The Man Who Wants To End DEI Forever - Christopher Rufo On Claudine Gay, Tech, Racism, and Diversity
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I am unveiling or revealing the game as IT actually exist. It's really like the devils bargain that executives have made to make sure that their powers points at the end of the year look a little bit Better on demographics. They're really hiring people primarily by I ideology. Christopher rufo is a behind villain nation, his own evil place. I think tech companies are uniquely position to eliminate their d idiocracy now that we're .

in a place where people can stand up and just say that motion.

american greatness, american innovation and creativity, the principle of colorblind inequality, the idea of having a hierarch of merit, talent and virtue rather than ology.

Welcome back to the pog guys. We have a an absolutely epic one today with Christopher rufo. Chris is a senior fellow at the middle institute for policy and genuinely one of the most successful political activists in memory.

I was going to say IT like ever um I think because we're coming at this from a more of a right of center perspective. Um I ve never seen a political activist like you in my life. There are, I think, a handful of reasons why I want to get through all of them um because I think it's fastest.

I think the world you have taken in public life is a new thing and therefore automatically interesting to me. Um it's very effective as specifically there are two kind of road topics. Related topics are banning critical race theory.

I think couple years ago is kind of how you came up. And what you're known for is for forwarding the push against that. But then there's diversity, equity inclusion or D E I, which I consider sort of the proxy of C R T um or sort of C R T in practice a in institutions it's tends to manifest.

And now through the sort of cloudy gate of um most recently that is it's like D I is is the sort of new thing that um that you're going after lot to get into here, I think probably first, thank you for coming on the show. Um second, probably the easiest thing for us before we get into the as we get into the conversation is to start with definition. Tes, um how do you define critical race theory or uh again, as I mentioned, D I can pick up as the practice. Do you agree with that as that kind of roughly think about IT?

Yeah I I think that's about ride. And so critical race theory, of course, as an academic discipline. And the basic narrative that had pushed this is that the united states is a systematic and fundamentally racist country.

All of our institutions preach values and principles like liberty, equality, freedom, but these are merely a mystification where a smokescreen for racist systems that Operate under the surface and the critical races argue that in order to create racial equity, uh, you have to abolish and deconstruct and this mental, all of those institutions. And so you have an academic ideology IT started in elite law schools at trickled to other academic discipline and then into the curriculum of k thr twelve schools by that method of transmission. But in order to make institutional changes in a complex, a bureaucratic society like ours, you also have to figure out um not only the idea, but how IT uh plays out institutionally.

And so uh they had the idea beginning in uh the one thousand nine and seventies to start doing a so called anti racism trainings, critical conscious ness trainings and corporations in such. And this is more th a in a dialect al manner, or in a kind of calling response manner with the ideology you have now, diversity, equity, inclusion as the concrete bureaucratic form. And so you just have to think of what is the ideal form and what is the material form.

The ideal form, let's say, it's critical race theory and its tourist. And then this translates into biocon tic language. This gets passed through the filter of mckinsey consult at powerhouse inside.

Uh, you know, we can't call IT critical race there. We don't want to raise critical consciousness. We don't want to be of marxism.

We need that cartoons inclusion yeah .

so so it's it's the kind of museum tic uh filled turn. And really what i'll tell you IT is at the end of the day is is a place for institutions to increase diversity but but Carrying a lot of those highs into an ideological department that is not uh subject to productivity concerns, subject to to kind of quality concerns. Um it's really A A devil s bark and that executives have made um to make sure that their powerpoint instead the end of the year look a little bit Better on demographics. Um uh um um but you know they're really hiring people who are uh driven from primarily by ideology, not a profitability or public service.

We'd kind of laid out the the problem at this point. Um you are talking and IT sounds like you're saying there's essentially the massively important bureaucratic institutions drop the country from academia to corporations have in the name of diversities are acquired in an in house like political activist group um that's spreading through all of the institution is very sort of a cultural revolution, chinese cultural revolution.

A Jason is definitely give that energy in facing this. And I have a lot of questions today just on on your kind of activism, which is is suddenly unique in in sort of direction that IT is coming from but in its honesty, which again will get into at the moment. Um how would you just sort of characterize your work in the face of this? You so you're looking at the problem.

The problem is political sort of thing that's happening aps aps companies that is systemic racist and uh and sexist. Um it's a quite huge problem. People kind of knew that was a problem for a while.

You were one of the first people who really decided to try and do something about IT, which many people considered. How do you think about that? How do you approach IT?

You know what is your work? Yeah that is a good question. And I think that the question boils down to what is my function? What is the role? What is the part that i'm playing in this national drama? And um i've been criticized uh over the years uh uh for being an activist, has been criticized uh for not being a journalist. And people really want to pigeon hole you in some kind of predefined, predefined role with this largely invisible set of ethical requirements and restraints. And then they can say, well, you're this but not this and so therefore you're violating this unspoken rule and i've always found that so bizarre.

I mean, um you know IT strikes me as the kind of attitude that people acquire when they're used to the escalera or model of building a career a where you you go to this uh university, you get this degree, you move on to this interview, you get this job, you move up and know l one, l two, l three whenever IT might be um and there are these kind of qualified uti zed, uh, bureaucratic imperatives on on the profession. You are you washington post journalists these are the rules. Um you know I don't have that background and I don't have any of those limitations and in fact I reject um those constraint says largely arbitrarily and so uh what I do is is quite a unique mix.

