Dex Hunter-Torricke | Extraordinary Life Stories

0:00We have a moment now where the whole future of our societies is under threat. If you want to have a society that works 10 years or 20 years from now, you need to be doing a whole bunch of things right now this second. Zuckerberg, Facebook, SpaceX, Elon Musk, Google, Schmidt, these are all people you've worked really closely with. And organizations that go back to resources have got almost unrivaled resources. Every day, how many hundreds of messages do you exchange with people? it makes us extraordinarily distracted and it makes us believe that 10 years or 20 years is far away that's not far away at all it was something where you know after I you know began my career at the United Nations and very quickly discovered how difficult it is to drive change without resources without having you know the ability to engage communities it seemed obvious that technology you know with the internet and everything that was happening in social media you would have a chance to build real communities of scale that could change the world.

1:04Dex Hunter Torek. I have been so looking forward to this conversation. Yeah, it's great to be here. Tell me, who is Dex Hunter Torek? Still figuring that one out, but if I was going to summarize it, I'd probably say somebody who's spent a lifetime looking at how systems work. And the most important system to me was how the world works. I've spent my career looking at how you build societies that are successful and thriving and how you use technology in particular to do that. How do young Dex get into that? It's probably a combination of things now when I think about the origins. It was probably a combination of growing up in a family that didn't have a lot of resources.

1:45My dad was a refugee from Burma. He came to the UK in the 1950s, you know, after growing up in a refugee camp in India. And my mom was a immigrant from Malaysia. She came to the UK in the 70s to be an NHS nurse. She was a nurse for more than four decades. And growing up, life was really tough. And because of that, I became really interested at an early age, both with why is it that some people and families, you know, have life that's really hard and others, you know, have much, you know, you know, more comfortable lives. But then also, if you extend that thinking, why is it that some communities, you know, thrive, and others absolutely fail?

2:25And it was probably a combination of those circumstances growing up. And then, you know, many, many years later, you know, decades later, you know, discovering that I was neurodivergent. And so I really had an obsession with systems that sustained me for my whole life. I think all of that led me very early on to thinking about how the world functions or doesn't in many cases. Yes. And you were drawn to big tech. I'll turn that up with zeitgeist timing. Without you, well, that's actually probably the question. Did you get that feeling that so much of the evolution of kind of impact and change would come through tech?

2:58Very much so. I mean, for me, technology has always been a motor of progress in societies. That is the whole story of our civilization. And, you know, you think back to where the tech industry was, you know, 15, 20 years ago extraordinarily hopeful. Something that we were just beginning to see the internet reach the kind of planetary scale. You were seeing services really maturing and now delivering a lot of new capabilities. It was something where after I began my career at the United Nations and very quickly discovered how difficult it is to drive change without resources, without having the ability to engage communities, it seemed obvious that technology with the internet and everything that was happening in social media, you would have a chance to build real communities of scale that could change the world.

3:48That's interesting. And of course, to name Zuckerberg, Facebook, SpaceX, Elon Musk, Google, Schmidt, these are all people you've worked really closely with. And organizations that go back to resources have got almost unrivaled resources. So you have almost been in an incubating growth kind of hub, if you like, over the last, you tell me, 15 years, where you have watched and overseen, if you like, the growth of these companies, but that's all being knowledge you then have as your own kind of algorithm, if you like. It gives you huge perspective, not just on looking back, what you've done, but also how to make a difference moving forwards.

4:24I think that's right. I mean, it's interesting. The more you think about AI and you understand like today's AI systems are basically pattern recognition machines, the more it makes you start thinking, what are the patterns I, as a human, have been trained to observe? What are the things that through my life and my experiences I'm often focused on? But then also how do institutions and organizations end up adopting those pattern recognition systems? And in many cases, when I meet people I admire and role models and so on, they've got really exceptional ability to recognize the patterns that matter.

