Timothy Reuter: Harrison, I want to welcome you to the 10th episode of the Technically Friends podcast.
Harrison Wolf: Is that what this is the tenth one
Timothy Reuter: Do you know what percentage that puts us in, in terms of top podcasting?
Harrison Wolf: ⁓ Is it a hundred? The top hundred percent?
Timothy Reuter: We are now in the top 10 % of podcasters.
Harrison Wolf: Wow!
Timothy Reuter: And so that raises the question, when am I getting my residual check? I assume you've been hogging all of the amazing advertising revenue we've gotten as top 10 % podcasters.
Harrison Wolf: Sure. You know, that's a good point. That's a really good point. ⁓ just like ⁓ the real world, ⁓ top 1 % make more than the rest of the 99 % combined. So we need to get into that top 1%.
Timothy Reuter: There's definitely a power law for podcasting, but I mean, it is kind of amazing that
Harrison Wolf: Yeah. Don't if see this but this is my I'm very dodgered out today You know ⁓ and it's it's intentional because I'm wearing my JPL ⁓
Timothy Reuter: ⁓ really?
Harrison Wolf: It's the JPL giveaway night outfit and I was able to find the... My brother gave me the hat. So the hat has like ingenuity on it, the rover, ⁓ bunch of different projects. And then somebody on Reddit was able to find me a jersey at Goodwill that somebody had donated or sold. So I got the jersey. Yeah, it's kind of ugly, but it's... Yeah, so there's the Mars rover. Yeah.
Timothy Reuter: That's awesome. That is very cool. It's cool ugly.
Harrison Wolf: I figured for us today this could work out and I'm still finding.
Timothy Reuter: I don't know if you're aware, I spent this week with people from JPL, like at NASA. So I put on my Accelerating Space Science with Nuclear Technology workshop this week in Huntsville, Alabama.
Harrison Wolf: ⁓ no, I didn't know that. Yeah, how'd it go?
Timothy Reuter: It was good. I came away inspired by the imagination of what everyone's trying to do in terms of exploring our solar system and these new technologies might be incorporated. So hopefully we did something to help the engineers understand more what the scientists need and help the scientists understand better ⁓ possible from an engineering standpoint as they plan new missions.
Harrison Wolf: That's cool. And where do you go from here? What's your next thing?
Timothy Reuter: Yeah, I think we're gonna turn a bit more towards space development and how do we utilize the economic resources throughout the solar system. So we're trying to raise some money for other projects related to that. Yeah.
Harrison Wolf: Mm-hmm. Cool. That sounds great.
Courtney Gill: Harrison, you're all geared up with your Dodgers ⁓ summer. ⁓
Harrison Wolf: It's true, but as I pointed out to Timothy, are all, this is a special NASA giveaway night that my brother got me some gear to. So you'll notice like the Mars Rover is here, Ingenuity is under the hat, you know, so it is ugly, but it's tech related, so I figured I'd wear it.
Courtney Gill: Okay. That is very cool. So my fun fact is our minor league team that we have in Tulsa. They're called unsurprisingly, the drillers. the entrance is a big like oil ⁓ and it actually kind moves, ⁓ which quite funny. But they are the affiliate team, I guess you call them to ⁓ the ⁓ I'm that's the extent of my baseball knowledge, but I do know that. ⁓
Harrison Wolf: Yes they are. Yes they are.
Timothy Reuter: Why do the Dodgers have an affiliate team in Tulsa?
Harrison Wolf: That's just the way it works. Everybody has minor league teams all over the place.
Courtney Gill: didn't know this until very recently. I just learned this in the last six months, so that's a Harrison question for sure.
Harrison Wolf: Yeah, yeah, no, it's interesting. Where I grew up in Palmdale, California, which is a very aerospace dense, you got Skunk Works, you got Edwards Air Force Base, you got a variety of other players out there, Scaled Composites now. They have the Jethawks, which is a Mariners team.
Courtney Gill: because I'm not a huge baseball follower, I love that we have $2 Tuesdays here and you can get $2 tickets, but what's unique I think in Tulsa is a lot of places do that where they have like $5 tickets, but then it's still $10 drinks and $10 everything else. But on Tuesdays here you can get $2 hot dogs, $2 drinks including beers, not that I'm a beer drinker, but if that's your inclination, and $2 tickets so you can go for $6 and have your whole night.
Harrison Wolf: That's great.
Timothy Reuter: I've heard Minor League is the best actually, like in many ways better than going to Major League.
Courtney Gill: It's so much better.
Harrison Wolf: There's a, Timothy, without belaboring this sports discussion, I would say there's another option in baseball now called the Savannah Bananas.
Courtney Gill: Okay, so I was just gonna bring this up. went to Banana Ball this week. They came to Tulsa and I just about to talk about this. ⁓ my gosh, I loved it. As someone who's not inclined to watch. Okay, so basically this very creative guy named Jesse Cole and his wife, Emily, they have this really kind of.
Harrison Wolf: Did you? ⁓ What'd you think? Explain it to Timothy. Explain it for Timothy.
Courtney Gill: minor minor league it might have even been like a college team that was not doing well and they're like what can we do to make this exciting and fun and they basically took a No one watched baseball team and they started a group Savannah bananas and so they sing and they dance and they basically I think the comparison is kind of the Harlem Globetrotters for baseball and it's an exhibition baseball team But I think the most appealing part of it is that there's a two-hour time limit Fans can like catch a foul ball and it count like and counts as an out like they have unique rules that make it go a lot faster and it's more exciting but also like
Timothy Reuter: I've heard about this. Yeah. Globetrotters, yeah.
Harrison Wolf: Yeah. Yeah.
Courtney Gill: baseball kind of seems like it's not the main point of the game. It's like sort of there and they're all great baseball players like it's incredible, but they can do like a back flip and if they do like a back flip when they're catching the ball that gives them points and so it makes it just like a much more exciting version of baseball and the tickets are just like they're so hard to get. You have to do a lottery for them and if you miss the lottery like six months ahead of time if wanted to buy them sort of secondhand like we looked to get them for a friend who was kind
Harrison Wolf: Yeah. Yeah.
Courtney Gill: and they only had two tickets left and they were over $450 each when they can't sell the minor league tickets or even any for like $5. So it's fascinating. So he's created this league and he owned this, Jesse and Emily Cole owned this banana ball outright and now I think they have like six teams. So they have like.
Timothy Reuter: ⁓ my God.
Harrison Wolf: Yeah. Yeah.
Courtney Gill: the Indianapolis Clowns and the Texas Tailgaters. But they have like, they, really like them as people because they make it very exciting. But several finance groups have come in, private equity, et cetera, and have wanted to buy, like, can we buy a team? Can we? And they're like, no. And the reason is that they don't want, they keep the tickets very reasonably priced. So to buy them in the lottery, they range from like 20 to $35. And so they want to
Timothy Reuter: Right.
Courtney Gill: it accessible for families and like not do all the things that make regular sports no fun for normal people anymore.
Harrison Wolf: Yeah. But they're selling out, like, they sold out Yankee Stadium two days in a row. Like, it's not like they're in tiny ballparks. These are huge ballparks.
Courtney Gill: No.
Timothy Reuter: gotta take my family to this. It sounds exactly like the kind of sport.
Courtney Gill: If you can get tickets for it, you should do it.
Harrison Wolf: Yeah, yeah, we tried. We tried to get tickets via the lottery for it because I'd love my kids to see it, I think. we couldn't get tickets. It was a thousand dollars a ticket if we once we missed the lottery at Yankee Stadium. Yeah, it was nuts.
Timothy Reuter: if you want to talk about data centers and space, like I know a lot about that, but if you want to talk to me about baseball, it's usually going to be a short conversation.
Harrison Wolf: Hahaha
Courtney Gill: Well Timothy, it's over my head too, except for Banana Ball was worthwhile.
Timothy Reuter: I
Harrison Wolf: ⁓ Do you still go by Courtney Gill?
Timothy Reuter: Ooh, good question.
Courtney Gill: Yes, okay, so technically and I, who's ⁓ husband, we are both going ⁓ Baum and Gil, ⁓ we're both hyphenated for kind of future like with kids. Everyone's have that last name, ⁓ but. For work, we have decided to both individually just keep Gil and Bauman because it's really hard when you have a whole network to change ⁓ for politics, having that long of a name is just hard. ⁓ always, just gonna keep Gil for everything work related and he's just gonna keep Bauman. But for future like Christmas cards and things like that, we're technically both like hyphenated Bauman Gil.
Harrison Wolf: Mm. Sure.
Timothy Reuter: Can I, I'm going to say something. This should definitely get edited out, but like what kind of trash traditionalist are you? This does not seem like you are like some sort of new age, blue haired progressive, like hyphenating, but keeping your previous last name for professional reasons. Like this is not what I expected from you.
Harrison Wolf: Okay.
Courtney Gill: know, well, so, and then we can get into the other questions, but it's funny because all of my friends now have taken the same train that I have. So in England, we call it double barreling. it's interesting because in the U.S., it doesn't kind of the same connotations, but in England, it's quite common amongst, should I say a certain social class. And generally in England, when you kept multiple last names, ⁓ it was they were all too important to get rid of. ⁓ And that's how you end up, yeah, where they all have too many names. And so it's interesting though, because once I went my spiel about this, all of my ⁓ female were like, yeah, that makes total sense. So here's my thing is that if you just take kind of feminism as it is that, ⁓ women have, you know, go to work now, they do all these things.
Timothy Reuter: Right, yes, when you're marrying nobility.
Harrison Wolf: Sure.
Courtney Gill: But the things that are hard for women haven't changed. Women still have to be pregnant. Women still have to breastfeed. Women are still doing the vast majority of things that even if you have a supportive partner, the man just can't do. And if you look at young children, they will instinctually go to their mother for emotional care, even if you have a very available father. Biologically, that's just not how it works. And then you have all the things as well that women have the time pressures of needing to have kids in a certain time and you have all these things. And would say this isn't true in my...
Timothy Reuter: So you're a progressive feminist is what I'm hearing.
Courtney Gill: No, because here's what's wrong actually with what happens in feminism for most women is that most women now, in addition to still... being pregnant, doing all the childcare, and again, not in my relationship, but in most, they're still doing the vast majority of homework, they're doing all the vacuuming, they're doing the grocery shopping, and now, because their husbands don't make enough money, they want them to go to work for 50 hours a week too. So if you actually look, like, if I'm gonna be honest for quality of life for most women, I don't know that the... how feminism has actually come to be has made life better for most women. I think for a few it has and I think you're seeing that probably in the most well-educated sectors that if you have a really supportive husband, like I'm probably better off than I would have been 50 years ago. But for your average, I'm gonna say kind of middle grouping of women, I think their lives are actually just a lot harder in your-
Timothy Reuter: And that's why middle group women are getting married less and marriage is becoming for the rich. But you've just given me like, don't mean this ⁓ a criticism, but I'm sort of fascinated because you sort of, sort of ⁓ for traditional values in some sense, but like you are doing the total modern progressive thing and ensuring that your husband does his share and you're both were like, there is nothing, you know, neo traditionalists about anything that you've told me of your either perspective or life. Like, why aren't you running as a progressive democrat if this is what you believe?