I live in a very small town out in the pacific northwest. Um I have you know I run kind of my own shop according to my own uh a kind of preferences and idio synergy and accent tricity maybe um and so I figured out A A new model of how I like to do things based on my own preferences and and strange and weaknesses. But I do journalism. You know one of the things that is often missed is that all this a work that i've done on C R T, on D E. I, the primary tool that i'm using is journalism and developing sources within institutions and procuring documents. I'm betting in verifying information and then i'm packaging them into reports that I break on twitter, that I published city journal, fox news, new york post, wall street journal um and then I go on television, radio to kind of push these reports to the mass media and then work to then shape that um with a specific political objective in mind that where the activism component content, because i'm not interested in just writing about something, communicating and dead and nerd information and then moving on, I want the the journalistic work to mean something and to uh drive political changes according to the vision and in the principles that I have。 I'd like to see those implemented and so of course.

nobody wants their information to just die and they I think everybody is motivated by everyone who's writing. Every journalist is motivated. Every child is.

I see, whether in politics or in certainly in the tech industry is trying to do the same thing. They're just playing by a different set of like aesthetic rules. They're not saying that they're calling themselves this other thing and they are we're sharing to be Alberta of truth.

Um I think somebody that really are trying to be as fair as they can. I think for the most part, that's not what's happening. Um that's like a little sort of first bucket and that's what your senator IT seems like to me your held against um but then there's an entire other class of left ring activists speak about this in roughly the same way. They're not quite so honest about their actual tactics, but they clearly want to affect change in their sited favorably in the press all the time. So it's like you you're not allowed to be either one of them and in some, you're the sort of strange new position yeah .

that I think that's ride and and I I you know learn to be very honest about IT. And in fact, the more honest and transparent I ban about what i'm doing uh even to the extent how i'm doing IT um I think has been actually in service of those political objectives. And so my measurement of what I do and how I adapt, how I try to um adjust the work that i'm doing, is always am I I reaching the goal, am I um meeting my objectives and I moving the ball forward, uh politically and so um IT creates, um you know for lack of a Better word, a game that that you can play. And so, uh I I I just kind of I enjoy IT, you know, that's that's the thing, a game you get good at, a game that you enjoy, that you have fun with.

And so i'm always trying to figure out what is fun to do, what gets so excited, what you know what what noches those Victories and accomplishments and and you know for me the ultimate prize and and really what I measure my work on ultimately is um know are we getting legislation past? Are we you changing public opinion dramatically in our favor? Are we uh you know motivating elites and and policymakers to change uh uh laws, policies, institutions? Are we um conquer territory that was previously uh occupied by our opponents? And so um it's a it's a very practical, but I think it's also very tangible um which is something that I like and something that many of the journalists that in this more and more face world um uh where where it's just kind of A A dorm room late night dorm debate um uh that doesn't interest me that doesn't that doesn't get me excited um and I I prefer to bring IT you know down to a much more tangible level.

Hey guys, banks for listening to the pie wireless pod, make sure you like subtribe comment below and show with your friends.

But I do want to talk about something you just sort of elude to or roughly mentioned, which is the strangeness of your approach and the uniqueness of your approach, including, among other activists, including very successful activists on the far left, let's call them like the ever canny of the world, whatever, which is something like you are very open in in A C. R. T.

conversation. I M, I recall you being in, please track me if I don't get this exactly right. But I recall you being grey open about sort of applying all of the things that were crazy to this phrase and making the sort of C.

R. T. Proponents owned all of the crazy sort of learning things that exists. IT was like a very honest approach to a form of political activist. IT wasn't just like sort of reporting the facts or what not um in my assumption, kind of watching that and IT happened again and again that happens even with through the clothing gay thing.

More recently you have explained you we're dropping this information directly before hearing in an attempt to get her fired and you say this publicly out loud in front of everybody um where's what we see from levelling activists is uh is sort of clothing we all know it's happening, but it's all it's clock in in bullshit and and weird semantic games and things like this and you just very straight was like my goal is to get this fired because I believe that she's like this D I buoy rat. D, I don't like and the way i'm going to do this is X, Y and z. Now two questions here.

Um one, did you think about this strategy going IT IT is bizarre. Um just genuinely feel like as a person sort of watching from the sidelines, it's very strange to watch you be so honest about IT. Did you think about IT before you started? Or was IT just sort of like a personality trait of yours? And then have you seen a difference in like the fact like I can you explain to me um the results really of that specific style of activism, which I do IT seems new to me yeah well.

i'm glad you said a personality trade rather than neurosis. That's A A kind of matter of a uh A A opinion but it's a few things you know one is that i've done IT now a number of times uh and IT seems to work and so I approach the kind of political, uh, political work theistical h my god, right? Well, I did this IT seems to work. I think IT works for these reasons. I'm not going to you know analyzed IT to death.

I'm i'm simply going to continue using that um until IT stops working and when IT stops working all try something else um but the kind of the the attack which I find very amusing and actually kind of fun is know you know Christopher rufo is a bond villa nearing his own evil and then dot a dot and IT works every time and so the insult is this can late and compliment like he does IT and IT works and we're so IT upset about IT. And so um I I I think IT works for a couple reasons. One is for the precisely the the the kind of difference that you outline um everyone does this on the left um and they pretend that they're not doing IT.