4:59But you also see it every single day, what happens when organizations fail at their basic pattern recognition algorithms and, you know, the biases, the assumptions that underpin so many decisions that have mega scale consequences, you know, for your business plan or, you know, your entire society, your country. It's absolutely astonishing when you begin to sort of, you know, delve into that becomes almost overwhelming. You mentioned role models that you've met and worked with so many people. Who stands out for you as a really good role model? Huh. That's a great question. You know, for me, the role models, they weren't those brand name leaders.

5:38They weren't household names at all. They were the, you know, armies of people who are often behind the scenes doing quiet, heroic work. Like, you know, one of my very, very good friends, you know, left a career in hospitality and she went off to work on the refugee crisis. She dropped everything, you know, the moment that, you know, this crisis, you know, sort of began to reach public consciousness. And she went off to Greece, you know, to go and volunteer. And she didn't have a plan. She didn't know what she was doing. But it was something where it was an expression that, you know, she had resources.

6:11She had the means to understand what was happening in the world. and greases a short plane flight away. Why would you not go and do that? And that for me was just an example of one of thousands of people I've met over the last couple of decades who are doing the right things. Of all the people you mentioned, you brought her up and then having a lovely journey getting to know you over the last few months. You put a post out on LinkedIn a few weeks ago that you got a shock from and you're used to doing pretty serious communication kind of distribution, if you like, but it was about you. about the fact that you've given so much and learned so much from big tech, but this was the time you wanted to give back.

6:49Yeah. But that clearly, I can see that role model element of the fact that this lady could have done anything at that point of her career, but she's choosing to give back. I'd say the same about you. You must be so in demand. There must be so many interesting things. And of course, you've taken the role at the treasury. You're on the board of the treasury. That's right. So you've chosen to do that. But your main choice seems like you want to give back. And I think a key thing I wanted to bring up was I had the pleasure of introducing you to Rory from Thinking About Thinking. Right. And then seeing you deliver a talk where no one was on their phone, laptop shut, and you had, you know, at the front of the stage and your desire to get across the fact that this is your time you want to give back and make a difference was compelling, Dex.

7:33And it also showed me the skills you've got from a communication point of view. So the whole marriage of giving back and everything you've learned and the person you've become was, I just wanted to sort of say to you, it was phenomenal. It was incredible. It was like, it was like, you know, such a class act. And I want to know where that leads you now. And if you can talk about what you want to do now, because I know that that's your passion and anyone watching listening may well want to try and get involved and help you. What is it that you want to do? I mean, this is what I so strongly believe now.

8:04And I've been all over the world in the last few weeks. I've literally been to about a dozen countries in the last dozen weeks. And I've talked to thousands of leaders, tens of thousands. And everywhere I go now, I think it's become crystal clear to anyone who understands what is happening in the world that something is wrong with the systems we are relying upon to navigate our future. If you are paying attention at all to things that are happening, You know, whether it's in your local community or halfway around the world, it's clear that on any number of fronts, we are facing a whole bunch of problems where today's leisners and institutions and systems, they don't really have the right answers.

8:50And in many cases, you've got a bunch of very performative responses that are being given to these huge glaring problems, which are impacting people's lives very, very deeply. and technology is so central to both the solution to some of those problems but also it will exacerbate all of those things you know a hundredfold if we don't figure out how to manage these things in a fundamentally different way and that's really the message I've been taking around the world we have very little time left to take on some of these massive problems because they do face the entire world they are not problems that just face the UK or Europe and the United States.

9:30They are truly global. And unless we dramatically rethink the assumptions we've been using for probably most of our lives, all of our lives on how to navigate these, we are going to fail as societies. And that honestly is what drove me to, you know, leave big tech, you know, 15 years of, you know, work in the industry. You know, I could have a very nice time not doing any of the things I'm doing right now, or I could have simply, you know, sat in a nice comfortable perch in the industry that never had any appeal to me whatsoever um you know that's not why i went to the industry in the first place and it's certainly not what was going to keep me there um we have a moment now where the whole future of our societies is under threat and we need to rethink what uh we want our future to be yeah you're brimming with purpose there you can tell and with the adhd side of things as well that relentless energy and focus you bring i mean that's where that's where we're mission aligned and again i want to help you in any way i can with that one of the things i know you talked about, particularly in that talk, was the speed and the growth that's happened, and almost the byproduct, if you like, that therefore, when anything grows as fast as, and without any regulation, without any almost sort of control, if you like, there's going to be fallout, which of course, you know, is where you're trying to, try to sort of stop some of the negative impacts, if you like.