Courtney Gill: Well, so here's the thing is that I actually think and this is one that's an interesting economic conversation. I think, and I would say the same thing of a lot of my female peers. If. It was easier for men to have single incomes and meaningfully support a household with a quality of life everyone would be happy with. I think a lot of my female friends would choose to stay home with their kids and not work. And these are people who have master's degrees, who have gone to Oxford and Cambridge. But the reality of the situation is that with inflation, like life has gotten so expensive for most people that I think it's almost impossible for most normal families
Harrison Wolf: Mm-hmm.
Courtney Gill: to have a traditional setup where just the husband goes to work. And so if that is not the case, where just the husband is going to work, then the other things need to change because otherwise we go back to what we said, which is that the woman just gets stuck with everything.
Harrison Wolf: Welcome back to Technically Friends, the podcast where technology meets real conversation. Harrison Wolf.
Timothy Reuter: And I'm Timothy Reuter. Each episode, we break down the idea of shaping our digital world from emerging tech to the ethical questions that come with it and have a little fun throughout.
Harrison Wolf: Today's episode brings the third member of our drones team from the World Economic Forum into the conversation. while at the forum, deep in the heart of the Presidio, this person was the operations and logistics expert that kept Timothy and I on task and up to date on the goings on of the organization. we all focused on drones at the time, our guest today has gone on to spread her wings to Oklahoma as part of the venture capital world and is now running for US Congress.
Timothy Reuter: Our guest today is Courtney Radcliffe-Gill, a globally impactful aerospace and aviation expert, former World Economic Forum drones team member, Oxford and Cambridge graduate in business and economics, and candidate for Congress.
Harrison Wolf: We're diving into everything from how technology and economics have shaped her views on politics, which technologies she believes are redefining the future for young people, and where she goes to get unbiased information for her work in investment.
Timothy Reuter: So sit back, plug in and get ready. This is the Technically Friends podcast with congressional candidate, newlywed aerospace expert and technical friend, Courtney Radcliffe-Gill.
Harrison Wolf: Courtney, welcome.
Courtney Gill: Thank you so much for having me today. I love being back with this trio. We always had such a great time. back at the office and I definitely missed those days in the Presidio and got to work on all sorts of exciting space drones, aerospace work, but I'm also so glad that we have stayed in touch and that you guys are doing this podcast together is especially fun for me to continue to tune in and listen to. And I'm delighted to be here today and thank you for such a warm intro.
Timothy Reuter: Well, we loved working with you as well and have very fond memories of doing things around the world in India Rwanda and places like that. But your life has changed so much since that time. You're a venture capitalist now. What exactly does that mean to be a venture capitalist and what do you ⁓ your days doing?
Courtney Gill: could put it into a nutshell. Essentially, I find new startups and give them investment money in order to be able to grow their amazing ideas. That's my brief description of venture capital. What that actually looks like in practice is a lot of different things. There are a few different components to venture capital. One is the fundraising side, which is in order to have the money in a fund...
Harrison Wolf: Cool.
Courtney Gill: to distribute to these companies, you need to go out to a wide variety of people. It could be individuals, it could be a growing sector, family offices. So those are different wealthy families who have collectively put their money into ⁓ foundations, a wide variety of setups. Occasionally, can be ⁓ whole variety different people. ⁓ And ⁓ the piece ⁓ interesting and you need to go out and meet all these people and convince them that what your specific niche is ⁓ works well for their portfolio. Most of these people are using this strategy as a diversification away from a public portfolio. So if you think about what a lot of people have their money invested in. will be public equities and that's anything you can find on the regular stock market where you can go into your regular brokerage account, whether you're on Fidelity or Charles Schwab, etc. and go and say, I want to buy 10 shares of fill in the blank public company. a growing sector where you've seen ⁓ fairly high returns, higher than the public equities is in what they call the private sector. And those are things that are not available to the public market. And kind of the two subsets of that where you'll have more traditional private equity, where you have private ownership of companies and the venture capital side is a subset of that, but that is investing in new fledgling companies. And often you will be investing a very small amount of money, but these companies are very small in exchange for a percentage of their company when they do hopefully go public. Although unfortunately, many of them don't make it there. ⁓
Harrison Wolf: Hmm.
Courtney Gill: ⁓ job then on the other side, once I, once you do the fundraising piece is to go out and they call it deal sourcing, where I go to a ton of different events around the country and the world, trying to find the most promising companies ⁓ where, you know, I think there could be a lot of value adding companies that I think, you know, have the right team. That's probably the most important thing we look at. There are a lot of great ideas out there, but if you don't have an all star team that can work well together, the best ideas generally won't make it.
Harrison Wolf: Hmm.
Timothy Reuter: Yeah. And so, you know, I always took you from our time working together as somebody who was a little suspicious of technology and technological change. So I found it interesting that you decided to go into a field that in some ways is promoting or at the very least funding technological change. So how do you balance that sort of personal skepticism with trying to find
Courtney Gill: This has always been a very hard one for me. Timothy is correct. I am generally very skeptic. Outside of the healthcare sector, I'm... sure that there are that many technologies that have meaningfully improved most Americans' quality of life. I'm going to specifically focus on the very developed world because I think in certain other parts of the world it has been able to connect people to financial resources, etc. But I'm going to just focus on ⁓ Americans for now. I'm not sure that most technologies that have been created post, let's say 2000, have improved people's quality of life. And ultimately for me, my main focus is whenever something is created, I am funny coming from me in my role. The reason that I care about it is can this make people's lives better? Not can this make money for a small subset of people? And I kind of think about all the technologies where I'm like, okay, the refrigerator, great technology, you know, has prevented tons of people from dying from cholera and keeping food fresh or, you know, central heating, great invention, indoor plumbing, love it. I kind of think about all the technologies post-2000 and I'm like, has this really helped my life? I don't know.
Harrison Wolf: Mmm.
Courtney Gill: I do think in the healthcare sector though, definitely there have been wonderful improvements that I'm excited about. But what I would say is exciting on the investing side is getting to be one of the people who has an influence in how these tech companies grow. Generally in venture capital, if you invest ⁓ certain amount of money in a company, you will often get a seat on the board of that company. And this is something that I've always found to be really important that you get a big say in how that company grows and develops and we really think about responsible development and what that looks like. And one of the best quotes I think I ever heard that applies to so many sectors of life that I think my first boss when I was an intern told me, and he said, Courtney, if you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu. And basically saying, if you're not in the room, if you're not part of the conversation, if you are not part of these companies. your interests don't matter. And in fact, they're probably going to get taken over. for me, I have this ⁓ of back and forth dilemma. In some ways, I'd love to go live out on a ranch or a farm and be totally checked out of all of this. But I also know that that's not realistic. ⁓ I also do care what happens to the rest of the world. And so I would like to be involved to the extent that I can in what could be in the future, very important companies. ⁓ ⁓ know, especially we look at
Harrison Wolf: Hmm
Courtney Gill: A lot of these AI companies that five years ago basically were these tiny little companies and if you were one of the venture capital investors there, you get a big say in how one of the most powerful technologies in the world grows.
Harrison Wolf: Hmm. So ⁓ you sort articulated your how you see your role positively ⁓ for these that, you know, perhaps will have ⁓ an impact society wouldn't be your preferred impact. And you can sort of help them evolve into something that's more effective or more responsible. If you are looking at a technology very early on ⁓ and you're asked, you know, can see, yes, this would bring immense value. to my firm or to yourself as an investor, how do you balance that against the notion that at the same time, I don't see a positive use for this technology?
Courtney Gill: Yeah, this is a tough one and the venture firm that I've been working with, our kind of motto has been, you can do well by doing good that those two things don't have to be mutually exclusive. And I think ⁓ generally do try to find companies ⁓ where think they're... can be big overlaps. One of the companies we were looking at last year that has done very well and grown a ton basically creates totally natural food dyes from mushrooms. And in the past year, we've seen this huge demand mostly from parents of saying, we don't want all these toxic food dyes that have links to ADHD, et cetera, in children. And his company is now doing very, very well and is growing and that's been a case that's been really exciting for us to be a part of and watch.
Harrison Wolf: I just walked the show floor of the big drone conference, right, that we have gone to in the past or we know every year it happens. And it's very much turned towards a defense oriented space. I would say 90 % of the companies that originally had been civil or commercial only are now either dual use ⁓ or moving towards the defense industry. simply because of the demand signals from the military experience overseas in Ukraine and Gaza and of these programs, industrial policy-esque programs have been put in place. And you just walk the show floor and you just see missile after missile, right? Bomb after bomb. And a years ago, that wouldn't have been my experience, right? It would have been humanitarian drone delivery. It would have been some of the other things. ⁓ And I'm saying that that's wrong for this conference or for the industry itself, but it is definitely something you perceive. And I wonder for those who have money to invest, like how they balance that. So thanks for shedding some light on that for me. what technologies do you see as like something you're really interested in supporting seeing as impactful in a very positive way?
Courtney Gill: ⁓ For as much as I do have deeply held beliefs, I also try to be very open-minded. And so when I do come across new I try to look at it from a fresh ⁓
Harrison Wolf: Mm-hmm.
Courtney Gill: Even within, let's kind of take the whole AI sector because everything now seems like it's AI adjacent. take an example that's been fun for me to use in the last few weeks. I've been into growing ⁓ vegetables fruits and everything at home. I'm growing everything from corn to raspberries, blueberries, all the things. But ⁓ any the plants are struggling, I can now take pictures and videos of them and then I ask AI and I'm like, ⁓ what's wrong with my plant? It doesn't seem like it's doing well based on what it looks like. do you think I should do? ⁓
Harrison Wolf: Mm-hmm.
Courtney Gill: And it's actually been right pretty much every time. And sometimes it's not what I was expecting where it's like, ⁓ you're actually over watering it or you over fertilize it or anything that that's like one example. But if you take, for example, that you're a small farmer somewhere ⁓ maybe previously you struggling with things and you didn't really know what to do about something. ⁓ I there's very much a world where if you use some of these up and coming technologies ⁓ for industry in the right way, they can have a lot of ups swings. And that's where I think it's really important in the work we did previously, which is you just need to have clear policy on a lot of these and how you can get the upswing from a lot of them instead of all the bad things. so I think there's a lot of kind of small uses where even with AI, I'm using a lot of the exciting features of it, but I try to not use it. You know, they talk about sort of the brain rot that happens when even for a three month period of people only use AI and don't handwrite things. And so I try to
Harrison Wolf: Mm-hmm.
Courtney Gill: self-regulate where I'm like, okay, I'm gonna try and use the good things where I can and not the bad things and try to kind of stay open-minded.
Timothy Reuter: So let's transition a bit to what your future career might be in politics. What made you want to run for Congress?
Courtney Gill: Two reasons that I decided to run. One a ⁓ general on both sides of the aisle with the in office. ⁓ And this every person, it's just a lot of the people. And I think general dishonesty with people in Washington ⁓ and having spent bit of time working on the Hill. I've noticed even in the last kind of 10 years a difference in the type of people who were there. And I grew up always being extremely passionate about when I was little, I still have it. I had a Thomas Jefferson quote book. And when I was in kindergarten, that was like my bedtime reading. And my dad and I would pick a quote and we'd talk about it. And it would be, you know, the government which governs the least governs the best because the people decide for themselves. What do you think about that? Do you like when the government makes choices? What do you think is important that the government does that an individual can't do on their own. so I've always grown up really admiring our founding fathers and the energy and effort and intellect that they put into their work, but very much that the call to serve in a political space was meant to be a very small sliver of your life and it was not meant to be your career. If you think about Thomas Jefferson, probably the least interesting thing about him was the fact that he was a politician. actually most of his ⁓ contributions to society would be in his academic work and his thought work. And you look at the founding fathers and they were just incredibly well-rounded humans who added so much value to their communities and subsequently to the country. And I look now so many of the people who are in office and they got there because they had a ton of money. They necessarily particularly well-qualified to be there. ⁓ They there ⁓ and go in with a net worth of, ⁓ know, of them were already wealthy when they got there, but some of them are going...
