the EU has helped them in that regard unquestionably.

36:14I'd say three years ago, I thought incorrectly that Ethiopia and Ghana had reasonably promising futures because they were on good tracks. They had racked up a number of years of high growth rates in a row. And now it seems both of my views are wrong. I mean, what exactly is the predictive content of institution -based theories of economic growth? Like, what's the prediction we would make now? Yeah, it's a good question, Tata. But I think that institutions have some predictive value. It's fairly long term. I mean, this is something I've worked on at the IMF. We looked at other people interested in this as well.

36:45I don't think it helps you that much. Think about one years, two years, even five years. I do think it helps take a view on whether this is a more robust system, whether the system that can handle crises, whether the system that will suffer some sort of relapse and major economic collapse. A collapse will be hard to reverse, of course. So I think the US has strong institutions. They don't prevent us from having a very bumpy ride. and it's getting bumpured, it seems, last couple of decades. Here's a simple and easy question about growth. How do we fix Northern England? Oh, well, that's a fantastic topic.

37:15I love the idea of more investment in infrastructure, of connecting the people in Northern England. So I'm from a town that's on the border between the Midlands and North of England, and connections to other, more prosperous places, reducing travel time, encouraging remote work, moving the high -value jobs of headquarters and so on to lower cost real estate places, these are all great ideas. Of course, they have been discussed many times over for decades and it hasn't happened. London is still an amazing magnet for talent and that kind of swamps everything else. But Manchester has two good football teams.

37:48I might turn things around eventually. We've had a lot of autonomous advances in work from a distance that have nothing to do with Northern England per se. Working over Zoom is one of many AI may prove to be another one. I mean, are you predicting a resurgence in Northern England? Or is it just too much the case that the high -capital individuals want to leave for a London in the south? I would love to predict a boom for Northern England, and it's certainly... It's doing much better now than it did in the 1980s when I left the North of England. And, you know, to me, it seemed easier to break in and have success in the United States than in London, actually, at that time.

38:21It is a struggle for talent, absolutely right, Tyler. Where do smart people want to live? Where do they want to settle down? Where do they want to have families? and people are willing to have long -ardier disputes into London, I think that it will be great if either the market or maybe the government could induce and persuade people to move to other parts of the country, including further north, but it has been a long -term struggle. But if you compare, say, Britain to France or Germany, so the number two city in France would be Leone. the owners are very nice place. It's not as rich as Paris, but you wouldn't say it as structural problems different from those of France as a whole.

38:57Germany has plenty of cities that are doing fine. Why is England in particular so unbalanced in terms of its urban geography? Well, I probably blame the Norman Conquest for that one, Tyler. I mean, just getting a little bit in terms of going back a thousand years. No, it's fine as an answer, if it's a little bit. Yeah, I think London has long been this amazing place. This very dynamic place, a very entrepreneurial place. I mean, if you think about what started to go right in England before the Industrial Revolutionary, to obviously Industrial Revolution was a British Midlands phenomenon, more than a Southern phenomenon.

39:26But the commerce of London, the power of London as a trading center, the openness of London to new ideas and new products, that was a very important part of what made Britain susceptible to and open to industrialization. So I think it's the appeal of London, and this excessive London over more than 500 years, Tyler. The North England had a very good run, let's be clear, but it was a run that was based on factories and factories that, you know, concentrated workforces and all of that turned out to be fairly foot loose, particularly after the Empire declined and the British found they didn't have quite enough scale to compete with the Americans and not quite enough government support and corporate support, maybe financial support, to compete with the Germans.

40:08They found themselves, you know, the North England had a rough ride for a while. No. Should the UK join NAFTA, which would mean chlorinated chicken, right? But would it be worth it? Look, the UK should join the European Union, but not that. But let's say that's impossible or maybe they won't take you because you can't pre -commit to staying, right? But NAFTA would take you. Maybe it would. I mean, I think the people in NAFTA should worry about the British turning the backs on that too, honestly, Tyler. But we wouldn't mind. All right. Our feelings wouldn't be hurt. It'd be a much easier separation.

40:39Oh, I see what you're saying. It wouldn't be an emotional. It wouldn't be an emotional breakup. Yes, possibly. That's a very intriguing notion and probably should be considered, I think, NAFTA or USMCA as it is now, has enough political baggage as it is in the US. And the US, Tyler, we haven't talked about this at all, but I think trade and trade policy and the politics of trade remain immensely complex in the US. And that's not getting easier. So I'm not sure that adding a significant additional piece to USMCA would be helpful or even feasible. My whole life I've admired the British system of government, but lately it just feels to me that it's not working.

41:16You have how many prime ministers and how many years is it four and seven years I've lost track. What if anything has gone wrong and how would you fix it? Procedurally at that so -called constitutional level, I know you don't have a formal written constitution, but what would you change and what's gone wrong? Well, there is no constitution exactly. There's just heuristics and there's just what happens and then establishing institutions. Look, it's not unusual in the British parliamentary system, certainly, for one party to gain control and keep control for a long period of time. That's what happened that the day party did previously.

