Can Tech Work With Zohran Mamdani? | Julie Samuels

8:10Eric:I thought that would be much harder than it's been.

8:11Julie Samuels:What are the top three right now? I imagine like AI fear. It's all AI. It's like energy data centers.

8:19Zohran Mamdani:Everything that can touch AI, obviously. Listen, I think something that's been really interesting over the past decade that's shifted in our work is when we first started the organization, the issues were all kind of core tech policy. Like what impacts a company's bottom line? Data privacy. There was a marketplace tax, like very tech specific issues. The work has broadened significantly.

8:42Eric:over the past 10 years for many reasons. But one of the reasons that I find the most interesting is that increasingly, every company is a tech company, obviously. I mean, that's like kind of a trite thing to say,

8:54Zohran Mamdani:but it's true. And increasingly, tech is becoming one of the biggest, if not the biggest industries here in New York City. And what that means is that now the industry is more and more made up of New Yorkers than people for whom tech is their primary goal. Right, they care about everything.

9:12Julie Samuels:And so you're reflecting a broad set of interests. That's right.

9:15Zohran Mamdani:So we already, listen, we already talked about the Sunnyside product. Like we're talking about housing. We're talking about public safety. We're talking about good schools, functioning public transit. We are talking more and more about the things that make it so that people who work in tech want to live here. Because if people who work in tech want to live here, then the companies will continue to locate here, we think.

9:36Eric:And then everything, everything AI, AI, AI. Yeah.

9:39Julie Samuels:I want to, you know, I recently had last year Daniel Laurie, the mayor of San Francisco, on stage at one of my events. I was interviewing him. He was the most warmly received person on stage all day, you know, probably at any of our events. You know, like Dario, the CEO of Anthropic. I mean, politicians, you know, are much more charismatic than CEOs. And, you know, so he really had the crowd. They really were a believer. He was good at staying on message. It's funny though, when I was interviewing him, I was like, the tech people love you. Why is that? And he sort of made something. He made a point that they didn't necessarily love him the whole campaign.

10:16Julie Samuels:He wasn't necessarily their first choice. Some of them stuck with London Breeding. We don't need to get in the particulars of San Francisco. But now he has this warm embrace. And I think part of it is just he likes tech, defends tech, says positive things about tech. What do you think he's figured out? and what would you like Zoran Mamdani to learn from it that's realistic, given he is to the left a little bit of Lori. But Lori's the mayor of San Francisco.

10:41Eric:I don't think the politics are that fundamentally different from a right-left balance, but the messaging is different. I think that what he's plugged into also, you have to remember, of course,

10:54Zohran Mamdani:that it came on the backside of years of the city of San Francisco beating up on tech. And we were talking about this earlier before we started recording. There's this political dynamic. I think this is why so many tech leaders have kind of gone to the Trump side, where, you know, these people, they built companies, they grow jobs, they make big investments, they feel like they've done everything right. We did everything we set out to do. We followed the rules. Sometimes we broke the rules, but we broke the rules in the conquest of bringing new technology to the world and employing so many people.

11:28Zohran Mamdani:And, you know, that's the tech world that I come from, that techno-optimist world that gets made fun of a lot now, but it's actually like, it's pretty lovely. It's like a vision for the world that I wish were fundamentally true. And I think it is actually fundamentally true. It's just complex. Anyway, I think then we've seen, we see this backlash. And these are people. They're not robots. They're not companies. They're people. And these people feel like, you know, what did I do wrong all of a sudden? And why are you beating up on me? Right.

11:59Julie Samuels:I think one thing, and the YouTube commenters might not agree with this, but I think we both have included is that, yeah, tech people and rich people really want to be like loved and appreciated. And sometimes they care more. Well, everyone wants to be loved and appreciated. Right. They don't lose sight of that. And it is sometimes less about the money, seemingly. I think it's almost always less about the money.

12:23Zohran Mamdani:But I think what happens is a lot of the politicians, both on the far left and the far right, they think it's about the money. You know, and they're, well, they're so rich. Why would they care? Why does it matter? But again, I think they sometimes, and Daniel Lurie's done a great job of this. They forget that under, oh, these are still just people. And when they are feeling attacked as people, they're going to react. And their reaction, you know, can be like, oh, well, screw you.

12:51Eric:Like, I'm going to go to the White House now. But Daniel Laurie speaks their language.