Harrison Wolf: Hmm.
Courtney Gill: in with a net worth of $1 to $2 million and they're coming out with a net worth of $30, $40 million from basically what should be insider trading. it's not called that. Everyone else would go to prison for it. But you know, they're investing in some small cybersecurity company that no one's ever heard of and they sit on the cybersecurity committee or something, you know, adjacent. And miraculously, three weeks later, this company no one's ever heard of gets this huge government contract ⁓ shares skyrocket and you're like, huh,
Harrison Wolf: Mm-hmm.
Courtney Gill: wonder how that happens. I think unfortunately that has just really become pervasive that people are going to Washington to enrich themselves and really nothing to do with serving the people. ⁓ And they stay for a really long time. And I follow this interest, this wonderful site that I encourage people to check out. It's called Quiver Quant, short for quantitative. And you're able to check the the trades, stock trades of every single member of Congress and the Senate. And fascinating to me just to kind of see ⁓ what's on behind the scenes. So general disappointment with the people in office is one that was long winded. ⁓ And two would be to ⁓ hope a younger generation. that there is some... chance that the future can be bright. I was talking to a 16 year old cousin of mine over Christmas and I was with a few of his friends I brought something up and I was like, why don't you care about this at all? And he said, Courtney, it's not that we don't care. It's that it doesn't matter. The America that our grandparents grew up in is gone and it's never coming back. And he's like to pretend that us getting involved is going to change the way that the deck is stacked against all of us he's like no offense but that's kind of silly he's like we're cooked ⁓ I said you know ⁓ with that attitude we are cooked but it kind of broke my heart I was like you know what almost all the young people I'm talking to feel exactly the same way they're like
Harrison Wolf: Hmm.
Courtney Gill: some people at the top are already so wealthy, but also with how everything has changed, there's kind of not a chance for a lot of people in their minds of having any kind of a bright future. And I think this is probably the first generation of Americans who truly feel like their future is not just going to be the same as their parents, but dramatically worse. so I decided, you know what? I'm going to go in there, see what I can do as an individual person. Obviously, you can't change it all. But, you know, I think of the guys who were doing the Normandy beach invasions and they're probably sitting there thinking, you know, they're on their little amphibious vehicles. It's a miserable day out. They're landing on a beach with 50,000 Nazis ready to kill them. The beach is littered with bombs and against all odds, they said, we have to do this. You we have to try, even if it seems like it's hopeless, we have to make a plan, get everybody together and go for this because everything, like this, our whole lives hang in the balance here. And that's a more extreme version, but I feel like we're all called to service in our own way, in our own time. I think for me, running for office was my way of mobilizing people to hopefully ⁓ a bright light at the end of the tunnel, but also to get young people to care. Right now, voter turnout in under 35s is negligible. ⁓ if you're looking in non-presidential years, specifically in things like primaries, we're talking under 1 % in a lot of places because just total ⁓
Harrison Wolf: Hmm.
Courtney Gill: And I think that's really sad. So I'm here to motivate the next generation to care and also to hopefully get some more honest people in office.
Timothy Reuter: So on your website, you list your political affiliation as conservative. I used to have an idea of what being a Reagan conservative meant, but what does being a conservative mean in the Trump era?
Courtney Gill: No, I think that's really interesting. I would broadly always label myself. If someone says like, how would you kind of identify your politics? I would broadly call myself a Reagan Republican. also think that there's been a lot of change in how people identify these different parties and how much that's changed for both parties over the last 15 to 20 years. And ultimately I would say, It has changed for how other people see themselves. I haven't changed my values and views, I think, as that has changed. And what I would always say is, again, what the founding fathers told us is to be wary of political parties, because when you're too closely attached to one, it basically means that you're going to be forced into agreeing or disagreeing with things that may not be in the best interests of your district. And ultimately, you know, if I get into office, my to make the best decisions and vote ⁓ ⁓ best possible way for District 1 of Oklahoma. And ultimately, that looks like for whatever party, my obligation is to District 1 of Oklahoma. And there might be things that different parties agree with or disagree with. And if I'm gonna be honest, I'll see when I get there, but that's not my priority. So I would like to in general sort of stay away from how the party politics are turning. And I have sort of values that matter to me and I will vote in the best interest of my constituents.
Timothy Reuter: So affordability is the first issue you list for your platform. How will you tackle affordability in Congress?
Courtney Gill: So I think this boils down to one thing, which is we need to balance the budget. ultimately, when you're adding $1 trillion of debt every year, ⁓ is not sustainable. And essentially what that's doing is kicking the can down the road for a future generation to deal with. probably me and people younger than me. But basically what happens there is when you start pumping money into an economy, which we've seen. a lot over the last 20 years, but specifically post COVID, through a couple of different means, through different versions of kind of quantitative easing, through adjustments of the interest rates, through, you know, there are a lot of mechanisms that ⁓ government has through fiscal and monetary policy that are supposed to uplift an economy, which they did. The stock market has absolutely crushed it over that time. And certain people have been big winners there. ⁓ But ultimately what you get is a lot of inflation. And inflation is really bad for the average citizen. It makes things cost. a lot more and in very few cases have wages kept up with that. And I think there are lot of components to this, but first and foremost, I think that this is a balancing the budget issue and that you can't just inflate your problems away what each administration wants is to not have to deal with that because no one wants to be the person who's the person who either cuts spending, the person who doesn't ⁓ put more money into the economy. And printing money helps in the short term, but is often a terrible long term choice, administration wants to be remembered as the one where times were good ⁓ it was happening. And I, Warren Buffett had a funny kind of quip about this that he said, if Everybody in Congress was told they either have to balance the budget or none of them could run again for the next term. He said, I think we'd get the budget balanced and we get it done in probably a week or two. right now there's just like no accountability. And I think having ⁓ clear ⁓ may be as extreme as that that says we need to balance this budget. And you can't just keep putting this off for a future generation to deal with because ultimately it's leading to a lot of these inflationary problems as well. So yeah, we need to, we need to balance the budget and stop just adding money.
Timothy Reuter: Right, so the Trump administration has both cut taxes increased spending. So ⁓ of those policies or maybe both of those policies would you be pushing back on? Will you be advocating for ⁓ taxes to close that fiscal gap or will you be pushing on the increase in defense spending? How will you actually accomplish this if you think government spending or the deficit is the... main problem.
Courtney Gill: So I think that everybody and every sector is going to have to give a little bit. don't think it's a case where you can just say, taxes are the way. am mostly because of the size of our government. think this works differently. A lot of European countries make it work a lot better, but you have to remember that a lot of them have a population of like 8 million people. And so I do think different economic systems work well in different places. And this isn't to say that that taxing more and put it, know, spending more. think in a lot of countries that works really well. What I've found in the United States is that that often doesn't work very well and that very rarely sending more money to Washington fixes a problem. I do think that every sector is probably gonna get needs to get cut a little bit. I don't think it's fair for one sector to take the entire hit. I think if everybody takes a small haircut, which is challenging, no one wants to be in that spot. And also, you can't keep cutting taxes at the same time. Again, I hate paying taxes. I'm generally mistrustful of the government to take my money and do something productive with it. But we also do need to understand that you do need to have ⁓ of taxes you're paying in, order to have strong infrastructure, in order to have a military, in order to have good schools. There are things that we have collectively decided that ⁓ no individual can and put roads in by themselves. No one individual can run a military. And so I think everybody's gonna have to hurt a little bit, but that also we can't combine that with tons of tax cuts across the board if we're gonna, everyone's gonna have to give a little bit.
Timothy Reuter: On your website, you say AI is poised to change the world more than any technology in human history, addressing the consequences of AI for employment, education and human purpose. Additionally, the skyrocketing demands of cost of energy infrastructure being passed on to families, not companies. What do you think lawmakers should do about AI and what will you do about AI?
Courtney Gill: So I think this is a really important one and it concerns me that most people in Congress are not talking about it. I think part of that is maybe just lack of awareness. Part of it, I think, could be age as well. That if we're looking specifically at our Senate, but across the board are a lot of the ages of our senators are well into their seventies and some older than that. ⁓ the reality is that AI is not going to impact them in the same way that it's going to impact me. They kind of think they're sort of set, they're already done working, they already have most of their retirement savings that they're going to have. And so for them, I think they're just not really thinking about it. But I do think we need to have really clear policy that if all of a sudden, if these changes happen as quickly as they're predicted to have happened, and we've all used a lot of the AI tools, and I'm like, wow, this is going to displace a lot of workers. I think in contrast to the past, this isn't just a technology that's going to create more jobs down the road. I just don't believe that. The has gotten so good in a lot of whatever the context is, legal work, a lot of white collar work specifically. And this is where I think it's not getting the attention because it's viewed as kind of an upper crust problem. But the reality is, is that if you look at kind of the top 20 to 30 % of people who mostly are employed in white collar professions where AI is going to displace them the most quickly, they are also the people who are the strongest mortgage holders. They're also the people who keep the 401k system and subsequently the stock market consistent and elevated. They're also the people who do the vast majority of consumer spending specifically in the cases of travel, hospitality, that if in five years, for example, and we've seen how quickly these tech layoffs are happening, if all of a sudden 20 to 30 % of this workforce just becomes unemployed quickly, ⁓ what are we gonna do with all of those people? But two, ⁓ do we step back and think, okay, let's look at these kind of windfall gains that could have happened privately. So let's take Norway, they had a ton of oil and said, OK, if we had privatized this, a couple of people would have gotten really wealthy from an oil boom, and it wouldn't have changed the quality of life for anyone else in Norway. And Scandinavia, historically, was not a particularly wealthy place. And in fact, like Sweden, I think, was the poorest country in Europe, different than Norway, but in Europe, and now has skyrocketed to the top. for quality of life, Norway said, we're going to create a sovereign wealth fund so that the benefits of this huge oil boom that we're going to have. meaningfully benefit everybody in society so we can use this to fund infrastructure, parks, schools, all of the things that now Norway thrives in was because someone at the beginning said this needs to go into a sovereign wealth fund. ultimately, I think with AI, we're going to need to do something like that at the beginning where we say, OK, 50 % of all profits made by and it's funny because historical me would have never said this about a company. But I do think the upcoming world is going to be so different. that if you have AI kind of unregulated as it is, we end up with two, three, four really big AI companies, and you get a couple of the guys at the top who are gonna make all the money, they're essentially gonna become oligarchs where they control all the information power and money in society and ultimately decide how everything goes. And if you don't have any kind of Teddy Roosevelt trust-busting that goes on, you're gonna end up with a few people who have way too much power, authority, and money to the point where it would become almost impossible to stop them. so I think you either need to look at some type of a version of a sovereign wealth fund where X amount of money from AI companies needs to go into this to fund the fallout that's going to happen from a lot of unemployed people, or you to create, do more of a Teddy Roosevelt style, which is saying, hey, one AI company can't control all of these sectors, just like when they broke up Standard Oil, know, Rockefeller essentially had a monopoly on the oil. industry, and Roosevelt said, hey, you can't do that because competition isn't there anymore, and capitalism can only work where there's fair competition. And so I think that that's going to be an interesting case going forward on what you do about it, but right now they're not doing anything about it.
