#AIS: Opening chat with Miami Mayor Francis Suarez
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Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce your best fees, the queen of pin wall, the sult of science, David freeman d, the rain man, David or himself, to a and everyone's favorite city, the pod J.

We open sourcing and.

I cannot believe what .

jay Alice pulled off here.

I mean, I am in sock that this is even real. I, I thought, know where all the money went.

but the amount of money you embezzled. We are witnessing our first terreno s moment, staring Jason calle canas. Guys, I got great news sphere.

I took all the money. I put IT in luna. I haven't checked in him last week, but we were up three x we're gona kill this.

You'll never find the money. I put IT through multiple bitcoin. tumblr. great. going. Be welcome, everybody, by the way, sorry, this is a joke to everybody in the room. But one person sitting over here who is really sweating the accounting of this, he had a pending a beginning. I said, if jack, I was going to do this.

we're going to have a griffard session. We're going to all sit down and we're going to figure where the grip happened because it's going happen. The guy who is always calling out the griffe knows how to griffe Better than anyone else. Figure this out. You know.

half these people .

have the families here. If you guys met them, all the great people.

Are there any calamities?

You are not on the payment finding .

a lot of calcine izis .

here are your biggest supporter defending you from these two fucking. But he finally got into my brain as well. So when I got into the otar room and I opened the bag, I was like, or maybe this cup costs four thousand.

It's very possible, possible. It's a heated cup. It's a heated cup.

Who are we to know? When does I think about a cup?

It's it's like the pentagon or something.

you know I mean.

I like done the supermarkets how much a .

tomato or seven ninety?

I have no idea. I'm sorry, i'm not going .

to pretend I S sex once the last time you feel flew commercial, which George bush was in office.

Bert Walker.

yes, I think obama is .

still office just on the we're so great. Grateful for you all to come here. How many people flew despite a show hands in a woop woop? How many people flew over ten hours? They get here? Oh my god, I mean, it's pretty incredible fans from around the world.

And I just think you it's very special to us that this podcast means so much to you last night and had a little deeper ef. And the thing is said to us, you when we match all, and it's very weird to do a podcast like this, and habit become super popular item two weeks ago, became the twenty six most popular episode in the APP store, which to us was crazy. We did this because we were losing our minds and covered.

And as friends, we couldn't play poker, we couldn't see each other, was very lonely and we did this for ourselves. And the fact that all of you got some value from IT um IT was just remarkable to us, like as a concept. Uh but incredibly um gracious of you all to come here and then to tell us what IT means to you IT just has blown wn us away that people are even tuning ing in to IT.

How has IT changed your life? Freeburg I mean you were nobody. Literally didn't have a twitter account.

We were all early.

very tedious, but only to you. So I mean, I mean, literally, we were backstage and they said, queen of kin wai. And this audience went crazy.

I mean, you're very socially awkward. Tell us what isn't like for you to be famous.

You know appreciate that. But i'll take the the oak. The weird thing is we go into our office for ninety minutes a week and we talk to each other over zoom, and then we go in the room and people want to take picture.

That's what. So like, strange, like we've never done this. We did IT once in person together, right? The pod done IT over zoom. And I was always like a remote, like, so I always just felt like I got A I got meetings on other side.

Let's go to the pod for for ninety minutes and then over sun, it's like, you know people actually fucking listen to us talking to resume yeah, little wet, i'll tell you. But IT was great to meet everyone last night. I think IT was IT was really cool because I heard a lot of stories last night about some dude sold this company for like clicking two billion dollars words. I get that guy and he's just like you yeah yes, he's said he sold this company because of the the call we made on the top of the market is like I took the deal twenty one times revenue there is oh.

oh, who is this guy? Welcome anyway.

everybody.

He was 我的， not the mayor .

of my happy friends. As hard as. So I I take you a eleven just close.

I got to dress like a human being for about an hour of well, IT actually doesn't eleven thousand.

So sorry.

it's twenty four hours. It's not that i've ever been there.

But yes, hey, thanks for a hosting us. We were picking in a place to do IT and you were gracious .

enough to come you um but what an incredible .

resurgence and cording up the tech industry you've done here. Tell us about a little bit about what's happened in the last two years since you started replying to people on twitter saying, hey, if you're running a business, we'd like to help you.