12:55Julie Samuels:Daniel Laurie compliments them, says thank you, even as he knows he represents broader San Francisco and it's not really their town to run. I mean, the classic madman line, that is what the money is for. I think the response is often like, you're getting paid well. Why do you also need to get thanked by politicians? There are lots of, you know, politicians need to be looking out for the rank and file person, not spending all their time thanking people who have already been rewarded by society. I mean, I don't know what's.

13:26Zohran Mamdani:It's really interesting. I mean, I think from the way I see the world, which, you know, this is just an opinion, of course, I think you can get farther if you try and work together in that way.

13:38Eric:That like making that person an enemy because it's politically expedient is, I think, long term more harmful given the realities of the world we live in. Like the example I always go back to in the first time I really saw this was when I was in San Francisco and everyone was throwing rocks at the Google buses.

13:58Zohran Mamdani:And I was like, what are you doing? Like those engineers, you want those people to be with you. The people on the bus, they're actually most of them are young. Most of them are early in their career. Most of them don't have families or else they wouldn't be living in these apartments and commuting on the Google bus. And you're turning them into enemies.

14:15Eric:And I think we'd all have been better served had the Democrats done a better job of bringing those people in the fold.

14:23Zohran Mamdani:Because those people who had rocks thrown at their buses are now, many of them, I'm sure, people supporting Trump.

14:30Julie Samuels:So can the tech business community have a strong working relationship with Zoran Mamdani, given it seems unlikely that he's going to run around saying, I love the tech business community? I guess that's sort of the existential question.

14:45Eric:I think they can.

14:46Zohran Mamdani:I think we will.

14:47Eric:I think there will be things we disagree on, and I think there will be things we agree on. And what we're trying to do at TechNYC is identify the things we can agree on and make real progress there. And let me just tell you what I think some of those are. And I think this is true, by the way, for every city. I think New York has unique scale, and we should be really doing some of this work here immediately. But I think it's true everywhere. Tech in government, start with that. Especially, especially when we are talking about the affordability crisis. The mayor just announced that every city agency is going to have a chief savings officer who will have 45 days to identify savings within the agencies.

15:28Zohran Mamdani:It is like an ideal situation to use tech and, dare I say, AI to identify savings.

15:36Julie Samuels:Democrats are traumatized by the Doge experience here.

15:39Zohran Mamdani:I mean, but this, I can't stop talking about this. Imagine Doge with empathy. Imagine Doge in a way that felt more culturally aligned with New York City. You can totally envision that. We're not talking about firing people, but take a resource-strapped organization like city government that has the most antiquated technology you can imagine and think about how you can identify savings within that framework to make city government work better for New Yorkers. Totally. like, it's so obvious, right? So, okay, I think that's one place. Right.

16:14Julie Samuels:And everybody on the face wants a productive city government. So it's hard to disagree with it.

16:19Zohran Mamdani:And in fact, some of this, I think, has to do with age. We have a young mayor. He has a young team. It is the first time that, I don't know what the exact numbers are, but I imagine there

16:29Eric:are more digital natives working in City Hall right now than there have ever been.

16:33Julie Samuels:And one of the things, you know, I ultimately did, you know, certainly rank Mom Donnie above Cuomo. He was, you know, I think it was Brad Lander. But like the, he understands that city government needs to work. And the government needs to work if people are going to sign up for the progressive agenda. And that you can't have a sort of, you know, bleeding heart without like the governance that delivers on it. You have to show it. You have to deliver. Right.

17:00Zohran Mamdani:And clearly you live in a world, I mean, the great example of seeing technology work and practice in government to me is Omni, tap to pay on the subway. We all swiped our subway cards. And then during COVID, they redid the entire subway system. They put in tap to pay technology. And it just works.

17:20Julie Samuels:And it's great for tourists. And it's great for tourists. I mean, it's great as a local, but it's amazing for tourists.

17:24Zohran Mamdani:And I think about it a lot in this context. Tap to pay technology, using Apple Pay on your iPhone every... I mean, how many times a day do you use Apple Pay?

17:32Julie Samuels:All the time. It should be table stakes, right?

17:34Zohran Mamdani:Right. It should be table stakes. And when you use the New York City subway, it is table stakes now. But we're not even talking about like jumping, leapfrogging to the next technology. We're talking about getting to the level of technology that everyone has in their pocket all the time anyway.