Um i'm doing IT on the right and i'm absolutely explaining to people that I am doing IT and so what IT does is um I I think IT dismissed fies the game of uh public opinion warfare uh and IT forces my opponents to either a acknowledge that what i'm doing is what they're doing or to deny IT which I think um ends up actually hurting them more because people can see the game for what IT is and so I think from a kind of meet a political standpoint I am uh can unveils uh or or revealing the game as IT actually exists, as IT actually exists. And this does two things. IT shows people on our side how the game works and so IT teaches them uh the true principles.

You know a gram SHE has this great line where he's analyzing mackey prance and he says, the prince is a book written not for people who already know, but for people who don't know and need to know uh and so I think that is uh, a useful service to people on my own side. So how does IT play on the opposite side? How does how does the left react to us?

I mean apparent ally irrationally um I mean it's unbelievable and and so what what IT ends up doing and don't tell anyone you know uh uh I don't want them to catch on but what IT ends up doing is that they put massive amounts of media attention on these strategies yeah and they they unconsciously treat them as a faith, a company and so they're actually entrenching the narrative design that I am kind of teasing out there um as the actual of impending or looming ing reality and IT gives IT actually more force， more focus, more ora of inevitability and and then IT also of course from a very and again bionetworks very personal point of IT also puts my name in the newspaper uh with increasing frequency which is good for me personally everyone like to see are their name in the newspaper but also good for me politically um because it's it's it's building a kind of a narrative power that I cannot have merely from the conservative press which is very small in comparison I actually have to play the game dialectically or play the game a narratively uh with my opponent. And the the worst thing you could do as an activist on the right um is is big nod. I mean, you know that's what they try to do for as long as possible.

And so you have to figure out a way to engage your enemy, to set the terms, to create the frame, and then to try to anticipate their response. And fortunately for us, that their responses are, are, are like, you know, pavlov dog, you know, pavlos dog, you mean you ring the bell and you kind of know what they're going to do um because they're so used to total narrative dominance. Their bag of ritual tricks is so depleted um that you can anticipate their response with a high degree of accuracy.

And so I try to play that game. I tried to lay traps. I tried to provoke uh certain reactions. I tried to launder certain um even words and phrases into the discourse um and and again, I do IT obviously I have political objectives, but I think it's fun. You know, I enjoy you, right?

I don't know. Mean, IT IT seems like your head in two ways. One is a bit left. What we've been talking about, I think that was super well instantiated in this debate I saw of you. I don't know.

I don't know that I was all the A A clip I saw of yours on the joy read show from I think was twenty twenty one um where SHE is just going after you um on your impervious definitions of critical race theory and she's trying to sort of be academic about IT and she's like, but you're lying. It's not this. It's like this other super abstract thing that nobody's ever heard of. And in IT SHE, does the think he tries to bear you in in a game of words, not give you any chance to express your actual opinion, which is shared by most americans, which is this of systemically racist and sexy stuff is terrible. And we don't want to see IT in our schools or our businesses. Um but then SHE coins ts his phrase for you against underlying this thing there is sort of really assisting you constantly uh SHE says it's really Christophers ruo theory um and he just gave IT SHE had to you and he thought I was a Victory um and I was shocked at that because she's elevating you to the statue of billion and of course there are only two things you can be in the media uh there you you as someone who was against critical race, against diversity, equity inclusion um not in existence but that sort of political tactic um you're allowed to either be a neutered sort of sock puppet that they smack around or a super billion like you kind of have to pick which one and she's making you the super billion and that gives you the attention you talk about but I think maybe the more interesting critique comes from the right I I went through uh I google you to see kind of where the press was um and I had going into IT I had this idea that you I expected you know a thousand negative headlines because I i'd see bunch of all the time I see headlines witter but actually what I saw was um for the most party I was like a link to your wikipedia page IT was uh IT was your actual place of work IT was your pieces IT was your twitter um and then when he gets to news uh not even all of them were negative on wikipedia IT basically accurately summarized you with one exception is out of talks about your misinformation you've spread but then IT says the wikipedia article states that one of the places where this information was found was the washington post which itself had engaged in misinformation sort of against you yeah they had .

the attracts in a multiple from the post I mean it's. Crazy but then you .

get to the articles and yes, there are um there are a handful of crazy headlines right like from the guardian scientists cited in clouding gay ouster linked to generics. There was another one in Christopher hos troubling path to power, righting cultural warriors. Remember a sympathy developed formula to manipulate soft targets.

But you're also you are going to open in the new york times. It's like there are some amount of there seems to be ton of articles in in both sides. We have accurately saying like what you're doing because you say out loud, you're tactics, which you're distracted by.

There's a lot in the kind of accurately reporting what you're doing. I think you have a little more support than certainly that I realized, including from the establishment, maybe because of a broad, wide shift. The one criticism that bothered me, this is our second camp of weir criticism, was for reason magazine, the libertarian magazine, which I like came up through politically interm.

Um all my favorite rider started there when I was my early twenty years. And a is the sort of place that means a lot to me. It's where I found Peter deal for the first time is thinking and things that he was working on. He was going to come my boss and mentor, very important person in my life um they wrote a peace titled Chris river became the thing he hates and this is a kind of criticism you get from the sort of like reasonable right, the like thoughtful right wing uh it's sort of coming out of a kind of thinking that was popular in the late teens.

And early twenty, this classical liberalism, the sort same Harris of IT, all where we were going after weakening in a way that was very thoughtful IT was like we're Better than them was the overall sort of tony of IT like we're more principled than that. We have to get back to these things um what they lose. So what is the what what does that matter? And I am always in my own personal life, I find myself kind of torn between these two places where I recognize the uh the authoritarian tactics. And I also forced to recognize the fact that they are successful and the alternative is not winning. Um what do you make of that type of criticism specifically from the more like moderate or thoughts full corners of the right wing?

