The Lawyerly Society vs. The Engineering State: Who Owns the Future?

I want people to get out of these rigid frameworks like socialist, capitalist, neoliberal, autocratic to think about the US and China. I want both Americans

as well as Chinese to demand better from their government. What works really well

their government. What works really well in China and what do we have in the US right now? There is no winner here.

right now? There is no winner here.

There is no loser here. It's not a race.

Nobody gets to hit the win button. We

should be having some sort of better synthesis.

Dan, the book is Breakneck. It's a New York Times bestseller in just under two weeks. Congratulations. Thank you. Um,

weeks. Congratulations. Thank you. Um,

what is the conversation that you hope to to to create with the book? What do

you want people to take from it?

I think that I want people to get out of these rigid frameworks like socialist, capitalist, neoliberal, autocratic to

think about the US and China. I want

both Americans as well as Chinese to demand better from their government.

We're sitting here now in Silicon Valley. Um, not far away is the

Valley. Um, not far away is the California highspeed rail project meant to connect San Francisco and uh uh Los Angeles. It's been more than 15 years

Angeles. It's been more than 15 years since voters approved this referendum to uh build this train. How many people have taken this train? Uh, precisely

zero. uh Silicon Valley it works really well in all sorts of ways and doesn't work well for most people and so I want people to in America to demand better

from local governments and I want China and I want Chinese to feel like they can have live in a government that respects individual rights and respects their own individual creative flourishing.

Yeah. And one of the framings you add to this book that I think is the meme that's become more most popular from it is is uh the competition between you know America being a society of lawyers the political class and and China more engineering and and the different

cultures there. Um Stephen I know you

cultures there. Um Stephen I know you found that that sort of breakdown remarkable. Why don't you talk about

remarkable. Why don't you talk about that? Well, I in a lot of ways I I bring

that? Well, I in a lot of ways I I bring it back to the way that um that we frame companies often and we see companies in

Silicon Valley as like startups and we see startups as being founderled and we quite often I wouldn't say exclusively but near exclusively see them as as the

product or engineering people particularly in this AI era we see them as the engineering people and we we then see the big companies as somewhere along along the way making this transition to

being MBA which in a lot of ways is kind of lawyerled. It's it's they're led by

of lawyerled. It's it's they're led by the rules of a system and arbitrage of those rules rather than breaking the rules with new bits of technology. And

so I see that and and I you know we we see it in how the companies even have reacted to AI where all the big companies immediately went to the government and basically said regulate us which to me is the lawyer culture

right like what it was it literally blew my mind that companies would start off before this technology is diffused before anybody knows about it thinking regulate us

and and yet there we were. So I do see that similarity. I wonder how many A6Z

that similarity. I wonder how many A6Z companies have been led by lawyers.

Number's probably not zero, right?

Uh well, I'm actually on the board of a company of software for lawyers that was co-founded by a lawyer by coincidence, but not very many. There are people with law degrees, but they often have

engineering undergraduate degrees. Okay.

Or or they were lawyers and then immediately just made the leap to being operating executives in startups.

Yeah. You you mentioned in your opening that you want America and China to both demand better their governments. Why

won't you flesh that that out a bit more? Some people point to this

more? Some people point to this convergence or or say that hey we we are borrowing from each other. Not

necessarily always the the best things but why don't you talk about that too?

Yeah. So what works really well in China? I think it is the uh urban living

China? I think it is the uh urban living experience and the countryside living experience day-to-day life uh functions really really well. So, I was living in Shanghai, China's most functional city,

where everything pretty much works. You

go outside, subway stations are not very far. There's dense commercial areas. The

far. There's dense commercial areas. The

shops stay open past 8:00 p.m., which is not something you can say necessarily about San Francisco. Um, and the uh train and the uh park systems all work

beautifully. In the Chinese countryside,

beautifully. In the Chinese countryside, the a lot of the remote villages are still really well connected by bridges, by highspeed rail, by highways. And in

the US countryside, there's basically roads and cars and almost nothing else.

Okay, so that's what works really well in China. We have uh really functional

in China. We have uh really functional logistical systems. We have really functional uh urban cities um that are have good order. And what do we have in the US right now? Well, again in Silicon

Valley, this um infrastructure here is not really wonderful. Um and what we what Silicon Valley does have, what we have here is, you know, companies worth trillions of dollars, which is not

something that any other country is able to claim. Um here, uh we have uh really

to claim. Um here, uh we have uh really functional wealth creation. We have um people who are able to drive a lot of corporate value. And what I'm really

corporate value. And what I'm really hoping for is that there could be a little bit of learning um between each other such that why shouldn't Cal Train work a lot better than it does? Um why

shouldn't it be much more possible for workers to take the train uh to go from Silicon Valley to New York, I'm sorry, from Silicon Valley to San Francisco? Um

and uh I hope that the Chinese government could actually respect its entrepreneurs, respect entrepreneurial drive, not try to crush uh anyone who is out of line with government directives.

And that's that's where we should be having some sort of better synthesis.

Yeah.

Yeah. To I don't want to say it in such a cliche way to push back on it, but there is also one of the the things that you experience when when living in China too is you you know you

you see the the workforce like particularly in the factories in Shenzen. There are the rural people and

Shenzen. There are the rural people and they're not allowed to just move like they they can temporarily relocate for work and then the state sort of requires

them to to go back and in a sense they they are forced to repatriate what they earned as a salary in the rural community. And so I I do think that some

community. And so I I do think that some of the things that are but that also is a huge benefit like it's an immense benefit. It's what enabled their whole

benefit. It's what enabled their whole system to work. But here the cities are more attractive. If they were all

more attractive. If they were all allowed to move to the cities, they would love to move to the cities, but they're not allowed to. So, how do it's challenging to sort of navigate this

take the best of both or to learn when you have to look at the even the best part has some parts that are that would be rejected here.