10:47Relating that to you, to Dex, 12 countries in the last few weeks, you know, all the traveling and so on, how have you looked after yourself through, well, that your your output's huge you know and uh zuckerberg uh schmidt um musk they're demanding people and you were their right-hand person at any one time through an incredibly fast growth period yep so i just want to know how you prioritize your own kind of mental physical fitness and what works for you the unsatisfying answer is i probably didn't prioritize it through most of that um you know when i look back at my time in silicon valley i actually think just how deeply unhealthy I was in like so many ways, you know, physically, intellectually, I would say, because in a way, and of course, the two things are completely intertwined, as you know, but when you don't give yourself space to recover, when you're not recovering, you know, the quality of your thoughts, the caliber of them, you know, it absolutely declines.

11:44And, you know, in a way, I think that's part of the many reasons why we have a whole bunch of systems that are failing now. You have a whole generation of leaders, you know, at the top of industries and governments and, you know, really important organizations who are physically and intellectually tapped out. They are exhausted from the first 20 years, you know, of the 21st century. And you're then asking them to take on, you know, the next chapter, which is going to be far, you know, greater in scale and complexity than anything we faced before and much faster paced. So, you know, I absolutely didn't prioritize myself um you know it was survival mode most of the time you know and the tech industry often just runs on pure survival mode so there's a lot of finance you know a lot of the systems that are really central to our economy and our societies and that's not a healthy way of living no but you understand that you knew it at the time you knew that you were putting the opportunities first uh rather than decks what about now have you built a morning routine in have you tried to make sometimes you still look guilty about that i mean in a way i mean the biggest progress i can say is like i recognize the need for it and i try to get back that time where i can um you know during the pandemic you know i took up running i'd never um done running before i'd always actually just think you know i've got too many things you know going on you know to the choice of going out the door and spending half an hour on a run you know or an hour you know versus getting an extra hour of work in, I would always pick the work.

13:12But, you know, later I recognized, you know, particularly after spending months inside staring at a Zoom screen, I realized the ability to do the work and to do it well required me to actually go on the run. And so now, you know, I do love running. I try to do it wherever I can. You know, if I'm traveling, you know, somewhere in the world, I always, you know, pack my running gear. But, you know, it's also, you know, can I, you know, get a few minutes, you know, usually when I'm in transit somewhere on a plane or on a train you know to read you know have a thought that isn't just like raw consumption of information not just replying to another whatsapp um you know which is very tempting when you're sort of backlogged with with messages i'm guilty of that yeah i'm guilty of that and then one thing i have managed to do is to try and do as much of that on the treadmill at home yeah i don't do a bunch of the admin up the email responses and actually just have a sort of speed five and get 10k doing a bit but even that i'm struggling with right now but it's a balance isn't it if you're if you're running at a pace and you're full of purpose actually you know that uh making time for what actually recharges you to be the best version of yourself even though we both know it it's a it's a struggle i have to really yeah time for it you've spent time and i've mentioned names of people already that anyone would associate as very successful people and by default with your own career you you've had a lot of success how do you define success i mean for me success is about having impact on the things that are important to you in the world um and for me that was never about the sort of material trappings of success so for some people it's you know you get to a certain level of wealth and in a way you know I'm sure there's people who then you know they'll hear that answer from me and they'll think that's obviously an answer born out of privilege and it's not and it's not at all um you know because I grew up with absolutely nothing and it would be perfectly logical that I'm obsessed with just, you know, acquiring vast amounts of resources.