17:52Julie Samuels:So number one, embrace tech. In government. Deliver on the efficient, progressive government you are.

17:57Eric:Yeah, I think that number two is really focus on education. and think hard about it's i mean this one's very is this gifted in tracking or no i mean

18:09Julie Samuels:not to i'm curious what you're you think on education but it's funny like you know gary tan in san francisco i think tweeted or he has this gary's listing now that a new york post story where it says zoran's gonna get rid of gifted and it's not even clear if they've really done anything more there, but people keep... The right-wing media keeps putting that one front and center. They love this one. And obviously the tech community is very sensitive to not elevating the geniuses among us.

18:38Eric:The New York City education is very complicated. It's very complicated. And on the G &T in particular, like... Gifted and talented. Gifted and talented. The tech industry, I would say, by and large, would not be happy if that were eliminated. I mean, they'd be very happy if it were eliminated. I definitely wouldn't be happy if it were cut back on. So I think, but we haven't really, there's a lot of rhetoric, but we haven't seen what's going to exactly happen there. So like, maybe I'll come back when we know more. I know. Yeah.

19:08Julie Samuels:It is sort of one of those distraction issues in that it gets everybody sort of fired up.

19:12Eric:Another big one here is charter schools. That's something that the tech industry has been very supportive of. And that's something that the Mamdani administration seems less supportive of. So that also might come to a head. Again, we'll see.

19:25Julie Samuels:Where can they agree on education?

19:27Zohran Mamdani:Thinking about curriculum.

19:29Julie Samuels:OK.

19:29Zohran Mamdani:Thinking about curriculum, thinking about how we are preparing students, not just for jobs of the future, important, but also preparing students to live in a world where these tools are out there.

19:42Eric:You know, one of the things that I've been thinking about politically is 10, 11, 12 years ago when Bill de Blasio first became mayor, Fred Wilson, former chair of Tech and YC's board, venture capitalist, of course, from Union Square Ventures, kind of went in, saw the new mayor and said, I think we should work together to ensure that there's computer science education in every school. and they launched a 10-year public-private partnership called CS for All, and they ensured that there was computer science education in every single New York City public school. And that's the answer, right? Maybe that answer looks a little different now.

20:21Zohran Mamdani:The CS education of 2014 is not the same as what we think the tech education should look like in 2026,

20:29Eric:but those are the places I think where we really can and should be working together to support

20:34Julie Samuels:the kids in the schools. Is tech a barrier to getting cell phones out of school?

20:40Zohran Mamdani:No, we supported that.

20:41Julie Samuels:Yeah.

20:41Zohran Mamdani:Yeah. That was something that we did with the governor last year, the cell phone ban. This was so funny. We could talk. The politics around tech are so interesting.

20:49Eric:So TechNYC supported the governor's proposal for the bell-to-bell ban to get cell phones out of schools. And we did that very publicly.

20:57Zohran Mamdani:And a lot of people called me after and they were like, wow, I can't believe you did that. You know, that was great or that whatever they said, but I got a lot of incoming. And I was like, I don't understand how our politics have gotten so calcified that you can't understand how I run an organization whose literally main goal is to support the tech ecosystem in New York City and state, but also understand that kids shouldn't have cell phones in classes. Like this is very weak.

21:22Julie Samuels:And obviously a lot of these tech executives themselves are very careful about their own children using devices so they understand that it is a addictive device.

21:31Zohran Mamdani:I think that's what's made a lot of our politics actually really hard is that people feel like you can't say those two types of truths, that you can't hold those two truths together. Like, of course, both those things can be true. In fact, I think they need to be true. I think the tech ecosystem will thrive if we are more open about the challenges, which is that like kids shouldn't be on phones during class like of course they shouldn't be that's insane

21:59Julie Samuels:so education's number two it seemed like you had a third one i mean i have a lot i think those are

22:05Zohran Mamdani:like the first kind of places we're looking and then you know i think are you on the yimby train

22:10Eric:as an organization um yeah yeah i mean i'm definitely on the yimby train i think we've been on the yimby train um i think that's also it's interesting to see which pieces of the kind of tech zeitgeist um are the same here and in the valley and which ones are different and like the

22:30Julie Samuels:yimby train same same same well in some ways california needs it i mean i new york is getting on it after california california got to more of like a crisis point whereas obviously new york is

22:41Eric:a large city california got to such a crisis and there's a number of reasons of course but we should talk about the subway and public transit and how transformative it is to have such a huge 24-7 functioning public transit system, which means you can, here in New York, which means you can live, you know, you have much more geographic diversity where you can live and get to work. And that's a huge differentiator.