Harrison Wolf: sometimes I wonder ⁓ if this is just the latest tension between labor and capital, ⁓ right? Like we've seen that as ⁓ capital ⁓ consolidates ownership over production, labor tends lose its value. that relationship. ⁓ we've seen is that AI has mostly consolidated private companies. It's not a government-driven ⁓ experience. And can't help but see this as just the latest battle between labor and capital ⁓ and labor losing ⁓ against a that efficiency hundreds if not thousands of percent. I have been working on some projects that ⁓ been able to put out with the help of AI, right? It's not like I'm anti-AI, but like with the help of AI products that I create something in a matter of hours that would have taken me months before. And to that I'm not ⁓ nervous about what means for my value to the organization, ⁓ like I can't but see it as threatened. ⁓ And so I know if The government at this point could even solve that problem. But I appreciate that you're willing to it out because so many people are it seems like. ⁓
Courtney Gill: you're not the only person who's worried. And I think what might be interesting about this case versus some of the technological advances in the past is one, the pace at which it's gonna happen, but two, and maybe a good thing for kind of this balance of power is that for maybe the first time, the people who are gonna be the fastest are actually the people who historically have been the biggest winners. So we're looking at the upper white collar group are extremely well educated, historically have benefited a lot from the tech booms. And are now the first on the trapping block. And that would be a lot of our peers. ⁓ And think about it a lot for myself. I've had several friends who've already been laid off at some tech companies in San Francisco, specifically ⁓ cited reasons. ⁓ And think that it may because of that actually get a faster wake up call and that there's going to be more of a demand on Washington to do something in a way because these people hold a lot of power and influence in a way that historically labor it was always this fight because they were the people who didn't have power and they didn't have money. The only thing we had was numbers. And so I am going to be interested to see how that power dynamic changes as the people who all of a sudden start losing are the people who have been in positions of power and authority.
Harrison Wolf: Yeah. I do ⁓ think your first point about it being more systemic and like really creating some ⁓ outcomes across the board that aren't expected will dramatically affect the system. I would also that ⁓ the ⁓ people that you identify, like the white collar workers usually the ones that haven't labor in the past. ⁓ And so labor protections might be something new that we need to consider for new groups and new opportunities. And then the last piece is I don't think that the blue collar worker is protected. think autonomous vehicles, ground robotics, robotics that are in a stage now that in five years we're looking at something incredibly impactful in the factories where many folks have gone to work, whether it's Amazon or other delivery ⁓ in places. so to see, you know, will long haul truckers lose all of their jobs because we have autonomous vehicles? Like that would be unfortunate.
Courtney Gill: think the short answer is that it's coming for all of us. And maybe this is the one thing that unites everybody, that it is coming for everybody except for truly probably a 1 % who own.
Harrison Wolf: Yeah.
Courtney Gill: everything. And so it's just, I think it's coming faster for white color workers, but I think that it is coming for all of us. And I think the other thing that is really important, what we do as well, is for social unrest that follows periods of unemployment that we have seen throughout history. I mean, you look back at 2020 when a lot of people were unemployed was the kind of largest time of unrest the U.S. had seen since probably the 70s. And a large part of that was that when people are not meaningfully employed. people are very productive with their time ⁓ go to the library more and go out on walks and runs. ⁓ and some people don't do that. And I think we see a lot of social unrest when that happens. And you even look back 2,000 years at Athenian plague. And that's almost exactly what we saw then as well was the plague killed almost half of the population. And that was devastating in and of itself. But actually,
Harrison Wolf: or make sourdough.
Courtney Gill: possibly the most consequential thing of the plague was that it totally broke down all social norms because people sort of thought there was nothing to lose where they're like, well, we're all dying anyways. And social norms just totally went out the window and the social hierarchy that had existed in Athens that kept everything functioning just totally fell by the wayside. And people who historically had been in the kind of plebeian class all of a sudden were like, I don't have to listen to you. What are you going to do?
Harrison Wolf: Hmm.
Courtney Gill: about it, we're all gonna die anyways. And the social fallout that happened from that is a fascinating historical story if you have the interest and time to read it. But I think it's very kind of reminiscent of then what happened in the pandemic era. And I think probably what is gonna be coming for us as well, people don't have schedules, routines, and employment and a purpose. ⁓ And a lot of people, specifically ⁓ men, derive
Harrison Wolf: Yeah.
Courtney Gill: most of their purpose from work. when they don't have that, you see very high rates of suicide, violence, aggression, substance abuse, alcoholism. Again, this is concentrated in men. And so I think it's probably the group I'm the most worried about. And I just read a book as well called Men Without Work.
Harrison Wolf: and podcasting.
Courtney Gill: it's ⁓ to say the least, about what could be coming if we don't keep people, but mostly men, ⁓ on employment.
Timothy Reuter: in a crowded field as a candidate in congressional primary?
Courtney Gill: It is very tough and I think the biggest uphill battle is that... one of the candidates specifically is coming in with a ton of his own money, which just frustrates and fuels my like kind of anger at the system of how it has come to be in the amount of money that goes into congressional races. Now, I mean, if you look at where it was back in 1990, it was negligible compared to where it is now. A lot of House races now will get a couple million dollars for a winning candidate. the Senate races now, some of them are upwards of $20 million. And so think what's tough for me is that one guy's coming in with a ton of money. two of the guys are coming in with a fairly substantial amount of money. But the one guy put over a million dollars of his own money in cash into the campaign and that is hard to compete with. But I think this is kind of where you can, if you can leverage social media, get out there. I go to a ton of big events. I'm outside of baseball games. I go to little farmers markets, festivals, whatever, where I really just meet people kind of on the ground. And ultimately, I think you just have to keep showing. up. And even if it's not a win this time, I'll come back and do it again. And you look at like Obama didn't win his first congressional race. The guy Senator Inhofe, who became our longest serving senator in Oklahoma and one of the longest serving in the United States, didn't win his first congressional race either. He then went to be the mayor for a bit and then came back one after he had been the mayor and then became a senator for a very long period of time. And so I think it's a game of, you know, leverage what you do have at your disposal, getting kind of young people to help you out, get the word of mouth out there, but also it might be a case of just showing back up again in two years or four years.
Timothy Reuter: Does the story of working at the forum hurt or help you as a candidate? Many people, and I would say especially conservatives, consider the forum to be part of a globalist cabal.
Courtney Gill: No! I think. 20 or 30 years ago, kind of back in a different era of Davos, where it was very much just a business forum, I think it would have really helped me. think ⁓ particularly in Oklahoma, it has been not And I've to have lot of conversations with people ⁓ on, I there definitely a lot of kind of different conspiracy theories people have hit me with, I mean, all sorts of stuff. But ultimately, again, ⁓ repeat to people what my values are and I think you guys know from working with me I am I have no problem kind of being the odd man out and my own opinions and values no matter where I am ⁓ I think that that kind of has is just me my story I've lived in a ton of parts of the world in different countries and every place in time is gonna have their own different niches and I always kind of say like my core values and morals stay the same no matter where I'm going and I just try to reiterate that
Harrison Wolf: Mm-hmm.
Courtney Gill: values to people and either those align with them or they don't. ⁓ ⁓ you can't make people like you, either they do or they don't, and they're gonna believe what they believe about you. if you can kind of win them over to your side of thinking, I think that's great. But at the same time, you also, ⁓ people really don't like a certain thing about you, there's so much you can do.
Harrison Wolf: Yeah, I think that's a great perspective. I really admire your ability to say, if it's not this time, it's next time. And refining that message and have moments in life to be successful in the political space. think that's really, really for helping our society continue to deal with some of these challenges that we're working on today. So Mike, kudos to you, Courtney, definitely.
Courtney Gill: Thank you.
Timothy Reuter: I had the privilege of going to your wedding last year, which was absolutely beautiful and awesome, other than the groom almost dying during the process, but he recovered. And I was curious, what have you learned so far about marriage?
Courtney Gill: That is all very true, but we're so glad that you were there. loved meeting you. I got a lot of positive reviews of everyone who sat by you and talked to you. And Timothy asked the best questions. One of the events was going to an art museum and Timothy held up his end of the bargain by getting everybody to start asking questions ⁓ the docent.
Harrison Wolf: Hahaha!
Timothy Reuter: Thank you, I appreciate that.
Courtney Gill: say ultimately I think is both a transition that you have to make. I've always been a fiercely independent person even as a very young child. I always did everything by myself I think is getting to the place where you're genuinely like joint decisions. But I the kind of biggest lesson is that ⁓ that I've sort of heard other people say is that it's not 50-50. It should feel like 100-100 in a good way, that you feel like you're putting your best foot forward constantly. But the reality of that situation is that sometimes it's going to be 80-20. Sometimes it's going to be 50-50. Sometimes it's going to be 30-70. And that you're both going to have different moments and times because of things that are happening in your work with sick family members. with different things happening where sometimes you're going to feel like you're doing a lot more than the other person and sometimes you're just going to say, can't right now, like I'm running for Congress right now.
Harrison Wolf: Mm-mm.
Courtney Gill: Andrew has been, I mean he already does a lot of the stuff, already mows the lawn and he already does all the cooking and the grocery shopping and whatever, but he's been like above and beyond, like doing a lot of things that I'm like, I just, I'm going to five events a day, like I just don't have the capacity right now to do any more for you or with you or I just can't right now. I have another six weeks that I have to do this and then we can reevaluate then and you know, he's had moments like that too where his grandmother was really sick and he went out to the East Coast for almost a month and And, you know, was kind of tracked out in a lot of stuff and had to sort of really help his family out there. And so I think the biggest thing is that, you know, you really have to look at it as kind of a team, a team game, and that sometimes you have to pull more than your weight, but sometimes you're, they're going to help you up. And I think it's like, you just have to keep showing up. And, and also I think gratitude is a big piece of that. think a lot of people, the longer they've been in relationships is like, it can be very easy to take for granted what the other person does. And you often are just like, well, he didn't do this and he didn't mow the lawn and he didn't, but you're like, okay, but what if you made a list of all the things that they did do? And I think people can very easily get into a negative headspace instead of being like, wow, they're doing so much. Like, yeah, it would be nice if they did this extra thing. I wonder what I could do to help them like make that easier for them. But really, I think coming at it from a place of gratitude instead of resentment is, it's helpful.
Timothy Reuter: That's really beautiful. And I am so excited for you and Andrew and the life that you're building together. And you you learned in one year what it took me about 10 years to learn. you're with. If I can get in one last question, I know we're over time, but I would love to hear what did you learn from working at the forum and what did you learn from working with us? And that could be learning what not to do as much as what to do, but.
Harrison Wolf: Yeah, I was going to ask how has learning to work with Timothy and I been detrimental to your career?