Yeah, sort of a united states of amErica type of approach, right? Fun, fundamentally american, where we want to create hypatia's s in our city. We want to empower people. We want to give people an opportunity being prosperous. And for some reason, in this country, in certain cities that's been frown upon or IT makes you feel guilty about IT.

And here, miami, I were fundamentally shake by our sort of our origin story, right? And many people in miami were exhaust from the country of birth for because in those countries, communist regimes took over. And obviously in those countries a government official is saying, hey, give me your property, give me your your business, and don't worry, I make everybody equal.

And they do make everybody equal. They make everybody equally miserable, so ah you know they accomplish that. And whenever the government wants to grow, you should run in the opposite direction.

And so in miami, we do IT by following some simple rules. We keep taxes as low as humanly possible. And shocker, our budget has doubled in size since we have kept taxes to thousand nine hundred sixty laws. Um we focus on quality of life.

So we have the lost homeless rates in two thousand and thirteen where the first major city, I think in amErica to actually try to get to zero, we want to have zero homes um and we actually invest in safety. You know we actually while all other cities is decrease funding for a police, we have increased funding for a police the most. We have the most police officers and we ever had in our history, by the way, they have the harsh job in amErica right now. Our police officers, and i'm to give you a shocking coral lation. Our crime went down, shocking.

So he added police.

he added police.

and the cry went down.

Yes, I know the wildering. Our homicide rate went down by twenty three percent last year. This year is down by forty percent from the twenty three percent of last year. So almost sixty three percent. So that basically .

the combination of economic prosperity and then safety and security, people are too busy to think about all of the long til things that could be doing to screw up their own lives with somebody else's life.

They're just living a good life. Yeah we have one point four percent unemployment. Um we have number one of the nation wage growth were number one of the nation in tech jobs or number one in tech job migration. They will move two trillion A U M. In the last eighteen months and our VC pipeline room by two hundred percent year over year. And to put that number in context, if IT was a zero sum game and our game was, for example, 3Francis goes loss， which IT may very well be going into the future, in two years, we would overtake 3 ference ces cause， a VC capital of the world yeah to be clear at that rate.

you this is a very liberal city that is welcoming of all people. This is not like you've become some like insane, crazy right wing like till facts. In fact you still are like fine with people living their lives and yes.

we're very much into freedom. Um we're kind of sort of libertarian here in miami and and we want people to live their lives as they see fit. We're not here to tell them what to do.

We're here to create the conditions for their prosperity to the extent that government even get involved in that, right? We we like to stay out of people's business. We try to be efficient, which I know is almost an oxymoron in government, and we try to facilitate people's growth and and success.

That's IT at all. We do tell us about your supporter crypt .

or so when we were trying to create this a buzz and ecosystem, we knew we had to disrupt the natural order of things. And so our hawk, right, our David and goliath sort of sling shot hack was to go out in a cyp. To part of the reason why is, you know, I understood the fundamentals of IT.

I like the fundamentals of IT. You know, I think one of the things that's missing in our society's trust and when you see policymakers, whether the feed or or or the federal government, spending significantly more money than what is taking in, which is creating hyper inflation, we see interest strates going up. And sort of a terrible man, men or woman, inflicted a suffering.

And you see a system that is a design to sort of create trust by making IT um humanism effect. Uh, IT was something that was very attractive. Obviously, the blockchain, I was part of the blockchain foundation, part of blocking ing past force for the state of florida.

So I had sort of education on the technology prior to the moment where I sort of decided to go all in on. And I thought that IT could be a differentiator. Being a Young mayor who understood the attack, who understood that I wasn't taking as bigger risk as people thought I would be taking.

And it's been great for ecosystem. I mean, whatever the Price of bitcoin is that I give a moment is pretty much a little IT. What's important to me is we have the big coin conference.

We have you guys, we have a bit coin conference, which is a tens of millions of dollars and economic development. We brought a tremendous amt of funds and and an exchange. Exchange is the headquarter here, miami, which is created hundreds of hyping jobs and then we got F, T, X.