Well, the libertarian critique, I think is the one that is especially preposterous you know libertarians have advocated um even on their own grounds.

I mean, look um for some reason liberians are criticizing me for creating the political narrative and working with policymakers to abolish dei democracies in public universities and I think now five or even six states, depending on how things go in utah imminently so where we're eliminating a ideological uh uh department of the government, in theory, libertarians should be cheering this on. We're reducing the size of government or saving taxpayer money or reorienting the state towards rightful purposes, not left in the ideology. But the libertarians are upset about this for some reason.

Uh libertarians likewise have been advocating uh very effectively despite putting uh huge resources into uh advocating school choice um uh uh for decades now uh and yet ah in recent years, if you talk to dug, do see the governor arizona, the first governor to pass universal school choice if you talk to around the santis, if you talk to government abbat theyll tell you that might work on critical race theory and gender ideology in schools exposing IT, making parents aware of IT, mobilizing parents at schoolboy meetings was essential for getting universal school choice. This impossible goal uh uh for uh libertarians and so um I would say two things i'm not a libertarian uh but I am a Better librarian than many libertarians who criticize me ah and so I think that is probably something that things something that they know uh at least unconsciously but the ideological uh uh debate or or conflict is that um precisely what you've outlined um you some people clan to principles as a consultations Price. Um they're very happy to lose every political fight. They're very happy to watch the schools um to coming to critical race ideologies. They're very happy to watch a the state grow to the point now where the american state as a percentage of GDP is larger than the chinese communist st state as a percentage GDP. Uh you know and so um uh i'm actually trying to fight against this subsidy vely I think i'm watching wins and IT may be an atheling uh uh disagreement IT may be a into personal disagreement but um IT strikes me as libertarians are Operate as gadflies they kind of zip around they have vega heterodox views but they don't actually chAllenge a any of the institutions that matter they don't actually contest the power of the states collectivist left uh and and so uh I I don't accept that and and in fact I will call people out um who Operate in that manner and that has earned me some you know bad blood with libertarians but the smart libertarians um they see what i'm doing as advancing their goals on you reducing the size of government, on getting universal school choice, on creating the kind of the uh the social gc and and public opinion conditions for their ideas to advance and so the smart ones uh see you and they support IT um and the kind of dragged ones you know right right up IT so like the one you just mention.

yes. I mean, I IT just does .

seem to me .

that you're supposed to lose um like that's the expectation that's the polite thing to do is to just not win.

And that has been certainly my experience with almost everything i've ever cared about in my entire like political memory is losing are being on the wrong, not the wrong side of history, in my opinion, but on on on the wrong side of power and um and that is, you know, growing up watching the media, uh, watching the press, sort of you can't help IT internalize that from the arguments that you watch where they bring on the most loser to argue a point then they defeat him and then politically, things change in in that direction and that has brought us to a place of um and there are a lot of things politically that no even talks about anymore right now. I think we're so distracted by the D E I stuff. And I think for good reason, I think a huge deal.

But we don't talk about like taxes or balancing a budget or even like the military that much bizarre like this is really what we're talking about. Um all of those things though, right these are points that we've think that I care about of lost forever. This is the first one where I see some some actual progress. I have some questions .

now pertaining to .

like in my right to see signs of progress. Um lauding gay is I think a good way to talk about this clotting gay president of harvard D I bureaucrats a piece that you broke in the city journal. I just didn't realized that you were the one that wrote IT uh I had actually cited that peace for um background and what he had done IT at harvard and in today when I was going over her lives realized .

oh I was .

a Christmas for peace that is funny you laid out a path to take out incorrect me i'm wrong IT IT seems like uh who you perceived to be a major fund the E I power in the institutions um I guess one could you kind of like scheme that out for me? What was your your strategy there and you're thinking um and then to without her do we see how meaning is that you know this is an entire burek rac APP aratus.

How meaningful is the removal of just you know one president too? I think it's still making last I check, like nine hundred thousand dollars a year, something crazy like that, that was reported that could be sort of mistake. But he still employed harvard, making a lot of money.

Yeah so so i'll give you kind of the run down of how the politics work. So of course, you had this a debacle on campus, at pen, at M I, T. And at harvard, where after the a hooter attack against innocent israeli is students were celebrating on campus, they were chanting, you know, a genocidal slogans in some cases, and then the administrators were caught flat footed.

They seem to condoned excuse IT, rationalize IT, maybe even antasari supported if you compare their their lack of statements on this to to these hyperbolic statements on other issues um but IT created this sense of uh turmoil, vulnerability, a in a shift in in political dynamics then you have them uh testifying before congress caught gay says that um she's asked by at least deponent is calling for the genocide of jews, violate harvard policies and SHE says that depends on the context um I mean just an absolute soft ball that SHE wives um and meanwhile, uh colleague of mine comes to me with a document that he obtained with evidence that he had plagiarized dozens of passages in her PH d thesis and so um I knew right away that this was a bomb shell that this had um um the power to really bar cloudy in gay and then shift this debate on even more favorable terms um so we did the work of verifying this. We did the work of consulting various experts um at the same time you have bill ackman, the a hedged fund manager, putting financial pressure um uh by you know telling the press that they've lost a billion dollars in donations. You have a lot of prominently jewish uh donors to harvard ah saying hey wait a minute um you know no no more money until we figure out this this this problem rightly so uh and then we dropped the plagiary m story which set off I mean, he was trending on twitter for a month that was a dominating headlines.