15:07The decisions I've made in my career have probably cost me extraordinary amounts of wealth. And that's just never been the driver for me. It is about advancing a set of ideas in the world. And for me, it really is, how do we reconfigure our societies? How do we build a world order that delivers for ordinary people? You know, in a way, and it's probably not, again, a healthy answer fully, but it's just the honest one. A lot of my life, I was just very angry about how people were treated. And it was that anger that sustained me and propelled me throughout my entire career. There are people who start, you know, where they've got, you know, a beautiful childhood and they have a lot of love in their lives.

15:48And these are the things that shape them into, you know, people. And they think, I want to take those qualities to the world. And they are brilliant. And I've got lots of friends who come from, from lives like that. But for me, I was just angry. I thought, how is it that the vast majority of the world does not have access to resources? Like, if I thought my life was tough growing up in the UK in the 80s and 90s, imagine what life is like for, you know, the majority of humanity. You know, this is the sixth or seventh largest economy in the world. And so these are things that now, at this moment, where the whole fate of humanity is under threat, and the technologies that are coming will redefine the lives of the entire world but a lot of leaders aren't taking it seriously at all that continues to make me really really angry and that that's honestly what keeps me going through a lot of this you know definitely like there are moments when I'm exhausted and I think you know I would like to be you know taking it a bit slower but we have a ticking clock over our heads I love that because it's bigger than you when I say I love that everything you just said there is all incredibly concerning and worrying but you are driven and motivated to try and make a difference and it's bigger than you.

16:56It's bigger than, you know, I can tell, you know, when you have those, these moments where you're lacking the energy and you remind yourself that actually you, you have so much to give, you know, so much, you've spent time around so much stuff. And I think that's a key thing I want to bring up is this beautiful articulation, pronunciation, your whole demeanor. And I've said this to you from the minute we met, um, is it's such a pleasure to be around and to listen to, then you have so much intellect and knowledge to back it up with. and so that that then makes you you know formidable in sort of getting me anyone watching listening kind of involved and wanting to try and yeah i hope you hope you realize that we don't get that feedback yeah i i do but what's really funny is i was i was giving a talk a few weeks ago uh in edinburgh i was talking to a whole bunch of founders and i i was giving a similar message right you know the importance of thinking about you know everybody who is left out of our model of progress and um one of my friends afterwards said you know people were talking about what you somebody said then why does he sound so posh and I just thought I don't know because I was raised mostly by watching tv and my parents absolutely had no no money we were not posh in any way so I kind of think if anybody thought I came from some sort of ultra you know privileged background it's probably because I was raised by watching the BBC so you're damned if you do you're damned if you don't that probably shows how much it goes back to role models and what you fill your mind with and what you do becomes you know very much someone that you you become if you like yeah and i wanted to bring that up one of the things that we've aligned on is is good communication if you like being able to um convey a message have a conversation that we can articulate and get the best out yeah and i want to know how much of that was self-taught bbc clearly yeah and then where you went and the question's really about an aspirational young dex who's looking at you thinking he's great and i want to be like him and i would like to be able to work with the next zuckerberg the next smith because ultimately you're able to really help shape uh their uh front-facing personality if you like you know right-hand people they talked to me before off camera about working with zuckerberg and how from where he was to where he ended up being working with you it was very different right i mean honestly um i think that probably does link back to ADHD in some way because I was always really impatient and things that made me really frustrated is when you hear somebody communicating and they don't say anything real.

19:23There's no substance. It's just a bunch of blah, blah, blah. And how many, you know, business and political leaders give talks like that all the time? You know, it's like, you know, perfect example. This is the one that would drive me up the wall, you know, throughout my entire career as a communicator when companies can't apologize. You know, it's always after they've done something terrible. And then there's a sort of mealy mouth statement, which says, we're sorry if anyone was offended. And it's like, no, no, no. By the time you're putting out that statement, I guarantee everyone was really offended.