23:08Julie Samuels:How do taxes play into all of this? I mean, you know, I talked earlier about the mayor of San Francisco who's been pro-tech, but obviously now California you have billionaires literally fleeing the state because they're worried about a referendum um I mean referendums themselves are funny because obviously it's like there's no politician necessarily to stop it it's you know the public could do it and there's nothing to be done and so there you know we have the Google co-founders leaving the state and it's crazy what's going on uh they're not coming to New York right they're going to Florida I mean I guess if you're going to run from taxes you're going to running from taxes this is probably not

23:42Zohran Mamdani:the place you run to.

23:43Julie Samuels:Have you tried to get it? Have you made the pitch to anybody like move to New York because of the billionaire tax issue?

23:49Zohran Mamdani:Every time a politician says they're going to raise taxes, people who represent companies, wealthy people, were always like, everyone's going to leave. And the politicians are like, they're never you're never going to leave. You always say that. And it's this kind of like game of chicken and mouse. Chicken and mouse? Is that No. Catmouse.

24:08Julie Samuels:Chicken and egg and a catmouse.

24:11Eric:It's fine. Whatever. It's like, you know, it's this little or that isn't even the right analogy. That actually the right analogy is it's a little bit of like the boy who cried wolf.

24:19Julie Samuels:Yes.

24:19Zohran Mamdani:Which is to say, like, you're never really going to leave. And then they're like, no, we will leave. But what's happened in California has been like, oh, no, no, no, they're going to leave. So I think that is interesting to know what is the number, you know, what is enough to push you out.

24:35Eric:And I don't think it's ever just a tax proposal alone. But again, I think it gets to what we were talking about earlier.

24:41Julie Samuels:I mean, the California one, it seems like there's potential to tax unrealized gains, control of companies. It was constructed really poorly. There was a high risk that if it went through, it could hit specific people in a huge way.

24:54Zohran Mamdani:And it would hit people before they're liquid in a way that would be really is.

24:58Julie Samuels:Right.

24:58Eric:The unrealized gains part. You said that. So, I mean, that is its own disaster there. But I think there is a feeling in tech, this kind of like, we've been a punching bag for so long and we're just sick of being your punching bag. You know, I'd note that most of the billionaires that I've seen reported having left California are a little bit older. They don't have school age kids. much tougher to pick up and move when you don't have school-aged kids because everyone uses that app where you count your nights. These people aren't selling their California homes. Some might be, but they're just going to spend 51 % of their nights somewhere else or whatever it is.

25:39Eric:But with that goes the tax revenue, which is significant for a state.

25:43Julie Samuels:So what is, how much time are you spending opposing taxes on behalf of the tech community?

25:49Eric:Right now, not really. Because Mdani is saying we need more money. It's like we'll do property taxes. I think that's a good – there isn't really a live proposal. If there were a tax proposal – so we're actually in a really interesting time in New York State's political cycle. We're in the budget process in Albany right now, which will go on for another month or two. Yeah, two months. And then, you know, our session here goes until summer. And so right now this is the busiest time on a lot of these political things. there really isn't a tax proposal to react to if there was some live tax proposal.

26:26Eric:But the governor has been really consistent that she will not raise income taxes. And you can't do it without her.

26:32Julie Samuels:She's done an amazing job. It's been amazing. She's amazing.

26:35Eric:I mean, maybe you're not shocked, but it took me a while. I am not shocked.

26:39Julie Samuels:Like when she delayed congestion pricing, I was like, oh, terrible. And then it was like, oh, you're totally right. That was the savvy move.

26:45Zohran Mamdani:She has been, she's great, but she's done things for the state and for tech specifically that have been so good. And she just does the work. What for tech specifically? Well, there's a handful of things. One of the things she's done that is the coolest is she has funded a public-private partnership. So there's private dollars too, called Empire AI, which is amazing.