And so so as I was saying before, it's like it's not just that I pull things out of the air and I have kind of the hudi capacity to manipulate opinion as they would like you believe if it's that, no, I obtained the documentation and broke the story about plagiarism. And then of course, as I stated very clearly, i'm going to use this journalistic technique, this journalistic package, this product, this plagiary m story to then um uh uh play the political game and to mobilize political pressure, economic pressure, narrative pressure and then freeze clot in gay uh IT ended up of course working you know they dispatcher and your second question isn't worked well. This is really matters is important um I mean, you know is he going to change things? I'd say yes and no.

I think I did more damage to to harvard reputation or brand uh h than anything uh in a very long time um and I think that IT is already shifted incentives and shifted the baLance of power within the institution. Uh I worked behind the scenes with many people inside harvard during this campaign uh and they felt empowered and bolden and unable to assert themselves um and I think IT also shifts the status incentives across our our entire elite um IT did massive damage to not only harvard but to the E I um but to the I V league as a whole reputation's um and then um I think that IT is shifting money you know i've talked to a number in the wake of this harvard story. I've talked to you a number of people with you a very high that words, some of the wealthy, most wealthy, powerful people in the world saying, hey, money is shifting right? Word influence is shifting, right word you know the necessities are shifting, right word in finance, tag, venture capital, all of the kind of very high road sectors and so look, are we living in a world where are a kind of um you know the war of of a lenovo, the catastrophic single strike taking out the university president um can change everything no we live in a bureaucratic world that that changes more slowly and has to be and a traded more deeply but is IT a symbolic Victory that has real material and political ramifications tions I think the answer is obviously.

as do you think you're facing a kind of root problem in the goal? If the goal is to change the bureaucratic structure, which is america, right? AmErica is bureaucracy. Every, every fast of power at sufficient scale is bureaucratic. And if the goal is to alter that in some way, are you doomed to fail? Because, uh, the kind of people who are attracted to buying craic, power and institutions, are they in naturally sort of are a little bit left of setter?

I don't think that that's necessarily true. Um you know you you might remember that even uh in the ninety seventies uh the general electorate hired Ronald reagan to go around the country giving speeches about american enterprise and innovation and productivity uh and so there is no immutable law that requires bureaucracies to be left way. Um and in fact, I think actually most people, for example and fortune you know five hundred companies are probably generally right of center. Um and so it's not that the massive people is left of center or left wing, it's that the mass of people within bureaucracies are cowardly and so they will be uh silenced easily. They will be pushed around easily and they will be um recruit into uh the dominant ideology without too much trouble and so left in activists are brilliant tactically on on manipulating guilt and shame, on creating a status hierarchy and incentives and on using issues especially of race and sex um to you know bully and casual people in the submission.

And so my job is first to define the problem, then to complicate the problem, then to mobilize a counter alleged within institutions to fight back against the problem and then to vanish A A A degrade and humility uh you know the opponents of what I am advocating, which is you know american greatness, american innovation and creativity, the the principle of color blind equality um the idea of having a higher archy of merit, talent and virtue a rather than in a victimology and and I think that um we simply need to shift the incentives at the top um and and and show that um that our proposed um hierarchy values is superior to our opponents uh and then I think the mass of people will follow up. The game is not to change the whole bureaucracy and change everyone's opinions at once. The game is to figure out whose opinions matter the most and to start .

there and then work .

outward .

one place um where all of this is IT played a very interesting way uh is the technology industry.

This is something that we talked about off camera right before the ah the show again, i'm very excited to talk about IT do not realize that you were talking about IT um quite so much as you have been lately uh I think to make going to set up this this part of the discussion um there is a great sense among I think the average american that the tech history is hopeful lessons like delusional woke um like extremely left wing crazy eta. I do not believe that is true and I have never believe that is true. I work in tech.

I'm surrounded by people in tech. I think that. The people in power, sort biocon tic elements in power, were very left wing, specifically in a place like twitter.

Now, the interesting thing about twitter that i've discovered, the more that i've covered IT and written about IT and spoken to people at twitter and learned about IT, is, yes, there was a machine in place to center. Americans just click, absolutely. And IT was super left wing and IT mainstream.

A lot of the ideas, the most city ideas that we're now grappling with today. Uh, but one of the major dynamics there at play is advertising dollars. So like every single ad, exact is super left wing.

All the people who managed this stuff are very left wing. All of the businesses that run ads are run by people who are left wing. Ajar departments across the country, political bureaucracies, academics, media, those are extremely leafing, and they're more left wing than tech, like much more left wing. A lot of what we're seeing that we interpret as left wing leftism a sort of result of market forces that a lot of people are just fundamental at odds with.

This has never been more obvious as in the case of elan musk who bought witter um only to have these sort of add executives across the country go to war with him to force him to sensor uh political speech um however, like separate from that market pressure uh we have seen some of the most courage that is existed in from the tech industry starting with bright and armstrong. Perhaps you saw at first with influencers people um who are investors and very popular X C E S or or former C E O bounders um uh companies like council ology should have assign um uh but then he was fighting very long for a long time. But now you saw you saw a couple years ago with coin base sort of forcing people at work to talk about work only no politics.