19:54And then with that statement, they're now doubly offended. So like, just say the real thing. And so for me - Authentic. Exactly. You know, it's like, there's a lot of, you know, people who want to be, you know, so-called thought leaders and they don't have any thoughts, which is a heck of a combo. So like, you know, the art of communication is right. It's not mostly about the combo of words or the hand gesture or any of that It is about having substance It is about having something real to say at a profound moment in human history Where the whole world is changing and where a lot of people are suffering and a lot of people are facing in immense difficulties And so it's actually simpler than people think You know lots of people come to me and they're like, oh give me tips on speaking on stage and I could probably give all those tips and you know give me two minutes and we'll be done because really it comes down to are you focusing on the right problems are you talking about the right things it's a substance problem it is not mostly a presentation problem and people like Zuckerberg and Elon and all these folks with all their flaws something which obviously allowed them to get to the positions they're in is they are ruthlessly focused on real impact in the world and their definitions of what is important and valuable impact we can absolutely argue over that and i argue over that and i um you know think some of those priorities many of those priorities might be absolutely misplaced now but they fundamentally want to see results and i think that's what you need to go for if you want to communicate in a way that is ultimately compelling yeah that's so interesting to hear and those names you mentioned and countless others with the mission you're now on to try and make change and to stop what clearly sounds like you know you almost paint a picture that there could be you know mass kind of destruction if you like without being dramatic you know there's been a lot of damage caused there's been a lot of uh things done that now point us in a place where we need to pull back from how do you do that you know and what i mean by that is how motivated are leaders like the people we mentioned and count myself as you're talking to to actually help because you've decided you want to you want to give back are you feeling that you're getting the right responses from other people or are many of these people still focused on trying to make as much money as possible and the ego involved and so on because that's what needs to drop right people need to just kind of go i've made enough money it's not about that about actually protecting the future generations right i think there's a lot more people who are invested in finding the right ways of living the sustainable way to hear um yeah i mean if you just look at the news you look at opinion polling, you know, you judge a society based on that sort of very surface level impression, you might think that there's almost no constituency left which believes in a bunch of values, which, you know, I certainly am extremely attached to.

22:41Democracy, human rights, rule of law, international law. But actually, I think there's vast numbers of people who absolutely believe in those things. And in a way, you know, we're sort of the victims of our own success in a way as societies. We have had middle classes that have risen immensely in prosperity. You've had a generation that has got to positions of influence and resource. And they've become much more informed about the problems of the world. but that complexity of the world has almost overwhelmed them. They have come to think of the world so deeply that they almost believe that now I can't fix it.

23:17I can only, you know, optimize little bits of this, you know, much larger set of problems and I have too much to lose now. I'm too invested in these systems in a way to break out of them. The number of times I go to meetings where it's, you know, people where you would absolutely expect them to, you know, know, reject, you know, a sort of more expansionist, you know, reformist agenda. You know, you go talk to a room of folks who are at the top of very, you know, establishment, you know, organizations, incumbent industries, and they say, no, actually, we recognize something's wrong, but what can we do?

23:50So in a way, you need to give people the out. You need to be able to say, there is a way out of this. It's not just a maze with no exit. There is, in fact, a door, and we can leave it. We can get out of these bad ideas. That's good to hear. because the fear is that humans can be very selfish and look after themselves and we've seen that in so many different scenarios that's led to a number of sort of the global warming crisis, if you like, that has all been about extracting minerals from the earth at the expense of, you know, let alone ourselves, nature, wildlife. And I just hope that there's an element where how you're talking now in particular, that people need to be aware that there's future generations coming through that may not have the life that we've been able to live, and the growth, particularly from an AI point of view and big tech, that's been so fast.

24:38There's almost like, I think you said in the talk, thinking about thinking, we have to act now. Yes. Like it's not an option or we'll go too far. A bit like the David Attenborough with the orangutan in the burnt tree that's just like, I've got nowhere to go. That's right. It's almost a bit of a harrowing future for the human race if we just keep going at this rate and don't think about future generations. That's right. I mean, the volume of information, the pace of life we get today, you know, every day, how many hundreds of messages do you exchange with people? It makes us extraordinarily distracted.