Yeah. Well, the Chinese state has restricted a lot of rural people from going into the cities for quite a long time. is known as the hook system, the

time. is known as the hook system, the household registration system that um stops a lot of rural people from going into schools to access better education

or healthcare. I think a lot of that has

or healthcare. I think a lot of that has um been loosened in the last couple of years, especially if you're in a place like Shenzhen, which is much more welcoming towards migrants. And I think

one of these other big um differences between the US and China, is that in China, the cities generally work pretty well and people really want to go into the big cities. in the US, well, people

would much rather live in their suburbs and the cities aren't necessarily very pleasant. And what I would love for um,

pleasant. And what I would love for um, you know, American cities is to be much more pleasant and allow a lomeration and for people to be able to afford San Francisco, afford New York and feel like

they can take mass transit there in a safe way and go eat some dumplings past 8:00 p.m. or eat some sandwiches,

8:00 p.m. or eat some sandwiches, whatever else. You're right how we're a

whatever else. You're right how we're a sort of lawyerly society on on the political level and yet we have you mentioned you know some of the the best companies in the world and the best entrepreneurs in the world you know but what is it about our sort of government

that even Elon Musk couldn't you know help solve some of the the budget issues and how do we what is the potential path such that the law society won't sort of

you know crumble or or sort of collapse strengthen sort of the the engineering one yeah I think Elon is a pretty interesting guy I'm I'm sure um you guys

have more thoughts and interactions um with Elon. I think that um maybe the

with Elon. I think that um maybe the tragedy with Elon has been that he has been focused so much on cutting costs uh focused on personnel rather than um

regulatory red tape. And I think that personnel costs are not a giant aspect of um America's budget. And arguably we need a lot more personnel in order to

you know process drug discoveries and make the FDA uh much more efficient process high-skilled immigrant visas uh and have a much more functional

government. And I think it is a little

government. And I think it is a little bit tragic also that um Elon was um focused on reducing aspects of the government that he didn't like rather

than conceptualizing um how to build great projects inside the government. So

if I'm thinking of something like you know some of the great achievements of America over the past century I would offer projects like the Manhattan project the Apollo missions were which

were absolutely an element of the technological sublime which had so much inspiration uh for so many people and these were engineeringled projects

within the government um with a military component as well and you know I think it would be much more interesting if um Elon actually went in to try to do something like hat. Um, but what do you guys think about, you know, why Elon

couldn't have cut through a lot of the morass with the regulations?

Well, I think just on your question, the the Manhattan project, what is the incentive? It seems like more and more

incentive? It seems like more and more is being privatized. So, why would the best engineers in in in in the country um you know, work for sort of an initiative where there isn't that same level of upside, not just upside, but

also autonomy and you know, why would do they want to be sort of, you know, it seems like outside the system is is is just working better. Yeah. Well, uh,

maybe we need a degree of patriotism and national security, um, consciousness because pretty sure the Manhattan Project engineers had better things to do than go out in the desert of New

Mexico and, uh, work on this thing in pretty confined environments and we're making a lot of money.

That's on the upside. But then, how about could Anderrell have built within even just the feasibility like effectiveness of of it, you know? Yeah,

I mean it's definitely the case that the prime contractors through the Department of Defense are not really inspirational places to work and absolutely I think there should be um efforts outside of it

but you know outside of just you know building products I would like for many more talented engineering types to go into the government to build all of

these big um engineering projects that we really need things like mass transit things like subway systems things like uh solar wind and transmission itionize to decarbonize our economy. These are

all projects that could have used an Elon to support.

Well, of course, Elon led the leads the country in in solar and in energy in general. And I I think that that's

general. And I I think that that's pretty interesting. It is it is you know

pretty interesting. It is it is you know first of course in Silicon Valley when people want to point to government success I think that the general the first place they land is on the internet itself.

Yeah. But it also shows the incredible strength that is unique which is a a true public private partnership to develop that that involved the

universities private companies and the government itself and a unique way of government funding which was like hey go build this and we don't really have a

goal and I I think that's a thing that you don't often see in China the engineering focus which is we love to build with this very specific goal.

And and I think that you always love to get those strengths of both, but there were these things where sometimes it just seems like you really can't just take the best of both.

Like our we have a very long history of of saddling new initiatives here with too many extraneous things. I mean, and the chips act most recently is one where

if you actually read the text of the chips act, the money came with like an unsolvable set of requirements. like

there there was no way you could actually spend the money. This much had to go to these geographies. It had to employ these kinds of people. It had to do these kinds of things, spend the money in these cities and and that's not

really a partnership. It's like

companies really needed money and they just had to say yes and they really wanted to make a statement by having the money out there.

Yeah.

Which is way different than, you know, when China decides we want to be really good at like security. And this is where the uh focus of engineers typically is

on the result and the t focus of lawyers typically is on the process. And I think the at least the chips act was able to allocate a lot of the money to um the

chips companies before um President Trump is now threatening to withdraw some of that. Um but if we take a look at the other big uh pieces of legislation, bipartisan infrastructure

act as well as um the inflation reduction act, there's been very little by way of infrastructure actually built by the infrastructure act and there's been very little built by the way of

clean technology. And so, you know, I

clean technology. And so, you know, I think the one of these problems that I feel is that the US is trying to do industrial policy um by putting a lot of lawyers in charge. And the lawyers are

still really thinking about their committees. Um they're still really

committees. Um they're still really thinking about their process. And for

China, in the um 20th party congress that concluded about three years ago, what Ciin Ping did was that he elevated a lot of the leaders of China's military-industrial complex, the people

who ran China's crude um space missions, the people who ran China's um biggest weapons companies, and he elevated them to be provincial party secretaries and to be governors. And it's kind of

unimaginable that someone who used to run Loheed Martin um would become a governor of a major state in the US. Um

but rather we have a lot of people from law schools conducting our industrial policy and I think it's just not the right strategy to bring a lot of lawyers to a technology fight.

Well, we in fact we had a president who was a general who warned everybody about having generals defense contractors run the country. So there's a lot of history

the country. So there's a lot of history to to that as well. But what is it? What

what one of the things you write you talk a lot about though are the challenges that engineers bring to running things. And certainly as an

running things. And certainly as an engineer I read that carefully. But I I actually think my view of it is much of

the excitement in at least half the audience of your book is that it points out that engineers are not good at doing at running things. And I think people gravitated

to to that aspect. What what were some of the things you saw or see or experience in China that the engineering mindset really backfires?