27:08Eric:It is an independent 501c3 that she's funded. it's a coalition of research institutions. It includes our city system, CUNY, our state system,

27:20Zohran Mamdani:SUNY, Columbia, Cornell, NYU, RPI, Rochester schools, you know, all these private and public institutions. They are building a supercomputer in Buffalo. They already have the first version up and going, but the eventual final state will be huge. It will be, I think, one of, if not in the end, the most powerful, the biggest academic research computer, surely in the country, maybe the world. And New York academics are the only people who have access to it. And it's

27:51Eric:amazing. And right now, really only private sector has access to the kind of compute that our academics have because of Empire AI. It is incredibly forward looking, incredible for the state. I mean, that when you think about what Stanford did for the Valley, I think that's what Empire AI will do for New York. Because what happens is you've got these postdocs and other professors and they're choosing which school to go to. And they're going to find out that the only computer on which they can do their research is in New York.

28:22Julie Samuels:Part of me is skeptical just because, you know, the scale of investment in private enterprise in San Francisco is so large that they have these, you know, neolabs and, you know, OpenAI Anthropic, they get so much money. On the other hand, obviously, you know, Mayor Bloomberg's work in New York, establishing a tech campus here really did change sort of the penetration. So some of these government projects can't turn into something.

28:46Eric:I totally support the companies creating compute for academics. The more compute for academics and research, I think the better in general. But there are a number of academics, and there is good reason to think that academics want access to compute that is their own. You know, no one else, I mean, technically in this instance, 501c3 owns it, but they have control over it. No one else can do or say what kind of research can happen on that machine.

29:13Julie Samuels:And that's, you know, the role of government. Yeah. Sort of independent, non-corporate research. That's right.

29:16Eric:And how can we help government, especially with, you know, the way the federal government is clamping down on funding research and just kind of thinking about funding for universities. it's even more important. And this is the role. State government can play that role. They are in a unique position to be able to fund at scale. It's going to end up being like a$700 million machine over time. And so that's been – it's amazing. And she's done a bunch of other great stuff too. We worked really hard with her at the end of last year. I'm sure we've talked a lot about the SB53 and the Rays Act here in New York, the two big kind of AI – The certain AI regulation.

29:59Eric:Yeah, and one thing we did here with the leadership of Governor Hochul, she was really, really just great on this. She kind of took the bill that we had on the table here, and it was after SB 53 had become law in California, and looked at it and was like, we can do a version of this, but let's make them work together.

30:19Zohran Mamdani:And in the absence of congressional action, in the absence of Congress creating...

30:24Julie Samuels:To match it with California so there wouldn't be two regimes. Right.

30:27Zohran Mamdani:So it's like, and it's important, and we're going to have guidelines here, and we're not going to just let the companies run amok. But what we're going to do is also make it easy, or at least make it streamlined for the companies to comply. We're not going to create all kinds of barriers just because.

30:42Eric:And so that was great. That was like real leadership. That was hard to get done.

30:45Julie Samuels:The public seems very concerned about data centers. They seem more worried about AI than upbeat. I mean, I think we literally saw this week that, you know, Block is laying off like 40 % of their workers that they're attributing to AI. So I guess workers have a right to be worried about AI on some level. I don't know. What is your read on tech's sentiment with the electorate?

31:11Eric:I think that's a very good question. This is something I worry a lot about too. I think that if we don't get this moment right, we could be shooting ourselves in the foot here across the country. you know, competitiveness matters. You know, New York versus, let's say, Texas, but also America versus China or whatever. Like, for starters, I come at this from the vantage point that, like, technology is coming. There are some tweaks around the side that regulation can shift it a little bit one way or another, but it's coming. So we can either find a way to build it

31:51Zohran Mamdani:here to figure out how to make it work here or somewhere else.

31:55Julie Samuels:I agree with that. But yeah, I'm not sure the voters, they are trying to kill data centers.

32:01Zohran Mamdani:I mean, the data center, well, to go back to Governor Hochul, she's got a great proposal

32:04Eric:on this, which is actually, it was in her budget before Trump has said something similar, which is, you can build it here, but you can't put it on our grid.

32:12Zohran Mamdani:You have to pay for your own power. And that's, you know, more politicians to find a way to get to yes within a framework.

32:21Eric:Like that is what I think we need to see. But I do worry about the sentiment. I worry, too, that like so many politicians just kind of follow those polls and chase where the voters are instead of trying to be leaders.