25:09And it makes us believe that 10 years or 20 years is far away. You know, we are just, you know, delving into so much content every day, you know, 10 years is unimaginable. That's not far away at all. If you want to have a society that works 10 years or 20 years from now, you need to be doing a whole bunch of things right now, this second. And particularly as societies move faster and faster as a result of these new technological systems. I mean, there's a reason that, you know, we've seen, you know, the global economy, you know, double in size since the year 2000. It has been driven by all of those new technological engines of progress.

25:49But we now have all these other domains in our societies, which are suffering because they haven't adapted to that. We haven't found the right models, you know, to harness those systems for the common good. And if we don't figure out a new model and make that a central conversation, a mainstream one in the next few years, you know, so that we can get to a good workable model in 10 years, I think at that point, the scale of disruption and the technological changes, they will eclipse our ability as societies to choose the futures that we would really want. And that will be good for most people. so time is now i mentioned that linkedin post and it got me thinking about your own journey with how you consume content you are and you have been around some of the the kind of biggest names in tech and we all have the sort of distraction if you like uh of social media and anything we choose to read whether it's x whether it's linkedin whether it's instagram how do you manage that because there are there's a generation growing up now that are addicted to their their sort of for you pages on tiktok and so on which is again programmed by some of the most clever people there are that are fighting for everyone's attention so i've got two daughters growing up where i'm constantly asking to get off the phone because they know no different to going on social media and seeing stuff and it's all stuff they want to see but it's distracting them for much more sort of purpose-led right uh things they could and should be doing i can put it down I can sort of bring myself back to the fact that I should be doing my emails and I should be preparing for a conversation with Dex and so on.

27:25They have a voice in their head that allows, it overrides it and goes, I'll just do one more. I'll just do one more. How do you manage that? And how do we break that cycle where there is clearly an addiction to, you know, sort of tech, if you like, and managing it correctly? I mean, in a way, and addiction, I think is absolutely the right word. if you want to cure an addiction the first step is to admit you have an addiction and we don't do that like in a way we celebrate the addiction in many cases oh that person's really good at multitasking wow they're so productive you know they hit their kpis and then some and you give them a bonus because they hit all their bonus goals but like actually a bunch of those behaviors are not only unhealthy for you personally they create unhealthy environments for everyone and I'm sure I'm guilty of that too because when we're in these systems even when you as an individual see that that is not how you want to live this isn't a thing that I like you know you have to operate according to the confines of that usually unless you you know choose to walk away and do something different which is what I ultimately did but you know there were years when I was in the valley where I was living unhealthy and I knew I was living unhealthily you know for me the answer of what you do about that endless doom scrolling is I would engage in the endless doom scrolling i didn't break the cycle even while i recognized in the moment that this is not what i should be doing but it was it was sort of just um both survival mode and you're looking for something you know to sort of distract you from how unhealthy the overall environment is in which you're living you know it's that rare moment of comfort before you go straight back into the emails and the whatsapps and whatnot like an escapism that's right so many people use it for don't they they appear out at lunch break in a job they don't enjoy and they go onto Instagram, then that creates the comparison side of things.

29:15And that can really impact negatively the mental health. And actually with you, with your own mental health, have you ever been in a position through the work that you've done and the people you've been around that's put you in a position where, you know, your mental health, if you like, has been properly strained? Oh, absolutely. And I think anybody who's worked in those environments, you know, where you're, you know, working with, you know, major global leaders or just any demanding environment, which consumes a lot of your life, I think they're not speaking up fully authentically if they say they haven't struggled.

29:46So for me, absolutely. It's something which, you know, throughout my career, you know, operating those environments, you know, often where you are physically and intellectually exhausted, you know, you often feel very frail in like your own personal capacity, even while people on the outside, well, your friends, you know, strangers, they might think, wow, what a nice shiny job. What an amazing, you know, time this person's having. You might actually be, you know, just struggling to stay afloat in a way. Of course. And actually, you shared off camera that you've actually received death threats before through doing your job.

