Welcome to Tech Talk. Bye. CT. Tea.

I, am a real history buff and spent a lot of time looking at what are the greatest factors that correlate to violent political conflict in historically in international affairs. And, interestingly, you know, I I came to the conclusion that while sectarian violence was absolutely present, while geographic, natural resources, ethnic, those are all issues. The one issue that was most consistent across cultures, across history was joblessness. And, and so whether you look at, you know, Nazi Germany in 1932 had a 27% youth unemployment rate. Wow. So it is not unique to this era. It is not unique to the Muslim or Arab world. It is true, you know, whether you are talking about the Khmer Rouge or you're talking about, you know, Nigeria, you know, and and and Boko Haram, Al Shabaab. It's it's Peru, the shining path, Nazi Germany. So what what is the single biggest creator of jobs, especially non public sector jobs? So apart from the government employing everyone, which was the Soviet model, entrepreneurship. So to me, there's a straight line connection between entrepreneurship, jobs, peace, and stability.

Well, first of all, I I in the book I talk a lot since I work in primarily developing countries, I make a big distinction between, no tech, low tech, and high-tech entrepreneurship. So high-tech entrepreneurship is the default what we think of in America. In fact, no tech and low tech, if if if if the goal is job creation, which is the first of the million reasons, I have a chapter in the book called a million reasons. Entrepreneurship is good for you. And there are many, many other benefits of entrepreneurship which we can talk about, but the single biggest one is job. So if if you're if if that's what you're going for, you know, I say more people work for Starbucks in Silicon Valley than work for Google worldwide. Starbucks did not invent coffee, but it invented a new process for selling coffee, which is why I define an entrepreneur as someone who innovates a product or process. And the same same is true for a whole bunch of other things. I talk in the book about quinoa. You know, quinoa is was is a grain that the Incas ate fifteen hundred two thousand years ago. Ten years ago or fifteen years ago, it was a $35,000,000 a year business. Today, it's a $3,000,000,000 a year business. It's the same quinoa. But the process of distribution and marketing changed entirely. Right. So process innovation is also very important. What's unique from an American standpoint entrepreneurship exists everywhere in the world and entrepreneurs exist everywhere in the world. And I talk about that in the book. What's unique from an American standpoint is that in every other place I've worked in the world, three dozen countries, with a very very few exceptions, Israel being the most notable, being an entrepreneur is not cool. Being an entrepreneur is, something you would be very embarrassed to admit that you were doing. That's interesting. And the cultural, blowback, the headwinds to be an entrepreneur are very very strong. That is not true in The United States as we know. In The United States, being an entrepreneur is being a rock star. That is almost unheard of anywhere else in the world. So the cultural bias against entrepreneurship is what so distinguishes America. Not so much the level of success we've had, which is, of course, you know, amazing and generally well known and regarded, but it's really this cultural difference.

Well, I think, you know, it it it it it is clearly an issue if your goal of promoting entrepreneurship is creating jobs. So, from that standpoint, it goes right to the heart of the matter. You know, as with most things in life, things I have learned as I've gotten older, very very few things are black and white, most things are gray. So, you can't categorically say that, you know, tech entrepreneurship is wonderful in all respects all the time everywhere. There are absolutely jobs that have been created. There are concerns around that, and there are probably public policies that need to be developed for that. At the same time, and again, from the vantage point that I work in, which is developing countries Mhmm. The kind of tech, entrepreneurship that occurs is more of what I call clone tech or low tech. So it's the fill in the blank, the eBay of, or it's the match.com of, and, or the Uber of. And the fact is that, in every case, those clone tech businesses are incremental. When you are automating a process that already exists, like for example, being a bank teller or being a parking lot attendant, When those are automated or being a ticket seller in a movie theater, there you are losing jobs and obviously in heavy manufacturing where that where there are robots on the assembly line. But but the examples that I give are more frequently the examples you find in developing countries and there it is a net incremental job situation.

Well, first of all, I think, that that, as I say in the book, you know, entrepreneurship ought to be at the front of certainly American smart power when we talk about the nonmilitary versions of American power. Sure. Right. It's right up there. I mean, come from the entertainment industry, to me, it's right up there with movies, music, and TV. Our greatest export. Right? Our greatest exports, and the things which, you know, I I always joke, you know, even those who hate us the most wanna know what the secret sauce is in entrepreneurship. So it is a huge bridge builder around the world. So that's number one. It's it opens opens the conversation everywhere. Number two is that unlike some of the things I talked about at the beginning of the conversation that are the causes of war like sectarian violence, religious differences, geographic differences, those are very hard to fix and they're certainly very hard to fix in a short period of time. Joblessness and changing the entrepreneurial ecosystem in a country is actually quite doable. I mean, I give the case study in the example of Rwanda, which after the genocide twenty two years ago was the biggest basket case probably in modern history. You know, seventy five percent of the men between 18 and 40 were dead. Sixty five percent of the women were HIV infected. The average age in the country was 12. Wow. And there were two medical doctors. Today, twenty two years later, having put entrepreneurship development at the center of their policy, Rwanda has increased its per capita income fourfold. It, much more than any other sub Saharan African country including Kenya or South Africa or Botswana or some of the other development darlings in Africa. Kigali has citywide Wi Fi, which most cities in America don't. And it has become, you know, a totally different place. This, by way, is a country that is completely landlocked, has no natural resources to speak of except for gorillas. Which are pretty cool. Which are pretty cool and which do fuel a tourist business, but that is not really enough. Right. So the fact of the matter is that, you know, policy does matter. Entrepreneurship can be encouraged. And The United States, which has so many other issues in its political relationships, this happens to be one arrow in our quiver that is almost always, successful.