And name r reno to two hundred million and our gift contribution to our our communities. What it's been something that's benefitted as to the tunes of hundreds of many bars. So regardless of what you think about crypto as a technology, as an economic development tool, it's been game changing for us.

In fact, some curious how you think about what you've seen in this city verses where we all live and Operate in the bay area. I mean, across the country, how do you read the job the mayors done here and what you think the lessons are for the rest of the country?

I think you mayor sore is an amazing job here. And it's something that other city should be looking to emulate, which is simply to be helpful instead of, you know, being an impediment. I didn't event for mays' as in sera, cisco in my home and I was the best attended event. And i've done a lot of polo events. That one we had with you was the best attended event, I think, we ever held. And the reason there is a tremens matic curiosity on the part of people in seven in cisco in terms of what's been happening here and the kind of the thing that you heard over over again by the people who attended the event who had had asked questions, was, why can we have a mayor like you in somewhere disco?

Because I live there actually present in the U. S. Conference of me. So I kind of joking me, say, what kind of, you know, china? But every every city I go to ask me the same question and like, well, I really like me a lot yeah.

I mean, fundamentally, we have not just a mayor, but because the mayor services goes actually not bad. London breeds not bad. The issue is the board of supervisors who really controls the city.

I mean, they've been engaged in killing the golden goose. I mean, cereus go in the barrier. I had a lock on the tech ecosystem.

And as the political forces, they are defined tech as the enemy. They basically have driven IT out. And as a result, you now have emergent tech hubs. All of the nine states, starting with my amy and Austin, another cities like that, and it's kind of crazy services go had the monopoly and IT basically chose to give IT up spending.

IT was a giant graft right there, like 4x budget per capital over new york， like rex is something insane. Maybe me ask a question around. One of the reason silicon valley exists is because of the relationship with the universities in the area.

yes. And obviously, that still to be a big driver for the tech and more recently, biotech economy in the area. A lot of people get their P H, D. They graduate engineering students. They stay in the area, U C, S, F, stanford, berkeley, eta.

How do you think about the relationship betwen universities? What's the kind of um kind of reflective solution here? And are there ships you can maybe build a bridge with california schools to kind of get innovation, how to set up .

the partner with I I would love to know something interesting about sick valley is ninety five percent of people that live in silicon valley not born in ilan um in miami. It's closer at seventy percent of the people that um that I live in the city were not born in the city. I'm actually Normally being the first my borne mayor in the history of the city hundred and twenty five years.

So that's a pretty cool. But I absolutely think that we can look, we're not perfect. I like to think that get up every morning as a mayor, you sort of look at the same professions and you you try as as a long term build right beyond these twenty four months.

You try thinking about one of the structural things that we can do Better. And I think you just hit on one of them, right? I think certainly having a university that at the caliber of the stanford, m, harvard, even ut and George tech at a lot of fan fair in action and in the atland area.

Um and so I think we can certainly do Better. Um and one of these people that likes to be complacent or that seeks that, you know even if we had university, the calibre of some of the universities, i'd be still trying to find a way to do Better. I think the world is high disruptive.

I think higher ed is high disruptive. And I think and it's in our cake, sort of institutional, just a government, right? They are always behind. So I think that, that gives cities like miami, if we're smart, if we find our crypto o for universities, right, we can sort of leap fraud a lot of them and and get to the top very quickly.

I think I I want to ask you as as we up here a really hard question. We are struggling .

out of your mother in poke. I mean.

we have a drug crisis in this country with fan and oah. IT is a super drug, but we have never seen we have this problem in safran cco with homeless and drugs. And you are now running the conference of all the mayors in the country, and you all come to other and IT.

Seems like some cities are figuring out how to deal with this and some are floundering. Is the issue that we're looking at, a superdrug and addiction problem that has very low chance of resolving itself through, even when somebody can get a bed and go to recovery. The recovery rates reference to all our low single digits.

And we're looking at this as if the problem is actually homelessness, that they don't have a home, when in fact, they are dict to a super drug. Why can't we look at this for what IT is and stop conflicting a super drug addiction problem with people not having a home in an economic issue? IT seems like there are some denial going on.