Yeah, I think the problem with China is not that they're only physical engineers. If there were only physical

engineers. If there were only physical engineers, there's some problems with overbuilding. There's some problems with

overbuilding. There's some problems with that, environmental destruction, displacing people. But overall it really

displacing people. But overall it really helps to have physical dynamism because you can see your streets, your city, your home get better year by year. The

problem with China is that they are also fundamentally social engineers. And

social engineering uh can be really dangerous because they treat the population itself as just another building material to be torn down as they wish and remolded as they wish. So

I spent a lot of time in my book thinking about uh the one child policy as well as zero COVID which the number is right there in the name. There's no

ambiguity about what the one child policy could possibly mean. And a lot of this ends up being, you know, in the case of the one child policy, this campaign of rural terror that was really

medded out um against female bodies um mostly in the countryside and zero COVID made a lot of people lose their minds and it was um pretty traumatic for especially the residents of Shanghai,

China's biggest city, richest city, uh in the spring of 2022 in which people couldn't leave their apartment compounds over the course of about eight weeks in the spring. And so this is where I

the spring. And so this is where I think, you know, I'm pretty cleareyed about having a state run by engineers, which they feel like they are just making decisions very technocratically.

Everything feels super rational for them. They have the uh state capacity

them. They have the uh state capacity really to enforce a lot of their um big goals. This is where, you know, I I

goals. This is where, you know, I I prefer not to have anything like one profession running everything. I think a healthier society would have not only lawyers um completely overrunning the US

Congress right now. I think there's something like 47 US senators who went to law school and one has had any uh degree that resembles a STEM degree.

Instead of just being purely dominated by engineers or lawyers, let's have a few economists. Let's have a few

few economists. Let's have a few entrepreneurs. Let's even throw in a few

entrepreneurs. Let's even throw in a few dentists in there. That's that's not so bad.

We have a couple doctors. We we actually do.

Excellent. Well, but it is interesting because that is a thing that that you know earlier just mentioning how we have these technology founder-led people, but

very often and I actually think there's a prepoundonderance of this there's a a ying and yang actually of of a technical

founder and the non-technical or the the socially oriented or businessoriented co-founder. And I I I think I would

co-founder. And I I I think I would agree that our our policy directives sort of lack that a balance of any kind.

And it's and it's very interesting and how much we're structured around the procedures of the law. Like so much of unable to build the the highspeed rail has just been the law.

Yeah.

Like and and it's the law used to prevent building as you know and and the chips act. It

was the law that sort of said, "Well, here's all this money except use it this particular way," which is not how engineers would have thought of of the problem.

It's a definitely a double-edged sword.

You can't build companies worth trillions of dollars without having legal protections and intellectual property protections. On the other hand,

property protections. On the other hand, um any uh fool is able to hire a lawyer to stop a project that he or she doesn't like. And so I spent a lot of time

like. And so I spent a lot of time looking at quite a lot of these projects that California really tries to build.

Um I spent a lot of time thinking about this in particular this uh expansion plan by UC Berkeley to try to you know let more people attend and get educated on its um inside its excellent

classrooms. And it was trying to build a student dormatory on this vacant lot.

And homeowners nearby put up their hands and said yeah well maybe we shouldn't um let students move here. Has the states sufficiently

move here. Has the states sufficiently studied the idea that students constitute some sort of noise pollution?

This park, it was a tiny little park.

It was a tiny little park and I think they had some affordable housing units in there as well, but they were alleging that the state didn't study sufficiently the problem that um students are pollution. And we have all these very

pollution. And we have all these very strange things in which, you know, often when I'm in New York, often when I'm in uh San Francisco, I

live around Vaness Avenue. Vaness Avenue

has tried to add a bus line uh onto the avenue for something like 20 years. It

took about 20 years more or less to add a bus lane. Um that's these are the sort of things that are kind of really crazy and often it is people hiring environmental lawyers to stop what are

you know should be pretty innocuous projects. You you mentioned early in

projects. You you mentioned early in this conversation how you're trying to move past sort of simplistic uh explanations like or sort of terms like you know socialist or capitalist to describe the differences in the country.

How should we interpret sort of socialism with Chinese characteristics especially as we think about the term in the US like say more about what it means to them?

uh socialism with Chinese characteristics represents to me um a couple of things but you know first and foremost I'll say um that you know socialism with Chinese characteristics

represents a lot of discretion by the state to take control of resources and uh do with it what it will so you know I think Karl Marx did not write that much

about um redistribution a lot of it ended up being about public ownership of critical goods and if we take a look at China's economy um still there's a giant state sector in

which some of the most important industries in um China are owned by the state. So all of these upstream

state. So all of these upstream strategic industries like telecommunications um airlines um energy essentially these are always organized by three giant

stateowned companies that control pretty much the entire uh state of the of the business. And so um this is partly why

business. And so um this is partly why if you go into the countryside in China, they're not giving much cash handouts to ordinary people. In China, I think they

ordinary people. In China, I think they still have this socialist mindset that every um act of spending by any personal um household is kind of this capitalist

act of consumption while any big infrastructure project is this noble strike in favor of socialism. So, China

provides a pretty threadbear uh welfare net. Um it does not provide much by way

net. Um it does not provide much by way of distribution. Um Cinping often sounds

of distribution. Um Cinping often sounds like Ronald Reagan when he denounces people for um ex relying on welfare and for being too lazy. That's exactly

right. And so, you know, this is um and so so first and foremost, socialism with Chinese characteristics means that the state it is the state's pleasure to decide how to spend most of the country's resources. The other part of

country's resources. The other part of socialism um with Chinese characteristics that I um offer, this is not at all a standard definition um in the political science literature is I

take a look at some of these um highly competitive industries in China. And um

I take think a lot about something like the solar industry in which most of these solar uh companies are extremely competitive um offering not highly differentiated products uh and um you

know competition is absolutely miserable. So the solar company margins,

miserable. So the solar company margins, profit margins are pretty minuscule. The

investors make very little money here.

On the other hand, China owns pretty much 90% of this industry. Everything

from the polysilicon processing down to um module assembly. And so that is a national success for the state and I think Chinese firms have um inarguably driven most of the innovation in terms

of um pushing down costs uh in terms of solar as well. So, you know, socialism with Chinese characteristics also means to me um investors and uh companies kind of lose. They're pretty miserable.

of lose. They're pretty miserable.

Consumers win and the national government wins. But Stephen, I want to

government wins. But Stephen, I want to ask you a little bit about some of these competitive dynamics that you saw in China. A lot of it is pretty cutthroat

China. A lot of it is pretty cutthroat competition. Can you offer some um

competition. Can you offer some um thoughts from your days at Microsoft about what sort of competition that you saw? Well, I think that the the thing

saw? Well, I think that the the thing that jumps to mind relative to competition is of course one of the things you you had alluded to earlier, which is that in the US you rely on a

legal framework for a lot of competition. And it works both ways. It

competition. And it works both ways. It

it it protects what you have, but it also gives the government the right to to take away what you have if it becomes too big or too successful. And I I think

China is very good at the taking away part. and they they by design as part of

part. and they they by design as part of the socialist capitalist view don't really view intellectual property as the most important thing. And so in

particular for for the software industry that was hugely problematic because the software industry itself is just an intellectual property business. And in

your book you write about China never really hasn't exported the arts and entertainment very much yet.