41:46And so now the conservatives have had this long run. And you kind of run out of steam, I think, Tyler. You run out of ideas. Alternation and power will be good. But the parliamentary system is one in which you, for you first, you can get a majority with a minority of the vote. And also relatively small shifts of the vote can give you a big majority. And those big majorities are unassailable. So I think it's, It is the unfortunate downside of what is otherwise a pretty robust and definitely entertaining parliamentary system. Now, I'm a big fan of your book, Jumpstarting America about science and science policy.

42:15It's with Jonathan Gruber. I have a few questions about science policy. So you argue for a kind of place -based policy to jumpstart different regions in America. And I suppose I'm worried in the same way that you're worried about Northern England that we could do a lot of good things, which I would be in favor of. But most of the gains will go to the coast. So since you wrote the book, we've had mRNA vaccines, well, Moderna, you know, that's in the Boston Cambridge area, open AI, that's in San Francisco. Those are phenomenal developments. But you know, they're not in Rochester, they're not in Iowa.

42:48So are you now more despairing of our ability to use place -based policies to jumpstart these other regions? No, actually, we've kind of gone the other way. We're a bit more encouraged, Tyler. I mean, you're right about, of course, about those big breakthroughs, and we are all about the breakthroughs there. But I think one of the things that strikes me as being a strength of the US is the depth of the bench. And all these other places where real estate prices are not so high, there's plenty of towns of people who want to live. And of course, there's massive spillover effects from investing in basic science, which is the basis of our argument.

43:19So why not, when we make those public sector investments, I mean, that's to get the spillover is why not look more broadly outside of Boston, outside of New York, outside of San Francisco or Seattle, and attempt to make those places more central, tap into the talent that already exists in those places. And I think the shrinking of distance or our different view of distance, Tyler, after the pandemic has got to be a helpful part of that. Reading the book, much as I like many parts of it, but I feel you're underrating the benefits of sunshine. So when you list your most promising places for regeneration, the top three on the list our Rochester, Pittsburgh, and the Syracuse area.

43:57Now, Pittsburghs may be done okay, but Rochester is still losing population. Syracuse area not doing so well. The entire southeast, not the entire, but most of the southeast is done well. Nashville is star performer, not on the list. Most of Texas doing well. What if we just add a simpler theory that said it's sunbelt and a good university helps? Isn't that a better predictor for the up and coming places? Then like Rochester, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Cleveland, design your list. Ethica New York since an adi, they're all in your top 10. They don't seem like winners to me. Well, I think what we'll flag in there is potential and potential that could be tapped.

44:33On our website jumpstartingmerico .com there's an interactive map and you can put in different criteria. So if you like the idea of ranking places you can change the ranking or change the weight on different elements. We did not put hours of sunshine in their tire. Maybe we should in the next version and then you could change put that in the index, totally valid point. I think the bigger argument that we're making there is look beyond the Eastern West Coast. There are some really great places, full of talent in the US, which ones will surge to the front. I don't know. That depends a little bit on who gets their act together and who gets focused on this.

45:03I do think the importance of a good university should not be understated, but that university should also feel pushed to engage with business, engage with finding jobs for graduates, helping startups. The kind of thing that my university does in your university does very well, Turner. Circuit 2023 with some more years behind us, apart from wanting to spend more money, how would you improve US science policy for any given level of expenditure? I think that looking for places where you can invest in the basics and you can imagine that there will be commercial applications. The Human Genome Project is one of our favorites.

45:38That was actually turned out by private venture capital in the 1980s because they said, You know, yes, you can do this map out the human genome, but we don't know how you can monetize it But that turned out to be a brilliant moneymaker and a great job creator because the basic science then could be appropriated in an appropriate manner by downstream firms who could build Technology -based solutions. I think we got 300 ,000 jobs out of that most of which are good paying jobs now That requires some imagination that requires some commercial orientation But we're not saying that the government should do what the private sector is already doing in terms of finance adventures.

46:14We're saying, look for those big potential breakthroughs that could have commercial applications and seek solutions that address anything that the private market is not able to do along the way. If the private market can build it, Tyler, let him get on with it, and then we'll figure out later if there's consequences we need to do with. But I think the problem is we don't do enough of the basic science and we don't convert enough of that into commercial products in the US. A few questions about the Simon Johnson production function. What is your most unusual successful habit? I don't know. I play tennis.

46:47I find playing tennis to be immensely challenging. It just makes you clear your mind. If you have anything else in your mind at all, you miss the ball and you embarrass yourself. And I just find that to be completely refreshing. What's your favorite novel and why? Oh, Neil Stevenson Snowcrash. First of all, because Paul Kruebman said in 1992 or something that it was the best possible predictor of the future, and it turned out to be pretty much right. But I think Stevenson predicted the metaverse, Stevenson predicted a bunch of things that happened to the sort of political social level. It's an exaggeration, it's a fun novel, but I think I'm still looking for any science fiction of any kind that's a better predictor of the future than that one.