Courtney Gill: Well... Let's say first and foremost you guys brought a lot of joy to work and I really loved going to work every day with you guys and I think that that is such a huge thing. Talking to a ton of my friends they really don't enjoy working and they do not like their, they like everything. They're like if I could quit tomorrow I absolutely would. I hate being here, I hate the people, I hate doing this. I genuinely really enjoyed every day. I thought it was great and I think that bringing joy to whatever you're doing in life is so important. The other thing I think I learned with work with you guys was sometimes you just have to take advantage of like what's going on in the moment and be like, you know what, we're going to go start this program in one, like in Rwanda because all these things line up right now and like, let's go do this. And it might not be the first thing you thought of doing, but that if you kind of just jump on and like take these rides, it'll bring you to great places and being to really new things. And also for me, like running for Congress right now, I have no idea how this is going to go, but I'm here for the adventure, I'm getting a lot out of it no matter what. And I think we did a lot of that as a team where you're like, you can't worry about the outcome. You have to just put your best into what you're doing and what you're doing and ⁓ that it's worthwhile. And you lessons at the end of kind of each project ⁓ and But yeah, I think style of working and joy has a big part of it.
Harrison Wolf: Mm-hmm. That's awesome. Yeah, it's funny you say that because, it would, that's definitely the two takeaways that I would, I would also point to from working with you both is, ⁓ and one of them clearly comes from Timothy, which is the strategic opportunism that you sort of identified, which is, know, take advantage of the opportunities that you're given, if it makes sense. and then bring joy. That was definitely from something from you. So, ⁓ you I could ask the question if we're technically friends, if we're friends, but You know, we were both invited to your wedding and you are always invited to our house. Anytime you need our houses, Timothy and I don't live together. ⁓ Anytime. And so I'm just gonna go ahead and say I know we're friends and I'm excited to continue to be your friends for a long time.
Courtney Gill: You
Timothy Reuter: Hahaha Yes, absolutely.
Courtney Gill: can't wait. Me too.
Harrison Wolf: Best of luck in your campaign and I look forward to seeing just the amazing things that you continue to do, Courtney.
Courtney Gill: Well, thank you so much for inviting me on here and I can't wait to keep listening to you. See, I get to listen to you guys every week, so it's great. Bye.
Harrison Wolf: Cheers! Bye!
Timothy Reuter: Awesome, thanks
Harrison Wolf: Is that what this is the tenth one
Timothy Reuter: Do you know what percentage that puts us in, in terms of top podcasting?
Harrison Wolf: ⁓ Is it a hundred? The top hundred percent?
Timothy Reuter: We are now in the top 10 % of podcasters.
Harrison Wolf: Wow!
Timothy Reuter: And so that raises the question, when am I getting my residual check? I assume you've been hogging all of the amazing advertising revenue we've gotten as top 10 % podcasters.
Harrison Wolf: Sure. You know, that's a good point. That's a really good point. ⁓ just like ⁓ the real world, ⁓ top 1 % make more than the rest of the 99 % combined. So we need to get into that top 1%.
Timothy Reuter: There's definitely a power law for podcasting, but I mean, it is kind of amazing that
Harrison Wolf: Yeah. Don't if see this but this is my I'm very dodgered out today You know ⁓ and it's it's intentional because I'm wearing my JPL ⁓
Timothy Reuter: ⁓ really?
Harrison Wolf: It's the JPL giveaway night outfit and I was able to find the... My brother gave me the hat. So the hat has like ingenuity on it, the rover, ⁓ bunch of different projects. And then somebody on Reddit was able to find me a jersey at Goodwill that somebody had donated or sold. So I got the jersey. Yeah, it's kind of ugly, but it's... Yeah, so there's the Mars rover. Yeah.
Timothy Reuter: That's awesome. That is very cool. It's cool ugly.
Harrison Wolf: I figured for us today this could work out and I'm still finding.
Timothy Reuter: I don't know if you're aware, I spent this week with people from JPL, like at NASA. So I put on my Accelerating Space Science with Nuclear Technology workshop this week in Huntsville, Alabama.
Harrison Wolf: ⁓ no, I didn't know that. Yeah, how'd it go?
Timothy Reuter: It was good. I came away inspired by the imagination of what everyone's trying to do in terms of exploring our solar system and these new technologies might be incorporated. So hopefully we did something to help the engineers understand more what the scientists need and help the scientists understand better ⁓ possible from an engineering standpoint as they plan new missions.
Harrison Wolf: That's cool. And where do you go from here? What's your next thing?
Timothy Reuter: Yeah, I think we're gonna turn a bit more towards space development and how do we utilize the economic resources throughout the solar system. So we're trying to raise some money for other projects related to that. Yeah.
Harrison Wolf: Mm-hmm. Cool. That sounds great.
Courtney Gill: Harrison, you're all geared up with your Dodgers ⁓ summer. ⁓
Harrison Wolf: It's true, but as I pointed out to Timothy, are all, this is a special NASA giveaway night that my brother got me some gear to. So you'll notice like the Mars Rover is here, Ingenuity is under the hat, you know, so it is ugly, but it's tech related, so I figured I'd wear it.
Courtney Gill: Okay. That is very cool. So my fun fact is our minor league team that we have in Tulsa. They're called unsurprisingly, the drillers. the entrance is a big like oil ⁓ and it actually kind moves, ⁓ which quite funny. But they are the affiliate team, I guess you call them to ⁓ the ⁓ I'm that's the extent of my baseball knowledge, but I do know that. ⁓
Harrison Wolf: Yes they are. Yes they are.
Timothy Reuter: Why do the Dodgers have an affiliate team in Tulsa?
Harrison Wolf: That's just the way it works. Everybody has minor league teams all over the place.
Courtney Gill: didn't know this until very recently. I just learned this in the last six months, so that's a Harrison question for sure.
Harrison Wolf: Yeah, yeah, no, it's interesting. Where I grew up in Palmdale, California, which is a very aerospace dense, you got Skunk Works, you got Edwards Air Force Base, you got a variety of other players out there, Scaled Composites now. They have the Jethawks, which is a Mariners team.
Courtney Gill: because I'm not a huge baseball follower, I love that we have $2 Tuesdays here and you can get $2 tickets, but what's unique I think in Tulsa is a lot of places do that where they have like $5 tickets, but then it's still $10 drinks and $10 everything else. But on Tuesdays here you can get $2 hot dogs, $2 drinks including beers, not that I'm a beer drinker, but if that's your inclination, and $2 tickets so you can go for $6 and have your whole night.
Harrison Wolf: That's great.
Timothy Reuter: I've heard Minor League is the best actually, like in many ways better than going to Major League.
Courtney Gill: It's so much better.
Harrison Wolf: There's a, Timothy, without belaboring this sports discussion, I would say there's another option in baseball now called the Savannah Bananas.
Courtney Gill: Okay, so I was just gonna bring this up. went to Banana Ball this week. They came to Tulsa and I just about to talk about this. ⁓ my gosh, I loved it. As someone who's not inclined to watch. Okay, so basically this very creative guy named Jesse Cole and his wife, Emily, they have this really kind of.
Harrison Wolf: Did you? ⁓ What'd you think? Explain it to Timothy. Explain it for Timothy.
Courtney Gill: minor minor league it might have even been like a college team that was not doing well and they're like what can we do to make this exciting and fun and they basically took a No one watched baseball team and they started a group Savannah bananas and so they sing and they dance and they basically I think the comparison is kind of the Harlem Globetrotters for baseball and it's an exhibition baseball team But I think the most appealing part of it is that there's a two-hour time limit Fans can like catch a foul ball and it count like and counts as an out like they have unique rules that make it go a lot faster and it's more exciting but also like
Timothy Reuter: I've heard about this. Yeah. Globetrotters, yeah.
Harrison Wolf: Yeah. Yeah.
Courtney Gill: baseball kind of seems like it's not the main point of the game. It's like sort of there and they're all great baseball players like it's incredible, but they can do like a back flip and if they do like a back flip when they're catching the ball that gives them points and so it makes it just like a much more exciting version of baseball and the tickets are just like they're so hard to get. You have to do a lottery for them and if you miss the lottery like six months ahead of time if wanted to buy them sort of secondhand like we looked to get them for a friend who was kind
Harrison Wolf: Yeah. Yeah.
Courtney Gill: and they only had two tickets left and they were over $450 each when they can't sell the minor league tickets or even any for like $5. So it's fascinating. So he's created this league and he owned this, Jesse and Emily Cole owned this banana ball outright and now I think they have like six teams. So they have like.
Timothy Reuter: ⁓ my God.
Harrison Wolf: Yeah. Yeah.
Courtney Gill: the Indianapolis Clowns and the Texas Tailgaters. But they have like, they, really like them as people because they make it very exciting. But several finance groups have come in, private equity, et cetera, and have wanted to buy, like, can we buy a team? Can we? And they're like, no. And the reason is that they don't want, they keep the tickets very reasonably priced. So to buy them in the lottery, they range from like 20 to $35. And so they want to
Timothy Reuter: Right.
Courtney Gill: it accessible for families and like not do all the things that make regular sports no fun for normal people anymore.
Harrison Wolf: Yeah. But they're selling out, like, they sold out Yankee Stadium two days in a row. Like, it's not like they're in tiny ballparks. These are huge ballparks.
Courtney Gill: No.
Timothy Reuter: gotta take my family to this. It sounds exactly like the kind of sport.
Courtney Gill: If you can get tickets for it, you should do it.
Harrison Wolf: Yeah, yeah, we tried. We tried to get tickets via the lottery for it because I'd love my kids to see it, I think. we couldn't get tickets. It was a thousand dollars a ticket if we once we missed the lottery at Yankee Stadium. Yeah, it was nuts.
Timothy Reuter: if you want to talk about data centers and space, like I know a lot about that, but if you want to talk to me about baseball, it's usually going to be a short conversation.
Harrison Wolf: Hahaha
Courtney Gill: Well Timothy, it's over my head too, except for Banana Ball was worthwhile.
Timothy Reuter: I
Harrison Wolf: ⁓ Do you still go by Courtney Gill?
Timothy Reuter: Ooh, good question.
Courtney Gill: Yes, okay, so technically and I, who's ⁓ husband, we are both going ⁓ Baum and Gil, ⁓ we're both hyphenated for kind of future like with kids. Everyone's have that last name, ⁓ but. For work, we have decided to both individually just keep Gil and Bauman because it's really hard when you have a whole network to change ⁓ for politics, having that long of a name is just hard. ⁓ always, just gonna keep Gil for everything work related and he's just gonna keep Bauman. But for future like Christmas cards and things like that, we're technically both like hyphenated Bauman Gil.
Harrison Wolf: Mm. Sure.
Timothy Reuter: Can I, I'm going to say something. This should definitely get edited out, but like what kind of trash traditionalist are you? This does not seem like you are like some sort of new age, blue haired progressive, like hyphenating, but keeping your previous last name for professional reasons. Like this is not what I expected from you.
Harrison Wolf: Okay.
Courtney Gill: know, well, so, and then we can get into the other questions, but it's funny because all of my friends now have taken the same train that I have. So in England, we call it double barreling. it's interesting because in the U.S., it doesn't kind of the same connotations, but in England, it's quite common amongst, should I say a certain social class. And generally in England, when you kept multiple last names, ⁓ it was they were all too important to get rid of. ⁓ And that's how you end up, yeah, where they all have too many names. And so it's interesting though, because once I went my spiel about this, all of my ⁓ female were like, yeah, that makes total sense. So here's my thing is that if you just take kind of feminism as it is that, ⁓ women have, you know, go to work now, they do all these things.
Timothy Reuter: Right, yes, when you're marrying nobility.
Harrison Wolf: Sure.