Correct. And that's also because there's not a lot of intellectual property protection. Like if you invented an

protection. Like if you invented an incredibly cool Marvel con comic universe in China, you wouldn't have any real protection to be able to maintain it. Like people could just copy it. They

it. Like people could just copy it. They

could own all your merch, copy all your merch, and the economics of it go away.

And I've always found that particularly interesting. And then of course at a

interesting. And then of course at a very granular level like you you literally don't when you do business in China you you don't have trade secret

and you're you're just in the office and there's the CCP members that work in your office that you're forced to employ that report back to what's going on and

you have no say in that like at the level of like they get to walk into your data center and they get to log on to any system and that's that's the cost of

of doing business. It's sort of like in the US, you open up a restaurant, the the food inspector can show up at any point and walk around the kitchen all they want, except when it's a data

center and the goal is not safety for the consumers but security for the state. It it's a sort of a different a

state. It it's a sort of a different a different kind of challenge.

When you were hiring a lot of engineers in China, um what were you looking for?

How hungry were they? Were they dynamic?

How Yeah, that that's a great a great thing to really see and you you you do see some of this in the US, but in in China, like in particular, like

the example I always use is is um I start from the Consumer Electronic Show and you you go to one part of the show where all the component makers are and

you want magnets like to to put your MagSafe adapter on and there's 500 companies selling magnets and you walk up to any one of them and you just take the slightest bit of interest and

they're whipping out a dealbook and they are hungry to not just like I talked to a guy last CES and CS on my mind because it's it registered this week but um he

made uh cases for iPhones with with chargers and magnets and stuff in them and he was like what do you not like?

Have you looked at all the competitors?

Have you seen the one from this other company? They suck, right?

company? They suck, right?

We How many do you need? And you're like asking like like I'm just a guy. Like I

don't even my badge doesn't say like buys lots of cases. Like it says nothing that would indicate I'm about to write a check for 300,000 units of a iPhone

case. But booth after booth, no matter

case. But booth after booth, no matter the size of the component or what you want and and and it's very different than in the US. You go to a US company at a trade show and you sort of show

interest. They know if you're a

interest. They know if you're a qualified buyer or not just by how you look and carriers and they're not going to talk to you. Like I watched a a guy just fall in love with this um this uh

iPhone container that looked like Darth Vader or something last year and he just wouldn't shut up. He thought it was the coolest thing ever and they were literally about to give him an order of one, right?

Just to do business with the guy and see where it led. And that hunger is is definitely a novel thing. And I we saw it when we were building Surface and we

could just watch the component people, you know, basically fight over the business and they fight as, you know, the PC industry grew up in Shenzen and they have these factories where like you show up and if you commit to building,

you know, 100,000 laptops, they will build you a building and they will keep all your IP in the building. They will

not cross employees over and they will promise you the very best. And that's,

you know, like Quanta, a company in Taiwan that does that.

And I I think I think that hunger is is definitely a thing you just don't see here to that degree.

Why not? What's the deal? Why aren't

people more hungry? Why won't they build our factories?

Well, the building the factories is is probably a different, you know, I'm not here to represent all of America and and what goes into it. But I I do think that the the factory thing I I view is a very

subtle and interesting point. It's also

one where the parties have completely switched roles over over the past 30 years or so. You know when China entered the World Trade Organization this was a

milestone I I would say for earth you know it was a huge immense deal for China and but the the earth was like I I don't remember what the phrase was in the book I I think you you called it

like it was consistent with the elite agenda or or something like this and and it was like the oh consensus it was the elite consensus that China entering the world trade organization was the right

thing and not one person in Western Europe or in the US thought, "Oh, this could be a problem." Like, it was, in fact, it was like, "This is the greatest thing ever. It's the true

global Star Trek one economy where everybody just practices art all day and we all just it's great." and and it really created this what I would think

of in the in a not the most positive way but like this private equity phase of American business which was all the businesses just said how do we get rid

of our factories cuz like we can't employ people because they were busing people in from rural China to work for small wages every day and busing them back and we can't compete with that and

they're committed to low price high volume and so you know It starts with t-shirts and socks and then it gets to radios. And you see this all over Asia.

radios. And you see this all over Asia.

You see even Japan saying, "Well, we could make Sony TVs in China." And you could see LG saying, "Well, we could do our industrial products in China." And

meanwhile, the US is like, "And we could do cars in Mexico and in Canada." And so everybody took that moment in time to say, "Well, how do we make the leanest

profit-making engine in in the US?" in

the first way is you just don't do you don't own manufacturing and and I I think now everybody is coming to sort of regret this. The

question I have for you is I feel like on that one you the book kind of plays both sides of it. It says on the one hand the US has to manufacture stuff but

on the other hand it will never compete.

It can't catch up. So what is the right answer to that? Not the right. I mean,

that's unfair to burden you with the right answer for that, but I'm going to burden you with the right answer for that. But let me um offer that um what matters is kind of um

direction as well as intent. So um you know, right now, last I checked, China's uh share of its economy dedicated to

manufacturing is about something like 26 27%. And um for the US it is about 10

27%. And um for the US it is about 10 11%. And so fine, you know, the US is a

11%. And so fine, you know, the US is a pretty rich country. Um, it it labor force doesn't really want to work be busted to factories and work for small

wages every single day. But why doesn't the US try to achieve let's say Japan or German levels of um, you know, manufacturing as a share of GDP which are closer to 20%. Yeah. And so I don't

think there's any natural law that says that um you know manufacturing as a share of US GDP should only be about 10%. Let's try to get it a little bit