47:21We have an episode with him. Do you think our actual future will be as dystopian as his novelistic future? Well, he wrote the book 30 years ago, and I think we've had some dystopian moments along the way, Tyler. I mean, I think the key idea that he has is that technology -powered future will lead to a fragmentation of society and to a collapse of the United States and so a sort of political disunion. And there's been plenty of pressures that were, you know, maybe even the pressures of today were unimaginable compared to when he wrote 30 years ago. I don't think it ends up quite so bad. I think, you know, I'm an immigrant to this country.

47:52I like a lot about this country. I like the American political system, Tyler, which I know is a deeply unfashionable thing to say. But I like the fact that, you know, people are always taking swings at each other. that we don't have a closed elite, didn't have to go to Oxford and Stony of certain degree in order to become Prime Minister. I like the intensity of the back and forth in American politics, and I think, wasn't it Winston Churchill who said, you're a little condescending, but Churchill's mother was an American. Let's remember, the Americans always do the right thing after first exhausting all the other possibilities.

48:17What's your favorite movie and why? I did like everything everywhere all at once. I know that's just the most recent movie I saw, also it digging me a headache. I close my eyes at a certain point, but I did like the whole idea that we have multiple empowering personalities that we can draw on in different circumstances. I thought that was supremely wonderful and I did really like the fact that the Asian actors won so many Oscars. I thought that was outstanding. Now I'm quite sure the position of MIT is secure in our future. But what's the future of the MBA more generally? Beneath say the top 10 or 20 schools.

48:49Will we still have MBAs in 20 years? Will anyone go and pay all that money? It's a great question. I think a big part of what went right in the era of Henry Ford was the so -called engineer managers, the people who created the new tasks, the people who designed companies, the people who built these organizations. I think they got a little bit of a bad name later, Tyler, as like middle of management. Perhaps that was deserved. Perhaps things became too bureaucratic, but I do think that people who come from engineering or people who like engineering and people who want to be managers, they want to organize things and make things more productive.

49:17I do think that's a very important group of people. That's the people who I spend most of my time within the classroom. And I push them to think about this issue of what's the social angle, or what's the task creation, why does that matter? If you're just focused on automation and displacing workers, what are the consequences of that? I have to say these people are extremely engaged in that conversation, Tyler. Of course, that's just a classroom conversation. What will they do in their careers 10, 20, 30 years from now? It remains to be seen. I hope I get to see it. My intuition is that I would rather hire people with technical training and no MBA, rather than hire people with the MBA.

49:50Maybe even now. Again, not Harvard, not MIT, where a lot of its selection and networking, But in terms of what you actually learn, it seems to me the other backgrounds are more valuable. I think an engineering or a science undergraduate degree is very strong preparation for the modern world. I also find that for the right people where it's a match, an MBA type qualification, and there's a lot of many shapes and sizes, you know, I find that that can be really quite helpful to them. I know some remarkably talented people who fit exactly that description. I'm sticking with the business model, Tyler.

50:23Last two questions. First, when you're evaluating students, not just two will make a lot of money, but someone you might want to work with, or you think will change how the rest of the world thinks about ideas. What are the non -obvious qualities you look for in those students? Sure, they should be smart, they should work hard, but what else? Ability to communicate. So, Drone and I have a course based on the book, teaching MIT undergraduates right now. It's a communications elective, Tyler. We have a fantastic writing coach working with us and some superb TAs, and we're trying to help the students learn how to write persuasively about technology.

50:55Technology policy sure, but about technology more broadly. It's a lot of fun and I think I think a good complement to their other parts of education, which obviously much more technical, much more mathematical. So I'm interested in can people communicate ideas? Can they communicate with me? Can they communicate with other people, particularly about technical topics and do it in a way that isn't condescending, a way that explains things clearly, a way that invites further debate and conversation. And then do they listen to the feedback they get and shop with the messages. Last question, what will you do next other than promote the book?

51:25Again, to repeat everyone, power and progress, our thousand year struggle over technology and prosperity, Simon Johnson and DeRone Assimo Glue. But what next? Well, talking about the book is a big part of what's next, Tyler, because it's immensely fun. You get to go around the country and some other countries and really get feedback and hear the sorts of questions and push back that you've been given me today. So that's immense. But I think the next thing I'll do is write another book. I like writing books I like working with my friends, we've got various ideas and things to explore. And it takes three or four years to bring one of these books to fruition.

51:59And then at the end of the day people might not be interested, maybe the news is something completely different for a while. So it's a big bad, in terms of personal time, but it's also fun, it's also fulfilling. And I feel it makes a contribution that I enjoy and I really enjoy talking to people about the book, Tyler, and I really enjoy talking to you. I always enjoy talking to you, Tyler. And I really appreciate this opportunity. Hopefully, when the next book comes around, you'll have it on your show again. A pleasure to chat with you Simon Johnson and very good luck with the book. Thanks a lot.

52:27Thanks for listening to Conversations with Tyler. You can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast app. If you like this podcast, please consider giving us a rating and leaving a review. This helps other listeners find the show. On Twitter, I'm At Tyler Cowan and the show is At Cowan Convose. Until next time, please keep listening and learning.