Look, I think that is the numbers of very scared, right? In terms of recovery, it's infinite tesla in terms of people that can get out of that that vicious cycle of fan addiction in miami. What we did about ten, fifteen years ago was we created a network of of facilities that do drug treatment, alcohol treatment, mental health and vocational train all at the same place.

It's called the homeless trust. Um we use, I think gets a cent from it's a basically of tourist tax. People who come in and visit pay a bad tax um when they come and visit a hotel.

IT generates about fifty million dollars a year, which you can bound out. And we created a decentralized of facilities all across the msa. We reduced homeless this by about ninety percent with that network. We're now down to the chronic uh, few that the last ten percent is about a thousand in the county in miami, I in the city, which is one of thirty four cities in the county. We have five hundred and homeless right now in the city and .

know down to the person .

yeah to the person. We we do A A continuous audit and continuous uh census and so we know down to the person. And I think the key for us to go to zero, right, aside from trying to fund the networks, a wish list, which we did with some upper funny that we got, is to really know them at an intimate lover, know their stories, right?

You know, when we first met, you know, things you said was and you don't know someone until you know the story, how do you drill down and how do you get inside and know what is what's the reason why they're there, whether it's a an addiction, whether it's some people just have been homeless for twenty years and they are just used to IT, right? They want a lifestyle. They want to live on the street, and those are the hardest ones because really can't, unfortunately, legally tell them you can live on the street, right? So it's about convincing them that there's a Better path, there's a Better life. There are things out there that can a create more .

happiness for yeah but you have to hold the line as well you do on a policing level like you if you as we've seen in separate just go, if you incentivize IT by not doing any basic policing, you get more of IT.

Here's the issue. I think what people often forget is obviously people are homeless or human beings, and they need to be treated with dignity. At the same time, there are human beings like we are. If any one of us he's recording over there, if one of us just got up and started journey on the stage right now, they would be arrested. They would be arrested.

So so we're held to a certain level of account as human beings where our actions affect others, right? So it's not just about the human person and how we take care of that human being, but it's also how does that human being interact with an effect, everybody else. And I think that support that gets lost sometimes .

in the debate maybe. So I want to ask one question. You focus on the local issues, the city that you Operate, what even happens to the united states, the federal government over the next thirty years? You have any point .

of view where we're headed as a wow, it's that's a long that's a load question.

but I think be running you too when you're planning to do.

I rica also authorizes IT. Look, IT has been .

authorized. You know you are looking at the eight to twelve years from now.

He will be the accel the .

um so yes.

so so that sounds good, by the way. Um I think a few things, I think first of all those three uh three bullet points, if you are three sort of keys to success. Keeping taxes low, investing in quality of life, which is sort of homeless system safety and then you know creating hype in jobs was leaning into an innovation economy. We're transition. That's a recipe for success for the country.

Can the country can we move the train? So we look.

we did in miami in two years. Absolutely we can. I think we have the transition there. There's two inflection points which are massively disruptive. The first is from a an industrial to a digital economy, and the second is from the boomer generation to our generation, right? So those two inflection points are happening at the same time.

If we and what I what that does I call IT a tuna I of opportunity, yes, right? And if we get ahead of the sunni and we serve that wave as opposed to letting the wave run us over, um I think we can create a generation of prosperity. But look, you have you have china and russia banning bitcoin.

Do we want to agree with china and russia anything right now? I don't know you. I don't think so. So you know I think there are tremendous opportunities for us clean into this innovation economy and create prosperity. You have the largest microchip factory in the world being built in columbus, ohio. I think that something that um we need to sort of recent laim our ability to to produce things in the technological industrial revolution, we're seeing bitcoin mining facilities that are done at carbon, carbon neutral. Ah so I think there's a lot of opportunities in this new economy for us to really jump up ahead where skilled labor is going to be a premium over unskilled labor that's going to be done with computers .

or printers or whatever. We appreciate that you are put your life to service of the citizens of this great city. Um and we really appreciate that because you have other opportunities you could have pursued and you're pursuing really changing, uh what is you know some some major diffunce tions in the political system. And we're all rooting for you. The results are undeniable and we really do appreciate you.

ladies gentleman. Ys, I ve.

Your winners.

right, rain man, give.

We open sources to the fans .

and just crazy with. why? why? why?

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