10%. Let's try to get it a little bit higher. Let's try to get workers um

higher. Let's try to get workers um quite a lot more excited about um building all sorts of um products. Let's

try to have the government actually create functional infrastructure such that our ports work much better than they do, our trains work much better than they do, our trucking systems. That's something that China does really

well. It invests in all sorts of port

well. It invests in all sorts of port infrastructure. It invests in all sorts

infrastructure. It invests in all sorts of power production. So they have the nuclear power in order to build a lot of stuff. And so infrastructure, the

stuff. And so infrastructure, the government absolutely does have a good role to play here in terms of creating all of these public goods. And then it's also up to the entrepreneurs to decide

that well making products is really really exciting and we should try to you know build a little bit here. And so

when you have um you know a little bit more of these if we treat technology as more of a um aesthetic project as more of a political project that's really the sort of direction that I that I want to

take things. I don't think there's a

take things. I don't think there's a level that we can possibly target. Um

but right now it doesn't seem still all that interesting for many people to build. The other part that China does

build. The other part that China does right, I think is that it hasn't been so focused on this idea that, you know, um there's this line, I think that's kind of attributed to Tim Cook, that

inventory is evil. We just got to get products out the door. We shouldn't keep them all um in in stock, have lean manufacturing. And when China had a

manufacturing. And when China had a crisis, as it did in um 2020 with the COVID pandemic, when it had a production issue, there were a lot of pretty inefficient um stateowned enterprises as

well as um you know entrepreneurial firms that had a giant workforce that had a lot of slack in the system and they were quickly able to retool to build masks and cotton swabs and

American companies were unable to do that because they had lot let a lot of their skills atrophy. They keep a pretty lean workforce. This workforce is hyper

lean workforce. This workforce is hyper well adapted and optimized for one particular task and they can't really easily retool and reskill pretty quickly to confront an emergency. And so, you

know, this is where I want to um encourage us firms to build in a little bit more buffer both in terms of inventory as well as labor because you never really know when there might be a crisis and that that might strike and then you don't want to be hyper

optimized for one thing. Yeah, I think that's a that's a fantastic a fantastic point and it it it sort of feeds into the that evolution that happened at the

start of WTO. I mean, it was it what rose for that was this whole lean manufacturing which actually came out of Japan and the idea of like how do you minimize the not just the length of the

assembly line but the stockpile of inputs at the beginning of the assembly line. But one thing I do think that that

line. But one thing I do think that that as because you mentioned Tim Cook, I would say something that Apple does uniquely, which in this environment they they aren't getting enough credit for is is

almost like how do you even count the engineers versus the manufacturing people? Because even at Apple, the

people? Because even at Apple, the number of people that really are manufacturing people, they just happen to work in Certino and fly to Asian locations a lot is very, very high.

thousands and thousands of people as part of the company. And I I think that the reason that Apple products are what they are is because they don't see this this line that people saw in the 80s or

the '90s with the WTO of manufacturing is, you know, rural people on a bus doing the same operation 12 hours at a shift and then smart people figuring everything out in the headquarters.

Apple s sees much more of a continuum.

And I think where American industry really didn't do so great was it very quickly snapped to small number of people in headquarters that are the brains and there there's just too much of a distance to what's made and that's

what happened with the PC industry. Like

all PC laptops basically became the same because not just the manufacturing but the design and the innovation and the origination all came from the factory.

And so to use your the came from the engineers, not the designers or the MBAs or the lawyers, right?

And the engineers making a laptop are going to make it for efficiency. And

they're in fact were responding to and the same happened with American cars.

Like American cars, you know, like no one your brain says, you know, an SUV and a tiny little compact car should share as many parts as possible. But an

engineering outsourcing brain says, well, for efficiency sake, we should use the same turn signals and all. So, I had this tiny car with this giant turn signal cuz it was the same one they used throughout the whole Chrysler line, you

know, which made no sense at all, but that's that's efficiency and that's what an engineer says, right?

I want to ask if there are lessons that we can take or analogies from further back in history. So, uh let's look at Japan and how they built a manufacturing economy. What what are things that you

economy. What what are things that you think are are resonant with with how China has done it or what are things that maybe maybe not so much? Yeah, I

think that the biggest difference between um Japan and China is that I mean first of all I think the um

Japanese are much more meticulous and they have um done um you know I think on average just a much higher quality of um

production starting out. You know the the Chinese kind of started out really poor and then they got a lot better and the Chinese and the Japanese tend to be much better um throughout this process.

But I think the um maybe that's just a matter of opinion, maybe that's just a a qualitative measure that is a little bit difficult to quantify. But I think the crucial crucial difference um between

Japan as well as China is that Japanese companies were making mostly um Japanese product for exports and it didn't have that much foreign involvement um in

Japan making something like you know the Nintendo products or the Mitsubishi products. um that was almost all

products. um that was almost all Japanese value ad and China took a pretty different approach in part because of WTO accession that um Stephen um is right about is was tremendously

important. So um China realized that it

important. So um China realized that it was so far behind the technological frontier. It couldn't possibly produce

frontier. It couldn't possibly produce anything like game consoles or memory chips that Japan had already been really good at. And so um China was really

good at. And so um China was really welcoming of foreign companies, companies like Microsoft, companies like Apple and companies like Tesla to build

factories in China and then um have Apple engineers come over, train a lot of people, bring their managerial talents, um bring their design talents

and then mostly assemble at the start um components that were coming from the US and Japan and Germany and Korea and only provide the labor involved. olved in um

producing these sort of products. That

was not the case with Japan. um Japan

was already producing um really high-quality products at the start and China was um much more excited about welcoming foreign investors and you know even today there are still a lot of

products um from Apple as well as Tesla that are being produced in places like Shenzhen and Shanghai uh for export and I think the Chinese approach is uh going

to avoid a lot of the problems of Japan in the past um because Japan really had been locked into its own model. um it is um you know suffered what we call galopagos syndrome in which it wasn't

really um you know adapted well for other markets and uh Japan was u much less integrated than China is today.

Stephen, you have a prop that you want to show us about something with Japan.

Well, I think it's super I I love this point in that you make in the book about about quality and and what you just reiterated here. And I also think one

reiterated here. And I also think one thing that that we tend to underestimate in the west so to speak is the degree to which the the South Asian countries are

incredibly focused on each other. like

they everybody in Beijing knows what's going on in Tokyo, knows what's going on in Seoul, is paying attention to Singapore and they really are keyed in.

And I when I was living in China, that was the biggest thing I saw, which was, you know, China was very proud that Sony was coming to open factories in China

for foreign investment and build TVs. and and so Sony didn't quite realize it, but what had happened what was happening to them already was that Korea had

already seen how Japan was successful with TVs and had already decided LG and Samsung that we're going to win in TVs. And not in a governmentmandated way, but in a capitalist market way. And so

today, the share of TVs, that's LG and and Samsung is super high for export around the world. And that was very deliberate. And it turns out in the

deliberate. And it turns out in the early 2000s, China was already seeing what Korea was doing. And I I would meet with the CEOs of the electronics companies like TCL and higher. And I

would think, God, these TVs are awful.