Courtney Gill: But the things that are hard for women haven't changed. Women still have to be pregnant. Women still have to breastfeed. Women are still doing the vast majority of things that even if you have a supportive partner, the man just can't do. And if you look at young children, they will instinctually go to their mother for emotional care, even if you have a very available father. Biologically, that's just not how it works. And then you have all the things as well that women have the time pressures of needing to have kids in a certain time and you have all these things. And would say this isn't true in my...
Timothy Reuter: So you're a progressive feminist is what I'm hearing.
Courtney Gill: No, because here's what's wrong actually with what happens in feminism for most women is that most women now, in addition to still... being pregnant, doing all the childcare, and again, not in my relationship, but in most, they're still doing the vast majority of homework, they're doing all the vacuuming, they're doing the grocery shopping, and now, because their husbands don't make enough money, they want them to go to work for 50 hours a week too. So if you actually look, like, if I'm gonna be honest for quality of life for most women, I don't know that the... how feminism has actually come to be has made life better for most women. I think for a few it has and I think you're seeing that probably in the most well-educated sectors that if you have a really supportive husband, like I'm probably better off than I would have been 50 years ago. But for your average, I'm gonna say kind of middle grouping of women, I think their lives are actually just a lot harder in your-
Timothy Reuter: And that's why middle group women are getting married less and marriage is becoming for the rich. But you've just given me like, don't mean this ⁓ a criticism, but I'm sort of fascinated because you sort of, sort of ⁓ for traditional values in some sense, but like you are doing the total modern progressive thing and ensuring that your husband does his share and you're both were like, there is nothing, you know, neo traditionalists about anything that you've told me of your either perspective or life. Like, why aren't you running as a progressive democrat if this is what you believe?
Courtney Gill: Well, so here's the thing is that I actually think and this is one that's an interesting economic conversation. I think, and I would say the same thing of a lot of my female peers. If. It was easier for men to have single incomes and meaningfully support a household with a quality of life everyone would be happy with. I think a lot of my female friends would choose to stay home with their kids and not work. And these are people who have master's degrees, who have gone to Oxford and Cambridge. But the reality of the situation is that with inflation, like life has gotten so expensive for most people that I think it's almost impossible for most normal families
Harrison Wolf: Mm-hmm.
Courtney Gill: to have a traditional setup where just the husband goes to work. And so if that is not the case, where just the husband is going to work, then the other things need to change because otherwise we go back to what we said, which is that the woman just gets stuck with everything.
Harrison Wolf: Welcome back to Technically Friends, the podcast where technology meets real conversation. Harrison Wolf.
Timothy Reuter: And I'm Timothy Reuter. Each episode, we break down the idea of shaping our digital world from emerging tech to the ethical questions that come with it and have a little fun throughout.
Harrison Wolf: Today's episode brings the third member of our drones team from the World Economic Forum into the conversation. while at the forum, deep in the heart of the Presidio, this person was the operations and logistics expert that kept Timothy and I on task and up to date on the goings on of the organization. we all focused on drones at the time, our guest today has gone on to spread her wings to Oklahoma as part of the venture capital world and is now running for US Congress.
Timothy Reuter: Our guest today is Courtney Radcliffe-Gill, a globally impactful aerospace and aviation expert, former World Economic Forum drones team member, Oxford and Cambridge graduate in business and economics, and candidate for Congress.
Harrison Wolf: We're diving into everything from how technology and economics have shaped her views on politics, which technologies she believes are redefining the future for young people, and where she goes to get unbiased information for her work in investment.
Timothy Reuter: So sit back, plug in and get ready. This is the Technically Friends podcast with congressional candidate, newlywed aerospace expert and technical friend, Courtney Radcliffe-Gill.
Harrison Wolf: Courtney, welcome.
Courtney Gill: Thank you so much for having me today. I love being back with this trio. We always had such a great time. back at the office and I definitely missed those days in the Presidio and got to work on all sorts of exciting space drones, aerospace work, but I'm also so glad that we have stayed in touch and that you guys are doing this podcast together is especially fun for me to continue to tune in and listen to. And I'm delighted to be here today and thank you for such a warm intro.
Timothy Reuter: Well, we loved working with you as well and have very fond memories of doing things around the world in India Rwanda and places like that. But your life has changed so much since that time. You're a venture capitalist now. What exactly does that mean to be a venture capitalist and what do you ⁓ your days doing?
Courtney Gill: could put it into a nutshell. Essentially, I find new startups and give them investment money in order to be able to grow their amazing ideas. That's my brief description of venture capital. What that actually looks like in practice is a lot of different things. There are a few different components to venture capital. One is the fundraising side, which is in order to have the money in a fund...
Harrison Wolf: Cool.
Courtney Gill: to distribute to these companies, you need to go out to a wide variety of people. It could be individuals, it could be a growing sector, family offices. So those are different wealthy families who have collectively put their money into ⁓ foundations, a wide variety of setups. Occasionally, can be ⁓ whole variety different people. ⁓ And ⁓ the piece ⁓ interesting and you need to go out and meet all these people and convince them that what your specific niche is ⁓ works well for their portfolio. Most of these people are using this strategy as a diversification away from a public portfolio. So if you think about what a lot of people have their money invested in. will be public equities and that's anything you can find on the regular stock market where you can go into your regular brokerage account, whether you're on Fidelity or Charles Schwab, etc. and go and say, I want to buy 10 shares of fill in the blank public company. a growing sector where you've seen ⁓ fairly high returns, higher than the public equities is in what they call the private sector. And those are things that are not available to the public market. And kind of the two subsets of that where you'll have more traditional private equity, where you have private ownership of companies and the venture capital side is a subset of that, but that is investing in new fledgling companies. And often you will be investing a very small amount of money, but these companies are very small in exchange for a percentage of their company when they do hopefully go public. Although unfortunately, many of them don't make it there. ⁓
Harrison Wolf: Hmm.
Courtney Gill: ⁓ job then on the other side, once I, once you do the fundraising piece is to go out and they call it deal sourcing, where I go to a ton of different events around the country and the world, trying to find the most promising companies ⁓ where, you know, I think there could be a lot of value adding companies that I think, you know, have the right team. That's probably the most important thing we look at. There are a lot of great ideas out there, but if you don't have an all star team that can work well together, the best ideas generally won't make it.
Harrison Wolf: Hmm.
Timothy Reuter: Yeah. And so, you know, I always took you from our time working together as somebody who was a little suspicious of technology and technological change. So I found it interesting that you decided to go into a field that in some ways is promoting or at the very least funding technological change. So how do you balance that sort of personal skepticism with trying to find
Courtney Gill: This has always been a very hard one for me. Timothy is correct. I am generally very skeptic. Outside of the healthcare sector, I'm... sure that there are that many technologies that have meaningfully improved most Americans' quality of life. I'm going to specifically focus on the very developed world because I think in certain other parts of the world it has been able to connect people to financial resources, etc. But I'm going to just focus on ⁓ Americans for now. I'm not sure that most technologies that have been created post, let's say 2000, have improved people's quality of life. And ultimately for me, my main focus is whenever something is created, I am funny coming from me in my role. The reason that I care about it is can this make people's lives better? Not can this make money for a small subset of people? And I kind of think about all the technologies where I'm like, okay, the refrigerator, great technology, you know, has prevented tons of people from dying from cholera and keeping food fresh or, you know, central heating, great invention, indoor plumbing, love it. I kind of think about all the technologies post-2000 and I'm like, has this really helped my life? I don't know.
Harrison Wolf: Mmm.
Courtney Gill: I do think in the healthcare sector though, definitely there have been wonderful improvements that I'm excited about. But what I would say is exciting on the investing side is getting to be one of the people who has an influence in how these tech companies grow. Generally in venture capital, if you invest ⁓ certain amount of money in a company, you will often get a seat on the board of that company. And this is something that I've always found to be really important that you get a big say in how that company grows and develops and we really think about responsible development and what that looks like. And one of the best quotes I think I ever heard that applies to so many sectors of life that I think my first boss when I was an intern told me, and he said, Courtney, if you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu. And basically saying, if you're not in the room, if you're not part of the conversation, if you are not part of these companies. your interests don't matter. And in fact, they're probably going to get taken over. for me, I have this ⁓ of back and forth dilemma. In some ways, I'd love to go live out on a ranch or a farm and be totally checked out of all of this. But I also know that that's not realistic. ⁓ I also do care what happens to the rest of the world. And so I would like to be involved to the extent that I can in what could be in the future, very important companies. ⁓ ⁓ know, especially we look at
Harrison Wolf: Hmm
Courtney Gill: A lot of these AI companies that five years ago basically were these tiny little companies and if you were one of the venture capital investors there, you get a big say in how one of the most powerful technologies in the world grows.
Harrison Wolf: Hmm. So ⁓ you sort articulated your how you see your role positively ⁓ for these that, you know, perhaps will have ⁓ an impact society wouldn't be your preferred impact. And you can sort of help them evolve into something that's more effective or more responsible. If you are looking at a technology very early on ⁓ and you're asked, you know, can see, yes, this would bring immense value. to my firm or to yourself as an investor, how do you balance that against the notion that at the same time, I don't see a positive use for this technology?
Courtney Gill: Yeah, this is a tough one and the venture firm that I've been working with, our kind of motto has been, you can do well by doing good that those two things don't have to be mutually exclusive. And I think ⁓ generally do try to find companies ⁓ where think they're... can be big overlaps. One of the companies we were looking at last year that has done very well and grown a ton basically creates totally natural food dyes from mushrooms. And in the past year, we've seen this huge demand mostly from parents of saying, we don't want all these toxic food dyes that have links to ADHD, et cetera, in children. And his company is now doing very, very well and is growing and that's been a case that's been really exciting for us to be a part of and watch.
Harrison Wolf: I just walked the show floor of the big drone conference, right, that we have gone to in the past or we know every year it happens. And it's very much turned towards a defense oriented space. I would say 90 % of the companies that originally had been civil or commercial only are now either dual use ⁓ or moving towards the defense industry. simply because of the demand signals from the military experience overseas in Ukraine and Gaza and of these programs, industrial policy-esque programs have been put in place. And you just walk the show floor and you just see missile after missile, right? Bomb after bomb. And a years ago, that wouldn't have been my experience, right? It would have been humanitarian drone delivery. It would have been some of the other things. ⁓ And I'm saying that that's wrong for this conference or for the industry itself, but it is definitely something you perceive. And I wonder for those who have money to invest, like how they balance that. So thanks for shedding some light on that for me. what technologies do you see as like something you're really interested in supporting seeing as impactful in a very positive way?
Courtney Gill: ⁓ For as much as I do have deeply held beliefs, I also try to be very open-minded. And so when I do come across new I try to look at it from a fresh ⁓
Harrison Wolf: Mm-hmm.
Courtney Gill: Even within, let's kind of take the whole AI sector because everything now seems like it's AI adjacent. take an example that's been fun for me to use in the last few weeks. I've been into growing ⁓ vegetables fruits and everything at home. I'm growing everything from corn to raspberries, blueberries, all the things. But ⁓ any the plants are struggling, I can now take pictures and videos of them and then I ask AI and I'm like, ⁓ what's wrong with my plant? It doesn't seem like it's doing well based on what it looks like. do you think I should do? ⁓
Harrison Wolf: Mm-hmm.