That practice was implemented at facebook quietly. Facebook is implemented a lot of stuff quietly. That s well, you see IT, you see IT across the board uh, in firings. I remember even at apple, which is that a handful of really crazy stuff that i've i've written about there was one the last one that I read about was actually um the demand internally the tim cook this was years ago before the most recent israel thing. Uh years he was like two years ago, the demand that tim cook respond to this israel palestine conflict and he just didn't and didn't care and IT never didn't move the dial because the the culture attack changed first. Now what we have is .

I would say he is like .

consensus opinion among major every sort of every bloud outspoken sort of political voice in tech people who are tech voices who will talk about politics is against D. E I um what do you make of that generally? And then I love to talk a little bit more about how things you you you see things changing in in like specifics and how we might you know get .

rid this stuff a little faster. Well, there's there's an important general DNA ic at play and uh the right has two options uh at the moment and so um you know one of my uh a favorite writers uh uh tonio gram SHE talks about how um correctly how uh as economics changes, as the material base changes, IT creates new sectors were new areas of of of growth. And those areas create their own, what he called organic intellectuals.

And those are the intellectuals that are gonna have the the ideological power and material power to change institutions and society. And they can then conquer the intellectuals of the older order, the older arrangement and the participle is politics with which I don't agree. I think as far analysis is correct. And so the right is now in this a payer's moment where you have someone the right to are saying we need to go um of you say downscale working class coalition, which literally I think that makes sense but we should uh create a power alliance with labor. There is a there is a whole strain of thinking on the right.

We need to go after organized labor and create an alliance and and and disrupt that that sector uh it's such a in an attack tech as big tech and and bad and and um you know opposing know the tech industry, I think get such a huge mistake for a few reasons. One is that labor as a percentage of society, if you take out public sector unions, IT has been dying uh for my whole lifetime, you all of our lifetimes, it's just a dying sector, is on the way out, is losing power. Uh IT has really uh limited ability to to growth and shape culture.

Tech is obviously the exact opposite um tech you know the the kind of famous slogan and is that software is eating the world is absolutely true. That's only going to accelerate. Uh IT is Young, dynamic, innovative IT as all of the the spirit of um you know um who can create the best product.

Um it's very competitive in that way. Um IT has a natural respect uh for high arches of competence, sbility genius. And so IT is a natural ideological and philosophical fit. Um it's like the elan musk is like kind of the real life iran a hero.

I mean, IT really is if you like those novels, i'm not a huge friend, but if you like those novels, I mean he he's kind of the guy who embodies that. And so I I think um a huge opportunity for you know my side of the political coalition to make these issues more silent and to create these alliances in tech. And I know personally, i'm trying to spend a lot of time this year building relationships and tech.

And I think what you're seeing is that the people with the most range of motion or the most independence are the first movers. So you have the you know VC podcast, a crowd, uh you have the uh in in the kind of uh independent of the businessman founder in a retired founder, um they have more attitude where they can speak. You're starting to see that.

And the signals are very clear. Even some of these guys speak a bleakly in public. The signals are very clear. And what i've seen, you know my wife could in tech for a long time at microsoft, amazon and other companies. And I have thought of friends and tech here in the seattle region um you know the opinion shifts among the middle are of, let's say, product managers and a software engineers and you and other people within the organization when they see the high status individuals like the all in podcast crowd or they see mark and dress and or they see these guys who are legends in the field, when they see those signals shift, they have permission to then shift their own opinion and and I think that you're absolutely right. The big untold story is that the tech uh world has shifted quietly, dramatically, but dramatically to the right.

And so you know my job and I I talk with, you know kind of, uh button up, you know good, good yeah you know good responsible CEO types of big companies and and they say and the kind of deal, uh that we've worked out as something like this, I am pushing a right wing ideological hardly uh line in the public debate. I'm trying to move the overton window as far to the right as possible knowing that my full demands will never be met but then I allow the the rational reasonable middle um to reassert itself and to can regain control over some of those institutions. And then by contrast, by playing a inside outside game um we can move the whole baLance of power to back to can restoring a sense of baLance and then look at the fact is, is that I would say the vast majority of taxi E S, they don't want D, E, I.

They want to create great products. They want to satisfy their customers. They want to increase value for shareholders.

That's how capitalism is supposed to work. That's what's created. Uh, kind of the highest standard like unbelievable we're living the median american. Uh uh a is like living like the kings of the of the eighteen th century. I mean, it's unbelievable what what we've done.

And I think that most of these tex C E O, including many of the immigrant CEO, you know we have a huge number of immigrant CEO, are very patriotic americans. I mean, they love this country, they support this country. But they're also scared.

They don't want alienate board members. They don't want alienate actives employees. They don't want to alienate the new ork times. And so what i'm hoping to do is create A A protective layer around these folks where they can start quietly and then hope, and then I hope in in the near future, very boldly lay down a new statement of principle and and I hope to provide the political cover for them to do so.

I have never spoken to a CEO and I know a lot of them. Um a tax eo who is in favor of D E. I like topic to very quickly what is A C E O, especially of a start up rather than a publicly traded company that is mature and stable.

But a start up, a high growth start up. You need to hire really confidence people really fast. In D I, in practice is the idea that you are supposed to pass up talented people because they do not fit the demographics that you are, the racial demographics that you aim for.

The just like I think people on the first hand don't like IT because IT is just objectively racist. This is obviously a racist thing and you're expected to believe that it's not. So it's like the craziness that this sort of gas lighting element of that is very frustrated.

But just practically, to tell a CEO that they're supposed to ignore talent candidates is crazy. I think a lot of people believe that i'm producing this in a way that is not fair. Uh, and I think it's not actually the expectation of these companies.