32:38Julie Samuels:You know, the long arc of tech. One lesson sort of politicians learned and the public was we didn't regulate social media. And then we came to regret it. And it was too powerful to put back in the box. And we don't necessarily enjoy our time on it. And I'm sort of sympathetic to that on social media. Whereas, you know, I like AI. Like to me, you know, when AI is done well, it's sort of a truth-seeking, valuable thing, like improving our quality of life. Yeah, I don't know. How do you sort of stop politicians and the electorate from taking the wrong lessons from social media?

33:14Eric:Well, let me tell you some of the things we are doing right now. One thing we're doing in particular that I'm so proud of is we have a project at the TechNYC Foundation called Decoded Futures. You can Google it, learn more. And what it is, is it's all, again, through our foundation, so it's free. And we take cohorts. We're in our fourth cohort right now of about 20, 25 nonprofits. and we do eight weeks. We pair them with volunteers from the tech sector and we do eight weeks of training to teach them about AI, how to build AI, how to use AI internally, how to also just change their framework. These are politicians or?

33:49Eric:Nonprofits. Oh, okay. Nonprofits. Okay.

33:52Zohran Mamdani:But the idea, like...

33:54Julie Samuels:Get them hooked.

33:55Zohran Mamdani:Yeah, get them hooked. I mean, it's actually...

33:57Julie Samuels:People are vibe coding, seeing the value, like building something or using it.

34:01Zohran Mamdani:Especially for, I mean, to go back to the block example,

34:04Eric:That's, you know, they today announced how many people, the layoffs, like thousands. 4 ,000 or something. I don't know.

34:12Julie Samuels:Yeah, I think it was 4 ,000. Yeah, I think it was 4 ,000.

34:14Zohran Mamdani:But most nonprofits, city agencies, these are resource-strapped organizations. We're not talking about laying people off. We're talking about being able to do more. And some of it is so basic. You know, it's thinking about AI tools that help you automate a spreadsheet.

34:30Eric:Most people I know who go work in the social sector, who go work for nonprofits, don't go there because they want to sit in front of Google Sheets all day. You know, they want to be out in the field. They want to go do the work that they're passionate about. That's why they choose to work in the nonprofit sector. And something AI can do is like...

34:48Julie Samuels:Skip the bullshit work. Yeah, create capacity. Create capacity.

34:52Zohran Mamdani:And we think fundamentally that a couple of things. Number one, you start working...

34:59Eric:We started in New York with nonprofits. Nonprofits, you know, there are hundreds of thousands of nonprofits here. Nonprofits do so much of the social services that New Yorkers depend on. You know, meeting New Yorkers where they are. It doesn't have to be nonprofits. That's our project, but whatever. You can do this with small businesses. You can do it with city government. Imagine any small resource-limited organization that probably doesn't have a lot of internal technical skill.

35:23Zohran Mamdani:Okay. So number one, we've been doing that. And it's been great. And the nonprofits at the end of their eight weeks tell you about what they've built. And like literally sometimes I tear up. It's transformative for them. It's amazing.

35:35Julie Samuels:And with the idea that they can be strong advocates for you if they're persuaded.

35:38Eric:And they're just regular people too. They're not like tech, you know, they're not tech bros saying AI is great. They're like regular people in the world. So I think that is the actual work. But the thing I think is crucial about it, and this is like a little abstract or maybe like a little woo-woo or whatever. It's not woo-woo. It's a little trite, maybe. But there is a moment. I mean, we are living in a moment of significant technological transformation, whether you like it or not. We are. And one of the biggest risks we face is that some people are going to capitalize on that and everyone else is going to get left behind.

36:15Eric:And I think it is incumbent upon us, just as people in the world, but also on us at TechNYC and wherever, that we try and avoid that.

36:23Julie Samuels:And especially in New York City, we win at capitalism. Yes, we win at capitalism.

36:27Zohran Mamdani:But we had to bring everyone along with us. So that, I mean, that's the kind, I think we need more of Decoded Futures. We need more work like that. When people actually, to your point, when people play with AI, they're like, oh, this is awesome. Right now, people are scared. Like, we need to do a better job of demystifying it, of explaining what it actually is, how it can fit in to a regular person's life or job right now.

36:49Julie Samuels:Yeah, and I think a lot of people who are just using Google search results and getting Gemini answers don't always appreciate that that is the sort of AI we're talking about. And also the tech industry is still turning the technology into direct applications where it's like, you can do this thing. Right now you sort of have to be a little more proactive and motivated to get some of the value out of it.