Like they're they would make like these 6-in thick LED TVs, and they were they didn't have the screen technology, and they're like, "We're going to win in this." And

they were also going to beat Intel, and they were going to beat uh HP or whatever in making computers. But it

would the thing that's interesting in today's view of things is there are a lot of people who who aren't as worried about China.

And part of what they think about is like well you know we went through and your book does a great job of of all the reasons if you wanted to believe that China couldn't be successful you know the demographic problem the financing

problem the R&B problems these are real things that they have to overcome. And

so part of it was I was thinking back to the the 80s and and in Japan and you know like this was this Time magazine cover how to cope with Japan's business innovation.

You should hold that up made in Japan.

And um and it's super interesting because it it to me I feel like I'm on a on like a talk show.

Can you you get that in frame? Is that

working? Yeah. Okay.

Amazing.

And and I think that it's just so interesting. We spent 20 years in the US

interesting. We spent 20 years in the US freaking out about Japan.

Yeah.

And and it it never really won. There

was a brief time when it won. And so I worry that that's exactly the kind of incumbent complacency that can happen with China, which is well, we've been here. We saw this. We're not worried.

here. We saw this. We're not worried.

and and actually all the things you just cited like the goalpost syndrome and the making things only for the Japan market not being welcome to foreign direct investment were were probably the

reasons why Japan is not the leader in electronics today. Yeah, I think that's

electronics today. Yeah, I think that's a really great point about American complacency because America can cite this triumphalist victory narrative that oh well, you know, in the 40s we

defeated Germany and then later on we defeated the Soviet Union and then later on Japan was never quite the economic threat that you know the emperor wasn't going to sell his land and then buy all

of the land in California because that was how much the palace was worth. Um,

and I fear that China is a much more formidable competitor in part because it is just so much bigger. It's four times the population perhaps economy roughly

on par by some measures to the US. It

has a much stronger manufacturing base.

It has some um advantages. It has some disadvantages. But one other advantage

disadvantages. But one other advantage is that the Chinese Communist Party is a very good student of history. It saw

what went wrong with Japan throughout the mostly the 1980s um with all of its economic problems. It really intensively studies the Soviet Union as well as its political failures. It is really intent

political failures. It is really intent not to repeat these sort of mistakes.

And when you combine that with all of other of um China's advantages, what I want to say is that the competition I believe between the US and China will

last for decades. it will not um be solved uh or resolved through any single technology not even a technology as crucial as artificial intelligence. um

they're going to be you know one country will become stronger um let's say if um if China is much stronger um than the US China will feel overconfident it's going to make mistakes and that's going to

prompt the US to try to race faster as well and vice versa and so what I I I think it is just really unlikely that either country will just implode and fail to get back up rather we should be

preparing and thinking about a pretty formidable competitor I yeah I definitely I I definitely agree with that and I and I think that, like I

said, my biggest worry is just is is complacency from our own, you know, like Detroit is the classic example of complacency in the US where, you know, Japan made cars. They they actually used

their lawyers and they went to the government and basically solved their their car problems by having the government either bail them out and or through a combination of just making it

harder for Japan to to do business in the US and sell their cars. Germany. You

know, one of the things that always through the 70s and 80s that surprised Americans was why are there so many German cars all over Europe when they would go visit Europe? And it's like, well, and then you would drive them and it became this big thing. Wow, these

cars are really, really good. And then

we did everything we could to make them expensive. And so now they're the most

expensive. And so now they're the most expensive cars and they have the luxury market, but you know, they don't have trucks. And I and I and I think that

trucks. And I and I and I think that those lessons and then you know certainly like in the world of software you know we spent a long time like thinking I don't know Japan doesn't seem to have its act together on software and

then sure enough here's China marching through oh we're going to make red flag Linux and we're going to make our own CPUs and those have all failed and then one day you're like wow like Huawei

looks pretty good like and I was just I was in Japan last week playing with the Chinese phones which you can't really do here and they're all fine. Yeah, like

like like if they were to be able to sell them here, which you know is a challenge, you know, those phones would all be these share leaders and it wouldn't just be Samsung in the AT&T store, for example.

Yeah. And here's um I mean I wonder if you agree with this proposition that um over the last let's call it 15 years China has gotten a lot better at

software and um over the last 15 years uh the U and um it it is already really good also at hardware and over the last 15 years the US has a lead on software

no question about that but it's uh manufacturing and hardware has not gotten that much better so the Chinese are learning at a much faster rate and patching up their deficiencies than the Americans are. Yeah, we have really only

Americans are. Yeah, we have really only two companies doing a good job on on hardware, which is the constellation of Elon Companies and and Apple and and

after that we run out and so we have all of our bets are are there. I I do think I I will be interested in seeing over time there is a cultural difference and

I I think some of it just comes from the scale and the the wages and the need to appeal to a whole broader economy.

the there is a quantitative difference in quality. Um you know that you you can

in quality. Um you know that you you can really measure on on the Chinese products. I I think that the the phones

products. I I think that the the phones are good. They're like what I would say

are good. They're like what I would say is they're good enough.

Yeah.

But and the software is good enough. And

actually I I think you alluded to like also the buildings are kind of good enough and the bridges aren't going to last as long as the Brooklyn Bridge. You

know, they they're not built for that.

They're not designed for that. And

certainly that was, you know, our apartment was falling apart and it was brand new and we we used to just laugh about this constantly and and but I I think that our challenge is we we don't

have a quantity. I mean I like I thought it would be good people should understand the scale of China. I know

that sounds like a cliche but I don't think people really understand it. So,

let me just put my scale and then you you update it. Cuz when we were first opening up all the Microsoft offices in China, the person we hired to be the the head of China said, um, well, you have

to have an office in every city that's more than 2 million people, which in the US would not be a lot of maybe broad metropolitan areas, but not the cities.

And we're like, well, how many is that?

And they said 30. And we're like, well, there's no country we have 30. We don't

have 30 offices in the US. And but, you know, how about 10 million? Oh, well,

there's just two of those. And so, here we are today and I think there's 18 cities with 10 million.