It's not actually what has happened to these companies for five plus years. Now IT is absolutely what happened. IT started with gender actually before two thousand twenty.

That was really where the conversation exploded. There was an a that we we're s supposed to believe in tack that won. Their colleges were not training enough female engineers, and we had to address that problem of variety ways.

And two, that there was no pipeline problem that you could not say they're O T enough women to hire. You have to believe both of these things at once, and you had to hire or fifty percent female engineers. And anybody in tech knows that is an impossible task for everybody to do at once, literally impossible.

There's no way that a CEO can fix this problem. okay? Now, recently, so that that's where IT started. IT is ended in the races, the sort racism place and all of these ideas were sort of written into qualified into the rules at companies IBM to set a massive scandal um that I rote about.

Where video footage leaks from twenty twenty one of the CEO openly talking about the bonus structure associated with hiring people of color and various gender, right? You would not be paid if you did not hire enough people of the right race. That's crazy. No, CEO wants that. It's going to end.

It's already ending in now because of the supreme court case um at harvard a lot of CEO i've talked to again many, many people who genuinely believe there is legal liability here like the lawsuits are are coming ah um for people who were discriminated against based on sex and gender. Um I guess my question for you is right I want to start there because the IBM thing to me seems like I wonder how is this illegal? Do you see uh do you see the the litigation coming in the same way that I I sort of do him or my kind of off yeah that the litigation is coming.

I've actually worked up the last few years with a lot of the conservative legal foundation to organize IT, but it's very difficult to change incentives. You'll have to remember that even for something you a like the school segregation in the south, they had to file you know, hundreds and then thousands of cases because you have to not only win one and everything changes, you have to create A A kind of body of work and a body of incentives in order to shift policy corporations.

So it's not just the supreme court changes, the opinion and everything where accuracy changes, it's going to a require some can trench warfare on on the legal side. But the broader point all illustrated IT maybe with a story a that I, I, I know they have ever told probably before. You know what, my wife was working at microsoft.

You know, one time I went to go visit her, SHE was on an engineering team. And I get up to this huge IT open office space and a belly washington in its high rise. And one of her colleagues, south asian Young, Young south asian woman, comes up to wishes, oh my god, Chris, you look just like mike.

Like, okay. Like, cool. fine. You've got ta meet them. You've ta meet mike. Not like, all right. I guess all i'm nice hour, let's go meet mike. And so he takes me into the engineering floor and it's a sea of desks, computers and IT is virtually one hundred percent e station and sasha men, right?

I mean, you've seen the engineering force cool, you know? And then SHE shouts out, mike, mike, and it's like one White guy in the far back stands up from his computer and it's like, we don't look anything like, I mean, zero physical resembles. He comes over, this is amazing. You guys need me. 你 该 just like each other and then you .

used .

me the look like， oh my god and I gave him the look like, oh my god we said, yeah I lately we can be rather as great to meet you my um and and so like there's two ways you could read this whole tablo right this whole scene you could say that this is a racist mico aggression and we don't all look the same and you you can say that, you know why aren't there are fifty percent females and sixty percent and White computer programmers um or you could just say, huh different institutions, different professions, different cultures is different groups organized themselves uh in surprising ways and because I know that the people that are working on this product are doing an amazing job.

The product is good, the product is selling. The product is extremely profitable um without evidence, you know hard evidence to the contrary. This is just A A kind of hierarchy of pure competence to the specific task and the fact that this engineering floor is all e station calibrations and one guy and mike, uh who may or may not look like me like who cares fine you know yeah do I think that .

you know and then .

I know knew the executive on the team and so like, uh, you know, is the executive discriminating again? It's like if a White applicant, alata applicant, a female applicant, a black applicant, whenever IT is had the skills, had the competence, had the the right, uh you know, was the right thing for the job when they hire that person, without a doubt, and that person will be compensated handsomely.

And in fact, I think there is a natural human inclination even to say, okay, if you have a you know uh uh uh A A woman or let's in african american or leti not a lot of those demographics on engineering teams. There is a natural and connection that I know people have to say, all right, let's make sure to give this person an extra look uh, you be be fair. See if there's any, you know, little things we could do just had a basic human, uh, empathy, compassion.

And so the idea that these institutions are racist, I find, I find just a totally despicable. And even the idea that every engineering floor has to have a kind of benet on add aesthetic, I just find I said, why is this even desirable? Who cares? Um we shouldn't even concede the premise that that's what IT should be uh much less the practical problem like the pipeline problem you're talking about yeah I agree.

I think that on the racism sited what you just mentioned is first, while phenomenal illustration of exactly what tech is um when this the sort of D E I conversation was first shifting in a serious way to race in like twenty twenty a been been talking about a previously but twenty twenty went obviously insane um I remember care wish er talking about this is a tech journalist I know yeah low to can center um used to be more relevant SHE is now but still I think back then SHE SHE didn't have some influence.

Uh he said about her talking about this problem like it's it's always White men um and then SHE poses you like you know like indians in asian as well and I thought, like so not racist is what you're saying it's like so clearly like object ctia ly obviously this is not IT is not that people are looking for a certain kind of race. Your problem is that they are not aggressively looking for another kind of race. You're asking for racism in these places.

I think this is just a teachers filled text. A lot of things I could go on and on for hours. I love the technology history.

I think that represents something really important for both amErica in the world. IT is exciting place to be. It's where all the talent is, in my opinion, in this country. Um one thing that is not and has never been an as racist, sexist, homophobic, IT is like the most open place in the world. But people care about here is talent.