Well, for me, one of the many things about entrepreneurship as a foreign policy tool is that it is completely bipartisan. In fact, I would bet that, you know, Donald Trump would actually classify himself as an entrepreneur, call himself an entrepreneur. Certainly those around him, would would would call call him that. So this is another this is another example where the concept is kind of a win win and bridges many many chasms, including the one that we are living through right now in America. So I believe that, the the the importance of this is as great now and frankly, I hope that the recommendations I make in the book for how the US government can do this better, because, you know, as a business person who came into the government with, you know, thirty five years of business experience and having been an entrepreneur and all of that and then came into to the state department, you know, people would say to me, what's it like working on entrepreneurship at the state department? I'd say, what's easy? The state department is the antichrist of entrepreneurship. It is it is it is the antithesis in every respect. And that is true. And that needs to change. And so, this administration is about change. So by the way Exactly. By the way, I I don't necessarily think the State Department is the right place for the function to be based, but in the US government somewhere, I talk a lot about the Overseas Private Investment Corporation as being a better Okay. Headquarters.

Well, the six the six plus six model that that you mentioned is sort of my particular version, and it's by no means the only version. But it's my model for increasing startup activity in any economy. And by the way, it works in in, you know, in Maine just as well as it works in Malaysia. So it's it's not it's not ge That's a bold claim. That's great. It's not geographically specific. And and basically what it says is that there are six categories of activity and six categories of player that have to be involved in entrepreneurship promotion programming. If you only do one thing, if you only start a fund, a venture fund, or if you only start a business incubator, or if you only do a business plan competition, which is what a lot of people do. Oh, I've seen that before. Yes. Those one shot solutions almost never move the needle in terms of increasing startup almost never move the needle in terms of increasing startup activity. It has to be a holistic approach. And the the way I describe that approach is the six plus six model, which book talks about. So all the programs that I do are, in the consulting work that I do now, that I do are, in the consulting work that I do now, which I I've done after the State Department and which I do in addition having written the book at Brookings, is, comes from that model. Six categories of activity: identify, train, connect, and sustain, fund, enable public policy, and celebrate entrepreneurs. Six categories of players: corporations, foundations, universities, NGOs, investors, and government. And each of those has a role to play in each of the six categories. So it's a complete interwoven, kind of mesh. I work through a three step process called diagnostic design and implementation. The analogy I use is it's it's very much like being a doctor. A doctor every human being on earth has exactly the same anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry. So anybody who goes to medical school, wherever they are on the planet, is learning the same dataset. How well they learn it is a function of how well they were taught, how smart they are, all of those things. But the data to be acquired is static. I mean, evolving but fixed. Similarly, the the the remedies in the medicine cabinet for ailments are fixed though they also evolve all the time as new things are discovered. But at any moment in time, there are certain number of remedies for certain illnesses or diseases that are available to prescribe. Yet the actual treatment regimen that a doctor uses for any two people who have exactly the same ailment will be different because the two people have so many other things going on. So the same is true in the work I do. The the entrepreneurship diagnostic is the same. The six plus six model is the same. The tools in the medicine cabinet are the same, but the actual plan, the treatment plan is different. And that is what, I think is so important both for development institutions like the World Bank and USAID. I think it's also important frankly, because the book is is subtitled investing in a startup culture for security and development. If you if you take the the premise that I do, which is the single biggest cause of violent conflict is joblessness, then the corollary to that is one of the single biggest cures of violent conflict must be job creation. And therefore, who is in charge conflict must be job creation. And, therefore, who is in charge of violent conflict in the country? It's DOD, which is also where we spend the largest amount of government, money or at least of of,

Oh, there are lots. I mean, you know, Colombia, is a place, right now that is Colombia, Jordan, Tunisia are all examples of countries that are very much to me in a fragile state where they're at the tipping point between coming making progress and going forward or going backwards into violence. All three of those countries I just mentioned have not only entrepreneurship activities underway, but people who are trying to to help them from the outside as well. In the book, I talk about Singapore and Jamaica as two examples. In 1965, Singapore and Jamaica were essentially identical countries. They were both, former British colonies that had just become independent. They had exactly the same population. They were island countries of exactly the same size, and they had identical per capita income Wow. In 1965. Wow. Jamaica and Singapore.

entrepreneurship and the the things that go with it. It's not and it's not, you know, that's why I have this chapter, a million reasons it's good for you. Entrepreneurs tend to agitate, for example, for more transparency in government. They tend to agitate for intellectual property and other regulatory reforms. They tend to to support education reforms because they require educated people to work in them. They tend to provide a step up for women, girls, and those not born to privilege who otherwise would not have a lot of options in most societies. They tend to provide the the the most important bridge between innovation and commercialization. Without entrepreneurs, innovation stays in the lab. So there are lots and lots of benefits of entrepreneurship besides the the key one that I focus on, which is job creation.