I mean, that's and and I don't think you could count how many. I mean, 2 million is like a town, right? Right. Right. Yes. Yes. Um I

right? Right. Right. Yes. Yes. Um I

mean, China scale is real and um the sort of broad statistics that I like to highlight is that China is responsible for about a third of manufacturing value

added globally. Um if we take a look at

added globally. Um if we take a look at you know almost any particular industry whether that's structural steel or solar photoics China can represent as much as

90%. And there's a couple of really

90%. And there's a couple of really crucial industries that China has almost a total choke hold over. We saw this most prominently with rare earth magnets

um this year after Trump imposed sky-high tariffs about of about 150%.

China retaliated with not only raising tariffs really high as well, but it suspended exports of rare earth magnets.

And then a lot of automakers across the west started to panic because they couldn't manufacture their cars anymore.

And that's not China's only card. China

is also really dominant in a lot of things that include antibiotics, um, segments of fermented antibiotics, namely ibuprofen, um, and other active pharmaceutical ingredients. China could

pharmaceutical ingredients. China could totally uh constrain the world's ability to make solar uh to deploy solar for for a while. And so this is where I I I'm

a while. And so this is where I I I'm taking a look at a couple of particular industries where they have choke points and they could really hurt the West if it doesn't build enough.

Yeah, I I'm just personally particularly worried about pharma the most and I think that one's particularly interesting because we have all this pressure in the US to light loosen the

regulatory climate for for pharma. But

the problem is China's regulatory climate is is very loose. And I worry about, you know, we we see it all the time with like, oh, you know, people are testing like they went to the CVS and

they got the same antibiotic in three different generics and they're actually kind of not what they say they are or they're not nearly the level of quality that they should be or purity that they

should be. And and so I I think we need

should be. And and so I I think we need to like pharma is the most strategic and important one that we need to build up be because it's the one that also we we

had the highest safety standards in the world for for leading it. And so my hope is that's and it's such a straightforward one in a I mean we used to make them all in Delaware and and stuff and that just seems to have gone

away in New Jersey and that seems to have gone away. A lot of our approach in terms of catching up on manufacturing seems to be around industrial policy and picking winners sort of following some maybe the approach that China and Japan

have have taken to some degree. Do you

think that's the that's the right approach or what would you come in on that?

Yeah well I think industrial policy could be defined as broadly as we like Eric. So um let's just define it really

Eric. So um let's just define it really broadly. This could uh involve also the

broadly. This could uh involve also the creation and deployment of better sources of infrastructure. Um again I come back to not only traditional infrastructure like ports and um you

know railroads that move around a lot of goods but also um China has a lot of um data connectivity. Um they build just

data connectivity. Um they build just enormous fleets of nuclear power stations. Um you know there's something

stations. Um you know there's something like um something like 40 nuclear um plants under construction in the world and 35 of them are in China right now.

And the US is barely building out um enough of the nuclear plants. It's not

um President Trump now is pretty unfriendly towards wind turbines. He

keeps tweeting about this sort of stuff.

Um and uh we industrial policy could also be defined in terms of education um in terms of you know giving more money to some of our most functioning um

university labs or national laboratories to get them to deploy technologies quite a lot better. Maybe it could also involve workforce training. um it

doesn't all have to involve giving um money to Intel. You know, are we even picking uh winners here when we give a lot of money to Intel? Intel hasn't been

doing very well. So, I say that let's um have a broader definition of industrial policy. We don't have to call it

policy. We don't have to call it industrial policy. Let's call it

industrial policy. Let's call it national competitiveness. But right now,

national competitiveness. But right now, I would say that the trend for the US has just not been doing very well. So,

let's try something else.

Yeah. I think and I think to build on what you were saying earlier, I I think the lawyer side of us needs to focus it's just as important to broadly define

it as you know we want these things to happen and we're not going to saddle them with ancillary requirements you know and and so much of of the challenge

has been like oh yeah we want you to do this but we also like rare earths you know rare earths are real challenge it's a kind of a weird name there it's not that there are super rare elements it's that They're they're just called that in

chemistry, but that they're really really difficult to get out of the ground and process and turn into useful products. And our part of the reason we

products. And our part of the reason we don't like doing it here is because of those environmental downsides.

But the flip side is we we we have to be able to do them. And the same with pharma. Like people don't like chemical

pharma. Like people don't like chemical plants near where they live. And we have a lot of history that says that gets to be problematic over time. So we we need to be able to figure out how to get

things done not just by like encouraging but by also putting barriers around the barriers. Yeah. Otherwise people can't

barriers. Yeah. Otherwise people can't invest.

You know, you can't it it all everything turns into sort of commercial real estate where you have to be this very special breed of person that has like a 60-year time horizon to build one building.

And that's and that's really the challenge. I mean with something like

challenge. I mean with something like rare earths, we absolutely need them and they're absolutely super polluting. If

we take a look at some of the rare earth processing facilities around China, the cancer rates are off the charts. In

California, this is a totally nimi state. You know, I can't imagine that

state. You know, I can't imagine that any homeowner will say, "Yes, let's have a rare earth processor in my backyard."

Even in places like Nevada, which is mostly, you know, high which is mostly desert, hot desert, um, you know, there were a lot of protests about putting some nuclear waste at Yaka Mountain and

that was like a pretty remote place, right? So I I I don't see how we get

right? So I I I don't see how we get from here to there. Um a lot of these rare earths discussions that I saw from the Biden administration was let's make the Canadians do it. And so you know

this was not a really ambitious project to say okay well we got to figure out some remote part of California um you know some part of the west where there's a ton of federal land.

The one thing we have is remote. We have

a lot of remote that it's also fairly accessible and it's federal land you know so why why don't we just build there and yet we can't. And yet we can't. So that's the

can't. And yet we can't. So that's the challenge. Yeah. Um Dan, I want you to

challenge. Yeah. Um Dan, I want you to com compare and contrast uh American and China's approach to foreign policy and how that impacts the the the competition as we think about it.

Yeah. Well, America has been a global power for a very long time. Um there's

what let's say 100 countries or maybe 50 countries where there's um um American military bases. there's a lot of people

military bases. there's a lot of people who would um really like the America to the United States to have their back and China um has not built this network of

alliances. It doesn't have that much

alliances. It doesn't have that much trust. It doesn't have that much trust

trust. It doesn't have that much trust even um among its near neighbors um all of whom have something to fear from Chinese power.

There have been a few wars.