Courtney Gill: And it's actually been right pretty much every time. And sometimes it's not what I was expecting where it's like, ⁓ you're actually over watering it or you over fertilize it or anything that that's like one example. But if you take, for example, that you're a small farmer somewhere ⁓ maybe previously you struggling with things and you didn't really know what to do about something. ⁓ I there's very much a world where if you use some of these up and coming technologies ⁓ for industry in the right way, they can have a lot of ups swings. And that's where I think it's really important in the work we did previously, which is you just need to have clear policy on a lot of these and how you can get the upswing from a lot of them instead of all the bad things. so I think there's a lot of kind of small uses where even with AI, I'm using a lot of the exciting features of it, but I try to not use it. You know, they talk about sort of the brain rot that happens when even for a three month period of people only use AI and don't handwrite things. And so I try to
Harrison Wolf: Mm-hmm.
Courtney Gill: self-regulate where I'm like, okay, I'm gonna try and use the good things where I can and not the bad things and try to kind of stay open-minded.
Timothy Reuter: So let's transition a bit to what your future career might be in politics. What made you want to run for Congress?
Courtney Gill: Two reasons that I decided to run. One a ⁓ general on both sides of the aisle with the in office. ⁓ And this every person, it's just a lot of the people. And I think general dishonesty with people in Washington ⁓ and having spent bit of time working on the Hill. I've noticed even in the last kind of 10 years a difference in the type of people who were there. And I grew up always being extremely passionate about when I was little, I still have it. I had a Thomas Jefferson quote book. And when I was in kindergarten, that was like my bedtime reading. And my dad and I would pick a quote and we'd talk about it. And it would be, you know, the government which governs the least governs the best because the people decide for themselves. What do you think about that? Do you like when the government makes choices? What do you think is important that the government does that an individual can't do on their own. so I've always grown up really admiring our founding fathers and the energy and effort and intellect that they put into their work, but very much that the call to serve in a political space was meant to be a very small sliver of your life and it was not meant to be your career. If you think about Thomas Jefferson, probably the least interesting thing about him was the fact that he was a politician. actually most of his ⁓ contributions to society would be in his academic work and his thought work. And you look at the founding fathers and they were just incredibly well-rounded humans who added so much value to their communities and subsequently to the country. And I look now so many of the people who are in office and they got there because they had a ton of money. They necessarily particularly well-qualified to be there. ⁓ They there ⁓ and go in with a net worth of, ⁓ know, of them were already wealthy when they got there, but some of them are going...
Harrison Wolf: Hmm.
Courtney Gill: in with a net worth of $1 to $2 million and they're coming out with a net worth of $30, $40 million from basically what should be insider trading. it's not called that. Everyone else would go to prison for it. But you know, they're investing in some small cybersecurity company that no one's ever heard of and they sit on the cybersecurity committee or something, you know, adjacent. And miraculously, three weeks later, this company no one's ever heard of gets this huge government contract ⁓ shares skyrocket and you're like, huh,
Harrison Wolf: Mm-hmm.
Courtney Gill: wonder how that happens. I think unfortunately that has just really become pervasive that people are going to Washington to enrich themselves and really nothing to do with serving the people. ⁓ And they stay for a really long time. And I follow this interest, this wonderful site that I encourage people to check out. It's called Quiver Quant, short for quantitative. And you're able to check the the trades, stock trades of every single member of Congress and the Senate. And fascinating to me just to kind of see ⁓ what's on behind the scenes. So general disappointment with the people in office is one that was long winded. ⁓ And two would be to ⁓ hope a younger generation. that there is some... chance that the future can be bright. I was talking to a 16 year old cousin of mine over Christmas and I was with a few of his friends I brought something up and I was like, why don't you care about this at all? And he said, Courtney, it's not that we don't care. It's that it doesn't matter. The America that our grandparents grew up in is gone and it's never coming back. And he's like to pretend that us getting involved is going to change the way that the deck is stacked against all of us he's like no offense but that's kind of silly he's like we're cooked ⁓ I said you know ⁓ with that attitude we are cooked but it kind of broke my heart I was like you know what almost all the young people I'm talking to feel exactly the same way they're like
Harrison Wolf: Hmm.
Courtney Gill: some people at the top are already so wealthy, but also with how everything has changed, there's kind of not a chance for a lot of people in their minds of having any kind of a bright future. And I think this is probably the first generation of Americans who truly feel like their future is not just going to be the same as their parents, but dramatically worse. so I decided, you know what? I'm going to go in there, see what I can do as an individual person. Obviously, you can't change it all. But, you know, I think of the guys who were doing the Normandy beach invasions and they're probably sitting there thinking, you know, they're on their little amphibious vehicles. It's a miserable day out. They're landing on a beach with 50,000 Nazis ready to kill them. The beach is littered with bombs and against all odds, they said, we have to do this. You we have to try, even if it seems like it's hopeless, we have to make a plan, get everybody together and go for this because everything, like this, our whole lives hang in the balance here. And that's a more extreme version, but I feel like we're all called to service in our own way, in our own time. I think for me, running for office was my way of mobilizing people to hopefully ⁓ a bright light at the end of the tunnel, but also to get young people to care. Right now, voter turnout in under 35s is negligible. ⁓ if you're looking in non-presidential years, specifically in things like primaries, we're talking under 1 % in a lot of places because just total ⁓
Harrison Wolf: Hmm.
Courtney Gill: And I think that's really sad. So I'm here to motivate the next generation to care and also to hopefully get some more honest people in office.
Timothy Reuter: So on your website, you list your political affiliation as conservative. I used to have an idea of what being a Reagan conservative meant, but what does being a conservative mean in the Trump era?
Courtney Gill: No, I think that's really interesting. I would broadly always label myself. If someone says like, how would you kind of identify your politics? I would broadly call myself a Reagan Republican. also think that there's been a lot of change in how people identify these different parties and how much that's changed for both parties over the last 15 to 20 years. And ultimately I would say, It has changed for how other people see themselves. I haven't changed my values and views, I think, as that has changed. And what I would always say is, again, what the founding fathers told us is to be wary of political parties, because when you're too closely attached to one, it basically means that you're going to be forced into agreeing or disagreeing with things that may not be in the best interests of your district. And ultimately, you know, if I get into office, my to make the best decisions and vote ⁓ ⁓ best possible way for District 1 of Oklahoma. And ultimately, that looks like for whatever party, my obligation is to District 1 of Oklahoma. And there might be things that different parties agree with or disagree with. And if I'm gonna be honest, I'll see when I get there, but that's not my priority. So I would like to in general sort of stay away from how the party politics are turning. And I have sort of values that matter to me and I will vote in the best interest of my constituents.
Timothy Reuter: So affordability is the first issue you list for your platform. How will you tackle affordability in Congress?
Courtney Gill: So I think this boils down to one thing, which is we need to balance the budget. ultimately, when you're adding $1 trillion of debt every year, ⁓ is not sustainable. And essentially what that's doing is kicking the can down the road for a future generation to deal with. probably me and people younger than me. But basically what happens there is when you start pumping money into an economy, which we've seen. a lot over the last 20 years, but specifically post COVID, through a couple of different means, through different versions of kind of quantitative easing, through adjustments of the interest rates, through, you know, there are a lot of mechanisms that ⁓ government has through fiscal and monetary policy that are supposed to uplift an economy, which they did. The stock market has absolutely crushed it over that time. And certain people have been big winners there. ⁓ But ultimately what you get is a lot of inflation. And inflation is really bad for the average citizen. It makes things cost. a lot more and in very few cases have wages kept up with that. And I think there are lot of components to this, but first and foremost, I think that this is a balancing the budget issue and that you can't just inflate your problems away what each administration wants is to not have to deal with that because no one wants to be the person who's the person who either cuts spending, the person who doesn't ⁓ put more money into the economy. And printing money helps in the short term, but is often a terrible long term choice, administration wants to be remembered as the one where times were good ⁓ it was happening. And I, Warren Buffett had a funny kind of quip about this that he said, if Everybody in Congress was told they either have to balance the budget or none of them could run again for the next term. He said, I think we'd get the budget balanced and we get it done in probably a week or two. right now there's just like no accountability. And I think having ⁓ clear ⁓ may be as extreme as that that says we need to balance this budget. And you can't just keep putting this off for a future generation to deal with because ultimately it's leading to a lot of these inflationary problems as well. So yeah, we need to, we need to balance the budget and stop just adding money.
Timothy Reuter: Right, so the Trump administration has both cut taxes increased spending. So ⁓ of those policies or maybe both of those policies would you be pushing back on? Will you be advocating for ⁓ taxes to close that fiscal gap or will you be pushing on the increase in defense spending? How will you actually accomplish this if you think government spending or the deficit is the... main problem.
Courtney Gill: So I think that everybody and every sector is going to have to give a little bit. don't think it's a case where you can just say, taxes are the way. am mostly because of the size of our government. think this works differently. A lot of European countries make it work a lot better, but you have to remember that a lot of them have a population of like 8 million people. And so I do think different economic systems work well in different places. And this isn't to say that that taxing more and put it, know, spending more. think in a lot of countries that works really well. What I've found in the United States is that that often doesn't work very well and that very rarely sending more money to Washington fixes a problem. I do think that every sector is probably gonna get needs to get cut a little bit. I don't think it's fair for one sector to take the entire hit. I think if everybody takes a small haircut, which is challenging, no one wants to be in that spot. And also, you can't keep cutting taxes at the same time. Again, I hate paying taxes. I'm generally mistrustful of the government to take my money and do something productive with it. But we also do need to understand that you do need to have ⁓ of taxes you're paying in, order to have strong infrastructure, in order to have a military, in order to have good schools. There are things that we have collectively decided that ⁓ no individual can and put roads in by themselves. No one individual can run a military. And so I think everybody's gonna have to hurt a little bit, but that also we can't combine that with tons of tax cuts across the board if we're gonna, everyone's gonna have to give a little bit.
Timothy Reuter: On your website, you say AI is poised to change the world more than any technology in human history, addressing the consequences of AI for employment, education and human purpose. Additionally, the skyrocketing demands of cost of energy infrastructure being passed on to families, not companies. What do you think lawmakers should do about AI and what will you do about AI?