37:10Eric:That's the case for New York, right? Like the way I think a lot of these technical cycles go is they build the hard tech in the valley and it's kind of like just, you know, a bunch of dudes. It's always dudes. I wish it were more women. Like in, you know, in a group house, it used to be a garage in Palo Alto. Now maybe it's like a townhouse in Hayes Valley or whatever. And they're like tinkering away and they've got this great idea. But then it comes time to figure out, well, who's going to pay for it? Who's going to actually use it? What are they going to use it to do? And I feel very bullish on New York because I think we will answer those questions here.

37:45Eric:Right. Build the applications. Yeah.

37:47Julie Samuels:Understand what the companies need.

37:49Eric:And we don't have those answers yet.

37:50Zohran Mamdani:We don't.

37:53Julie Samuels:I mean, if you were to give like, to go back to the mayor and where we started, the mayor were like one piece of advice.

37:59Eric:Yeah. To build like an agenda that is at once progressive and fitting his values and in the tech industry,

38:06Julie Samuels:like what would the advice be?

38:07Eric:It would be to dig in and figure out how to make technology work better in government. People see that. They understand it. I think it aligns with his campaign, with his vision for New York. I think it aligns with his base. It aligns with the private sector as well. Like, I think that is, I think for every politician, for every elected official, there's a different answer. You know, it's how you ran. It's what you ran on. It's what you believe in. And I think that what it seems to me the mayor believes in and where technology can be deployed, it's very clear that it's in the space of making government work better.

38:48This is more national.

38:50Julie Samuels:But the tech industry in California certainly has cozied up to Trump. like New York I mean we don't necessarily have all the CEOs to do the cozying but like what is the tech industry's plan post Trump or if Democrats come back in like I don't know

39:09Zohran Mamdani:I've been thinking a lot about that well first of all I think New York will do much better in that instance because we haven't had

39:15Julie Samuels:well I mean in California they have a Democratic governor

39:18Eric:you know there's something that I think about a lot I think this is true true surely in tech. I'm not sure it's specific to tech. I think tech is just a little bit more immature than some other industries in that it's newer. I don't mean to mature in any way other than it's literally younger. But something that's really interesting about politics is a lot of

39:40Zohran Mamdani:times you'll see people who've seen great success in business assume that they also get politics, and it's different. And it's a different skill set. It's a different set of equities.

39:52Eric:and I think that you've got some people in tech who are chasing the thing they think is the right thing and there's going to be some hard lessons. If a Democrat, depending on which Democrat, is in the White House, which I personally hope is the case in 2028,

40:10Zohran Mamdani:again, depending on who that person is, I think there are going to be some people in tech who are going to have to pay a price.

40:16Julie Samuels:Right.

40:17Zohran Mamdani:I think that there is space to show up at certain events.

40:23Eric:People understand, like, whether you like it or not, Donald Trump is the democratically elected president, and there are meetings and things that you go to. But then there are certain things, donations, certain events,

40:35Zohran Mamdani:certain vibes that you don't have to go to. And I think that there are no hard and fast rules,

40:40Eric:but I think that Americans who pay attention to these things, like have a gut sense of where those lines are, what the difference between kind of responsibly running a business during this administration versus...

40:56Julie Samuels:Without being Mark Benioff and saying send... Without like field tea to dear leader.

41:02Zohran Mamdani:Yeah, I think that...

41:04Julie Samuels:Who do you think in New York is doing a good job of like representing the tech industry? Or who do you see as sort of like the standard bearers here?

41:13Eric:That's a very good question. I mean, I think if you look at technyc.org and look at my board, you'd get a sense of who I think that is.

41:21Zohran Mamdani:You know, like I said, Fred chaired my board for 10 years. We have our first new coach here. Is that Fred Wilson? Fred Wilson. I'm guessing. Who's the key?

41:27Julie Samuels:I mean, the VCs, like, loom a little larger.

41:30Eric:Yeah, of course. We've got – clearly we have Thrive. Right. Makes a ton of news. Neil Blumenthal. Someone from Thrive is on your board? Yeah, Josh is not on our board. But Kelly Simms, a partner of the group on our board. Yeah, I mean, people are really engaged here. People who live in New York care a lot about the civic infrastructure. Not just infrastructure, just like kind of the civic landscape of New York. New York is a city where people care a lot. You cannot, it's like kind of logistics in some ways. You don't get in your car and drive to work and go to your office. Like you are constantly among the New Yorkers.