30:20Yeah. I mean, if that doesn't prompt a certain amount of stress and mental health, and that was your family, which is non-related to Dex, but it's related to the fact that ultimately you are in a representation, if you like. How did you manage that? Yeah. I mean, that was really tough, you know. So after I stopped working for Elon back in 2016 and I very publicly went off to work on issues around the refugee crisis and around resisting a number of the things that were happening in the US, you would go even on news articles about me and you would just see people saying the absolute most horrifying things.

31:02and my mom would read all of these things. I actually wouldn't read them. So, you know, when people post that kind of thing, I sort of just ignore it. My way of dealing with that was to tune it out because, you know, the moment you're, you know, sort of going to obsess or try to, you know, interpret, you know, this sort of expression of rage, you know, it can become immediately overwhelming and toxic and just very, you know, demotivating. But, you know, the hardest thing was actually having to do with my mom, you know, calling me up, worried that somebody was going to come and, you know, take a shot at me, which, you know, in today's world actually isn't, you know, totally impossible.

31:37Very distracting and stressful for you with your mum involved. I appreciate you sharing that. I want to end on a high. I want to look at the many people that will be watching, listening right now that I think that they're so behind the mission that you've got to try and stop what could be a really, really tough place for all of our human race, if you like, in a few years' time, if we don't act now, what is the one thing that anyone watching, listening can do to in any way help? Or is it all sat with the big leaders? And my point being, you know how you can be like this with politics sometimes, you're wishing you could do something, but actually maybe we can.

32:11With your perspective, what can people do to make a difference? The very minimal thing we can do is pay attention. And there's a bunch of folks now who see the way the world is going and the extraordinary crises and suffering, and they just want to tune it out, which is a perfectly rational response in a way for a lot of people. Over the last year, we've seen the most horrendous crimes taking place in the world, and I've had conversations with many friends who say, I just can't read about this anymore. And in fact, I tell people, I understand that and I really empathize with that, but we have to pay attention to.

32:47That is the bare minimum we can do. if it's tough for you to just learn about these things. Imagine how tough it is to live through these things. You have far more resources and resiliency in your life guaranteed if you are sitting at home on a smartphone looking at that news than the people who are suffering right through that tragedy. And if you do not pay attention, if you don't fully understand what is taking place, you will not be able to make the right choices in your own life. And certainly when it comes to the bigger questions politically and what kind of societies we want, which would ultimately stop many more people suffering, in fact, probably including all of us, you know, in the coming years.

33:28Someone described it, you know, the way the world is working now to me a few days ago like this. They said the whole 21st century is now a series of disasters happening in different parts of the world, which every year are getting closer and closer and closer. And one day it's your life. and so if you pay attention then it doesn't actually just end up as a never-ending crisis because we might then have different choices and some of those choices they aren't things you know this sort of lofty political level they might come down to what do you know I want to do you know with my family you know how do I want to raise my kids what do I want to personally learn about become more informed about so I can be a better change maker what do I want my business to do just to navigate that world and be a successful engine, you know, for the economy so that I can keep employing people and contributing to, you know, societies.

34:20All of that will depend on understanding how the world functions too. And if you do all of those things, you know, and that scale and the societies, then you end up in a much better future. You know, we don't solve our problems by running away from them. We only solve them by confronting them. Schön Fußball gucken mit den Jungs. Doch als zur Halbzeit bei euch der Hunger kickt, gibt's nur ein paar lausige Cracker. The härter are as every Abwehr. And while you bite the teeth out, you think you should go to Mac. For the Big McDonald's hunger, try the new Big Gouda and the Big Tasty Red Steakhouse with 100 % Rindfleisch from Germany.

34:58So long the time is not to our breakfast. Wow, you saw the thing? That's insane. Just perfect. Nice.