There's been quite a few wars. Um and I think for me what um the way that I would characterize um China's foreign policy is that it's very engineer

driven. Um they the way that they

driven. Um they the way that they conduct a lot of diplomacy in Africa and Southeast Asia as well as Latin America is just to go up to these countries and

build some roads, build some light rail, build some ports. And I think for the most part that's pretty positive. Um a

lot of these countries really do need a lot of functional infrastructure. Um,

China is really good at building these at home, but it's found that it hasn't been super good at building um these more locally. It hasn't been able to,

more locally. It hasn't been able to, you know, build effectively and uh cleanly and um, you know, in a way that satisfies a lot of political elites over there. Otherwise, I think that, you

there. Otherwise, I think that, you know, China's um, foreign policy has been not terribly ambitious. Um, a

couple of months ago, there was this minor border skirmish between um, Cambodia as well as Thailand. And so

there were some some troops that died uh in this uh fatal conflict. And was it China that the regional power that really stepped up to mediate uh with that conflict? Actually, it was mostly

that conflict? Actually, it was mostly mediated by I believe Malaysia. So it

wasn't the US or or Beijing that did something about this. This was Malaysia.

Um China has pissed off a lot of um Europeans who are not very happy about Trump by engaging in wolf warrior diplomacy as if insulting these countries is the way to make friends.

That's also been um very very strange.

And in any sort of global conflict, China will have will issue Beijing will issue these statements to say well maybe things between um Israel and Palestine should calm down and maybe you know

Russia and Ukraine should um you know be friends but they also don't really do anything to to have stakes here. And so

I think that um the engineering states uh foreign policy is still mostly to build stuff rather than get really deeply involved in um a way that America has actually achieved and make friends

and build alliances in a way that um America seems to be mostly walking away from now.

Yeah, it's super interesting that I love your characterization of of their foreign policy as engineering. Like if

you go to Africa like take Madagascar which is arguably the poorest country in the world you know like to go see to land in the capital city and go see

chocolate and lemurs you know it's this 100 mile 100 km drive and China came in and and but there's all this aluminum and metals in the same place and China

came in and just said hey we'll build you with a railroad and and the French had built one and then it deteriorated then China came in but the French were colonizing ing the area. Whereas China

came in and said, "Oh, we'll build you a railroad and we're going to just build a village where we live and we won't even bother you." And like literally, you could go if you wanted Chinese food, you just turned left and

you went to the Chinese part of town and they never bothered anybody. And then if you wanted Malagasi food, you they just said, "Hey, come here and we'll give you chocolate and cool spices and stuff."

And they no, they never bother us. And

so in a way they they got the engineering the transaction is I think what the state department the way they say it is it's very transactionoriented.

Here's the train and now we're going to extract and leave you alone. But then

also once the extraction is done or once it's it's normalized then that infrastructure isn't super wellmaintained. It's not expansive

wellmaintained. It's not expansive and and yet the flip side is like countries Latin America saw like what happens when the US came in and so in a sense what I'm hearing and also what I

believe is that the world needs a different kind of foreign policy that is much more to use a Chinese phrase much more of a win-win than than either country currently sets it up to

be.

Sure. Well, the State Department also says that um when China talks about women diplomacy, it's about China winning twice.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's exactly I mean like Madagascar is still the poorest country and now they have sort of half a railroad and less aluminum, right?

You know, speaking about foreign policy, um thinking about the the the short to to medium term here, one of the biggest questions, of course, is is Taiwan in 2027. what are the things you're um

2027. what are the things you're um watching to sort of get a better read on on what what could possibly happen and what's what's your base case on you know how how it plays out?

Yeah. Well, I want to quote from um the great analyst uh Ben Thompson here who recently moved um back to the US from Taiwan and his assessment is that

there's always a lot of risks out there but um in his view the um there conflict between Beijing and Taipei is not

imminent and not inevitable. And that's

kind of my view. I feel like there is no um deadline that um Beijing has issued to say we will seize uh the Taiwan island by 2027. Maybe they want to be

ready to do it. Um but I think you know so long as Beijing feels that the long-term trends favor China and that is their publicly stated position that

China is growing wealthier it's growing more powerful it is um you know getting more confident at the same time um while the US appears to be falling you know

Beijing likes to say the east is rising and the west is falling and perhaps they take some um solace from the messiness of American in society right now in 2025

that um they feel that time is on their side if they have some sort of hope that the Taiwanese could themselves really vote themselves to be part of the

mainland again um that looks pretty unlikely now but maybe they get a um KMT government which is more friendly towards Beijing so long as they um believe in all of that then I think they

have no urgency really to move and I think that the status quo has been pretty robust for the last 75 years now and maybe that could hold for quite a few years longer.

And so you're not worried about some people say because of sort of the demographic situation or because of sort of China's you know sort of economic you know some somewhat slowdown that uh they're going to be forced to to sort of

you know make a hand here while they while they have it. You think it's unlikely?

Yeah, I think that China's demographic situation is a problem uh more in the next 50 years rather than the next 5 years. the slope, the curve of their

years. the slope, the curve of their demographic decline is pretty modest. I

mean, they still have 1.4 billion people or just shy of that now. It's not that many people that they're losing every single year. And their economy, you

single year. And their economy, you know, you can debate what exactly the the number is, but they um publicly say something like 5% growth. And there is still growth there. And there is still

all sorts of, you know, new business creation there and all sorts of um fantastic new technological advancements there. And so I don't think they view

there. And so I don't think they view themselves to be fundamentally weak and that there's a window that they must act in before it closes.

What I appreciate about about the about the book is right now in the intellectual conversation around China, I feel like there's the two extremes where you have this sort of extreme bearishness like the Zhan view of hey because of sort of demographics because

of sort of limitations around food and energy uh you know he thinks they're going to implode in in the next decade.

And then there's the sort of, you know, BI but many others who are like, hey, they have many more people and they're smarter and they're just winning on so many things and it's only going going to compound. And I feel like you have a

compound. And I feel like you have a more sober view uh to some degree, which is, hey, America's got unique strengths and and weaknesses and and China's got unique strengths and weaknesses and it's going to be there is no implosion. Um,

when one side is ahead, the other side will overstep and then the then and then they'll need to catch up. And so I want to say that there is no winner here, there is no loser here. It's not a race.

Nobody gets to hit the win button. Um,

and I think we should just take this as a slow, steady grind that will require all of us to get better in all sorts of ways.

I think it's a great place to wrap. The

book is Breakneck. Dan, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

Thank you, Eric. Thank you, Stephen.

Thanks so much.

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