Are you good or are you not? And what if you built is like the highest status thing that there is and has always been this way and so I started is like what have you done and if you've done a cool ship, everybody wants to be associated you and I think for you've been forced to not talk about that um in fact, they create all these motorable slights to a big maline. For example, the contempt of marital racy and it's supposed to be a dog whistle for something else in city, is it's like it's just not ah and now that we're in a place where people can stand up and just say that bullshit that is crazy, that is not true. That little bit of courage has, I think, the path for a getting back to work in a serious way in this.

resisting this time. And it's an essential part of america's identity and americans that, I mean, the right brothers, if I remember correctly, were bicycle mechanics in ohio. And they invented the airplane. I mean, it's like this is something that the lean ara d vinci had dreamed about and was trying to draw.

I kind of um uh uh models of what that might be you know a human flight and and and you know the the the internet, personal computing, you know the great myth of A A myth in the positive science of the tinker, the nerd working in his garage, you know jeff bazo starting amazon in the garage, bill gates and Steve job, all these guys. And it's like this is a miracle, like this is as close to a miracle as we're going to get in our kind of material and secular world. And so why? Why are we dumping on this? I find IT so disgusting.

And people who do IT are people who whose lives depend on IT. It's like a digital journalists dumping on the tech industry is like, I mean, it's like people that have no sense of their own existence is unbelievable. Um and and you know what's what they want to look. Diversity is a code word um for you know in in some ways the legitimate reasons diversity is a code word, not for certain kinds of diversity you know asian sales ation that we're doing about but for african american I understand I can sympathies and I think there is a kind of legitimate concern you know because of american history but the solution is so uh uh IT cuts against the kind of ideal or the principal that we should be striving towards and manifest itself in monday in ways. Another friend of mine who was running a mobile APP I mean a big engineering team for uh one of the large uh seattle based technology companies.

There's only really too so you can guess what do you know he gets to notice down from his boss and said, the boss is, hey, you know we need to promote uh, afro american members of the team this is coming from on high uh you know and you know my my friends says， okay, all right well, you know I have this team. There are these people who worked their asses off, who delivered uh great features, who took responsibility and they deserve you know promotions and they are you know they were by, uh just because IT was this way um uh uh White and an asian and celli an men because of the composition, the team because of who did the good work and then he had on the team uh in african, an woman who my objective standards, my friend is also uh indian american immigrant from india so it's not like uh he can be you know called the White supreme es or they might try to call on that um and he says, look, this person did the worst job I had to put her on a performance improved is like this person does not deserve a promotion over all of these other people who do and yet IT was a dictate from the top. We can now you know only promote on the basis of uh you know ancestry and anatomy, skin color and biology.

It's like it's like and IT distorts the purpose not only as IT wrong as an individual instance right elevating people who who don't deserve IT on the merits but you know for some reason deserve IT on their uh ancestry. It's wrong morally, okay, fine. But IT also degrades the capacity of the team.

IT hurts the moral IT undercuts the creation of the product. And then all those people who love tech, I mean, they love building, they love coding, they love developing, they love you selling to customers IT kind of degrades them because IT saying we are no longer prioritising uh, accomplishment. We're just been counting on identity and I just think that people reject that.

yes. Um as you know discuss, we're seeing IT already in the industry. Um last question, technology industry specific. Uh where do you see this conversation less the conversation.

Where do you see the the structure of the E I changing in tech over the next years, couple of eight, two years? And how do you see that happening? Like from this sort activist work to the real changes upper companies, what you think the shape of this stuff is gonna over the next twelve to twenty four months.

I think tech companies are uniquely positioned um to eliminate and abolish their dei bio cracis uh almost entirely outside of civil rights compliance, of which there they are legally obligated to do uh for a number of reasons. One is because I think the whole ethos s of our tech industry is against this and if uh uh racialist ideology and subordinating the the the mission to um you a demographic considerations um but but also because tech firms are the most nimble administrative vely and bureaux tics of any of our our institutions and you know uh you you remember that kind of inflections in the economy. Tech firms are not they're not hesitant to say, hey, we're laying off fifteen thousand people were downsizing by twenty five thousand people.

I once meet the guy that ran a you know the a the the microsoft acquisition of of the of the of nokia, you know, this disaster microsoft phone, you know and they wrote off this a this massive thing and and workforce. And so obviously, in individual cases, layoffs are not good. Layoff s are tragic layoff are are are are um you know uh uh uh damaging to people.

However, um you there a necessary function of having a competitive economy taxi OS understand that. And so when I think the economy inflection and our politics continues to shape the narrative on D E. I, you're going to have the conditions set for companies to wind these things down entirely.

There is no business justification for laying off engineers and retaining your D I buccra. And so when they're forced to make that decision, I just hope that the politics are established where they can say, you know what, we're getting back to our permission, creating great products. Um we're going to be ruthlessly competitive in the marketplace and anything that the tracks from that is done, um uh, it's below the line.

And so this is what I hope happens, obviously I don't want any layoff s ever. I don't want any recession ever. Uh but these are too inevitable. Uh you know, facts of political and economic life. And so the the prudent uh political calculation is to be um prepared for them and then to also prepare the conditions uh uh in in order to um emerge from those you stronger, more innovative and and and and you know Better position on the political field.

awesome. Will take you so much crew time. Uh IT has been absolutely real. That's that catch guys here, uh, in the next part because friday so ever gone later. Thank you.