42:06Eric:No matter how wealthy you are, no matter how big the business you run is, it doesn't matter. You are surrounded by New Yorkers. And that creates, I think, a really special dynamic with the city that makes my work so much more fun.

42:20Julie Samuels:I mean, that's the beauty of the subway. You feel and just walk in the streets. You're part of the community in a way that I think part of what's corroded California. San Francisco in particular, it's like you can Uber from one place to the next and be in your little enclave and the next place and then be like, why is the city letting, you know, homeless people over? It's like the failures of San Francisco corroded tech's politics, I think, in a way that New York just hasn't.

42:45Eric:And it won't. And there's other industries here and there's other things going on. And we talk about tech, but we talk about Wall Street. And like, you know, it's not New York benefits from the diversity, not just of people, but of industry and experience. And I think that's why tech continues to thrive here.

43:03Julie Samuels:Is competition with China like animating people or do you think that is?

43:06Eric:I do think it's animating people. I think it should animate people. I think it's real. And I think particularly in this moment, I think to go back to the data centers, like, you know, are we going to stop building data centers here? Do we think that people are just going to stop building data centers anywhere then? Like, I just.

43:26Julie Samuels:right i mean i do feel like you know this doomerism well it's good to be careful i'm very supportive anthropic having a constitution and pushing back on the defense department or

43:36Eric:uh but uh i think it's the department of war no well the congress hasn't said it's the department

43:41Julie Samuels:of it depends uh where you take your cues you know they put department of war on the wall but i don't think uh you know the law has actually been changed but um you know the steam engine analogy is basically like if you have this great technology coming, do you really not want to lean into something that is going to ultimately improve your quality of life? And if you don't do it, whether it's in Texas or China, it's going to happen somewhere. I get and I'm bought into some of the like, we need to build AI in a sort of ethical and intentional way, but we shouldn't let that sort of concern stop us from embracing a technology that will ultimately make our lives much better.

44:20Zohran Mamdani:Absolutely.

44:20Eric:I think there's, I just see the, it's funny, the word progressive doesn't really mean this anymore, but I think of myself as a progressive person in that like progress to me means looking at how new technology can make things better. And that history shows as a guide that whenever these really disruptive moments happen, there are always more new jobs on the other side, for instance, but I don't want to be too Pollyanna-ish. The transition to get to what those new jobs are is messy. And that's the moment we're living in. And we can either, I think, do the hard work of addressing that head on and having the real hard conversations about what that means for New York City, for New York State, for America.

45:06Zohran Mamdani:What's it going to do to the workforce? How do we prepare people?

45:09Eric:Or we can spend our time debating banning data centers, which in my mind is actually a real distraction from the hard work of figuring out what a kind of, not post-AI world, but what a world with prevalent AI tools is going to look like and how to make sure that transition works for as many people as possible. That to me, that is the question for our time.

45:34Julie Samuels:Julie, yeah, we'll have you on here. We'll see where we're at. All right. Thanks for coming on.

45:39Zohran Mamdani:Thanks so much for having me.

45:41Julie Samuels:That's our episode. I'm Eric Newcomer. Thank you so much for listening to the Newcomer podcast. If you're new here, I was a longtime tech reporter at Bloomberg and the information. I started a sub stack called Newcomer. It's my last name in 2020. And I've been tirelessly working on a YouTube channel. I also host the Cerebral Valley AI Summit and have a podcast with my friends Max and James called The Cerebral Valley Show. Here at the Newcomer Podcast, we're trying to get to the heart of what's going on in startups and venture capital. Sometimes we veer into the intersection of tech and politics, trying to have honest, direct conversations, an independent-minded show with someone who knows how to ask hard questions, who likes to fight a little bit.

46:27Julie Samuels:We're finding our voice. We love your comments. I've stopped saying right. I'm reading the YouTube comments for good and bad, and we appreciate all your support. Go harass us on the Substack too. Newcomer.co. Thank you so much for following along. Please, we really do enjoy your feedback. Of course, like, comment, subscribe. Excited for what we've gotten sore for you this year. Thanks so much. See you next week.