Courtney Gill: So I think this is a really important one and it concerns me that most people in Congress are not talking about it. I think part of that is maybe just lack of awareness. Part of it, I think, could be age as well. That if we're looking specifically at our Senate, but across the board are a lot of the ages of our senators are well into their seventies and some older than that. ⁓ the reality is that AI is not going to impact them in the same way that it's going to impact me. They kind of think they're sort of set, they're already done working, they already have most of their retirement savings that they're going to have. And so for them, I think they're just not really thinking about it. But I do think we need to have really clear policy that if all of a sudden, if these changes happen as quickly as they're predicted to have happened, and we've all used a lot of the AI tools, and I'm like, wow, this is going to displace a lot of workers. I think in contrast to the past, this isn't just a technology that's going to create more jobs down the road. I just don't believe that. The has gotten so good in a lot of whatever the context is, legal work, a lot of white collar work specifically. And this is where I think it's not getting the attention because it's viewed as kind of an upper crust problem. But the reality is, is that if you look at kind of the top 20 to 30 % of people who mostly are employed in white collar professions where AI is going to displace them the most quickly, they are also the people who are the strongest mortgage holders. They're also the people who keep the 401k system and subsequently the stock market consistent and elevated. They're also the people who do the vast majority of consumer spending specifically in the cases of travel, hospitality, that if in five years, for example, and we've seen how quickly these tech layoffs are happening, if all of a sudden 20 to 30 % of this workforce just becomes unemployed quickly, ⁓ what are we gonna do with all of those people? But two, ⁓ do we step back and think, okay, let's look at these kind of windfall gains that could have happened privately. So let's take Norway, they had a ton of oil and said, OK, if we had privatized this, a couple of people would have gotten really wealthy from an oil boom, and it wouldn't have changed the quality of life for anyone else in Norway. And Scandinavia, historically, was not a particularly wealthy place. And in fact, like Sweden, I think, was the poorest country in Europe, different than Norway, but in Europe, and now has skyrocketed to the top. for quality of life, Norway said, we're going to create a sovereign wealth fund so that the benefits of this huge oil boom that we're going to have. meaningfully benefit everybody in society so we can use this to fund infrastructure, parks, schools, all of the things that now Norway thrives in was because someone at the beginning said this needs to go into a sovereign wealth fund. ultimately, I think with AI, we're going to need to do something like that at the beginning where we say, OK, 50 % of all profits made by and it's funny because historical me would have never said this about a company. But I do think the upcoming world is going to be so different. that if you have AI kind of unregulated as it is, we end up with two, three, four really big AI companies, and you get a couple of the guys at the top who are gonna make all the money, they're essentially gonna become oligarchs where they control all the information power and money in society and ultimately decide how everything goes. And if you don't have any kind of Teddy Roosevelt trust-busting that goes on, you're gonna end up with a few people who have way too much power, authority, and money to the point where it would become almost impossible to stop them. so I think you either need to look at some type of a version of a sovereign wealth fund where X amount of money from AI companies needs to go into this to fund the fallout that's going to happen from a lot of unemployed people, or you to create, do more of a Teddy Roosevelt style, which is saying, hey, one AI company can't control all of these sectors, just like when they broke up Standard Oil, know, Rockefeller essentially had a monopoly on the oil. industry, and Roosevelt said, hey, you can't do that because competition isn't there anymore, and capitalism can only work where there's fair competition. And so I think that that's going to be an interesting case going forward on what you do about it, but right now they're not doing anything about it.
Harrison Wolf: sometimes I wonder ⁓ if this is just the latest tension between labor and capital, ⁓ right? Like we've seen that as ⁓ capital ⁓ consolidates ownership over production, labor tends lose its value. that relationship. ⁓ we've seen is that AI has mostly consolidated private companies. It's not a government-driven ⁓ experience. And can't help but see this as just the latest battle between labor and capital ⁓ and labor losing ⁓ against a that efficiency hundreds if not thousands of percent. I have been working on some projects that ⁓ been able to put out with the help of AI, right? It's not like I'm anti-AI, but like with the help of AI products that I create something in a matter of hours that would have taken me months before. And to that I'm not ⁓ nervous about what means for my value to the organization, ⁓ like I can't but see it as threatened. ⁓ And so I know if The government at this point could even solve that problem. But I appreciate that you're willing to it out because so many people are it seems like. ⁓
Courtney Gill: you're not the only person who's worried. And I think what might be interesting about this case versus some of the technological advances in the past is one, the pace at which it's gonna happen, but two, and maybe a good thing for kind of this balance of power is that for maybe the first time, the people who are gonna be the fastest are actually the people who historically have been the biggest winners. So we're looking at the upper white collar group are extremely well educated, historically have benefited a lot from the tech booms. And are now the first on the trapping block. And that would be a lot of our peers. ⁓ And think about it a lot for myself. I've had several friends who've already been laid off at some tech companies in San Francisco, specifically ⁓ cited reasons. ⁓ And think that it may because of that actually get a faster wake up call and that there's going to be more of a demand on Washington to do something in a way because these people hold a lot of power and influence in a way that historically labor it was always this fight because they were the people who didn't have power and they didn't have money. The only thing we had was numbers. And so I am going to be interested to see how that power dynamic changes as the people who all of a sudden start losing are the people who have been in positions of power and authority.
Harrison Wolf: Yeah. I do ⁓ think your first point about it being more systemic and like really creating some ⁓ outcomes across the board that aren't expected will dramatically affect the system. I would also that ⁓ the ⁓ people that you identify, like the white collar workers usually the ones that haven't labor in the past. ⁓ And so labor protections might be something new that we need to consider for new groups and new opportunities. And then the last piece is I don't think that the blue collar worker is protected. think autonomous vehicles, ground robotics, robotics that are in a stage now that in five years we're looking at something incredibly impactful in the factories where many folks have gone to work, whether it's Amazon or other delivery ⁓ in places. so to see, you know, will long haul truckers lose all of their jobs because we have autonomous vehicles? Like that would be unfortunate.
Courtney Gill: think the short answer is that it's coming for all of us. And maybe this is the one thing that unites everybody, that it is coming for everybody except for truly probably a 1 % who own.
Harrison Wolf: Yeah.
Courtney Gill: everything. And so it's just, I think it's coming faster for white color workers, but I think that it is coming for all of us. And I think the other thing that is really important, what we do as well, is for social unrest that follows periods of unemployment that we have seen throughout history. I mean, you look back at 2020 when a lot of people were unemployed was the kind of largest time of unrest the U.S. had seen since probably the 70s. And a large part of that was that when people are not meaningfully employed. people are very productive with their time ⁓ go to the library more and go out on walks and runs. ⁓ and some people don't do that. And I think we see a lot of social unrest when that happens. And you even look back 2,000 years at Athenian plague. And that's almost exactly what we saw then as well was the plague killed almost half of the population. And that was devastating in and of itself. But actually,
Harrison Wolf: or make sourdough.
Courtney Gill: possibly the most consequential thing of the plague was that it totally broke down all social norms because people sort of thought there was nothing to lose where they're like, well, we're all dying anyways. And social norms just totally went out the window and the social hierarchy that had existed in Athens that kept everything functioning just totally fell by the wayside. And people who historically had been in the kind of plebeian class all of a sudden were like, I don't have to listen to you. What are you going to do?
Harrison Wolf: Hmm.
Courtney Gill: about it, we're all gonna die anyways. And the social fallout that happened from that is a fascinating historical story if you have the interest and time to read it. But I think it's very kind of reminiscent of then what happened in the pandemic era. And I think probably what is gonna be coming for us as well, people don't have schedules, routines, and employment and a purpose. ⁓ And a lot of people, specifically ⁓ men, derive
Harrison Wolf: Yeah.
Courtney Gill: most of their purpose from work. when they don't have that, you see very high rates of suicide, violence, aggression, substance abuse, alcoholism. Again, this is concentrated in men. And so I think it's probably the group I'm the most worried about. And I just read a book as well called Men Without Work.
Harrison Wolf: and podcasting.
Courtney Gill: it's ⁓ to say the least, about what could be coming if we don't keep people, but mostly men, ⁓ on employment.
Timothy Reuter: in a crowded field as a candidate in congressional primary?
Courtney Gill: It is very tough and I think the biggest uphill battle is that... one of the candidates specifically is coming in with a ton of his own money, which just frustrates and fuels my like kind of anger at the system of how it has come to be in the amount of money that goes into congressional races. Now, I mean, if you look at where it was back in 1990, it was negligible compared to where it is now. A lot of House races now will get a couple million dollars for a winning candidate. the Senate races now, some of them are upwards of $20 million. And so think what's tough for me is that one guy's coming in with a ton of money. two of the guys are coming in with a fairly substantial amount of money. But the one guy put over a million dollars of his own money in cash into the campaign and that is hard to compete with. But I think this is kind of where you can, if you can leverage social media, get out there. I go to a ton of big events. I'm outside of baseball games. I go to little farmers markets, festivals, whatever, where I really just meet people kind of on the ground. And ultimately, I think you just have to keep showing. up. And even if it's not a win this time, I'll come back and do it again. And you look at like Obama didn't win his first congressional race. The guy Senator Inhofe, who became our longest serving senator in Oklahoma and one of the longest serving in the United States, didn't win his first congressional race either. He then went to be the mayor for a bit and then came back one after he had been the mayor and then became a senator for a very long period of time. And so I think it's a game of, you know, leverage what you do have at your disposal, getting kind of young people to help you out, get the word of mouth out there, but also it might be a case of just showing back up again in two years or four years.
Timothy Reuter: Does the story of working at the forum hurt or help you as a candidate? Many people, and I would say especially conservatives, consider the forum to be part of a globalist cabal.
Courtney Gill: No! I think. 20 or 30 years ago, kind of back in a different era of Davos, where it was very much just a business forum, I think it would have really helped me. think ⁓ particularly in Oklahoma, it has been not And I've to have lot of conversations with people ⁓ on, I there definitely a lot of kind of different conspiracy theories people have hit me with, I mean, all sorts of stuff. But ultimately, again, ⁓ repeat to people what my values are and I think you guys know from working with me I am I have no problem kind of being the odd man out and my own opinions and values no matter where I am ⁓ I think that that kind of has is just me my story I've lived in a ton of parts of the world in different countries and every place in time is gonna have their own different niches and I always kind of say like my core values and morals stay the same no matter where I'm going and I just try to reiterate that
Harrison Wolf: Mm-hmm.
Courtney Gill: values to people and either those align with them or they don't. ⁓ ⁓ you can't make people like you, either they do or they don't, and they're gonna believe what they believe about you. if you can kind of win them over to your side of thinking, I think that's great. But at the same time, you also, ⁓ people really don't like a certain thing about you, there's so much you can do.
Harrison Wolf: Yeah, I think that's a great perspective. I really admire your ability to say, if it's not this time, it's next time. And refining that message and have moments in life to be successful in the political space. think that's really, really for helping our society continue to deal with some of these challenges that we're working on today. So Mike, kudos to you, Courtney, definitely.
Courtney Gill: Thank you.
Timothy Reuter: I had the privilege of going to your wedding last year, which was absolutely beautiful and awesome, other than the groom almost dying during the process, but he recovered. And I was curious, what have you learned so far about marriage?
Courtney Gill: That is all very true, but we're so glad that you were there. loved meeting you. I got a lot of positive reviews of everyone who sat by you and talked to you. And Timothy asked the best questions. One of the events was going to an art museum and Timothy held up his end of the bargain by getting everybody to start asking questions ⁓ the docent.
Harrison Wolf: Hahaha!
Timothy Reuter: Thank you, I appreciate that.
Courtney Gill: say ultimately I think is both a transition that you have to make. I've always been a fiercely independent person even as a very young child. I always did everything by myself I think is getting to the place where you're genuinely like joint decisions. But I the kind of biggest lesson is that ⁓ that I've sort of heard other people say is that it's not 50-50. It should feel like 100-100 in a good way, that you feel like you're putting your best foot forward constantly. But the reality of that situation is that sometimes it's going to be 80-20. Sometimes it's going to be 50-50. Sometimes it's going to be 30-70. And that you're both going to have different moments and times because of things that are happening in your work with sick family members. with different things happening where sometimes you're going to feel like you're doing a lot more than the other person and sometimes you're just going to say, can't right now, like I'm running for Congress right now.
Harrison Wolf: Mm-mm.
Courtney Gill: Andrew has been, I mean he already does a lot of the stuff, already mows the lawn and he already does all the cooking and the grocery shopping and whatever, but he's been like above and beyond, like doing a lot of things that I'm like, I just, I'm going to five events a day, like I just don't have the capacity right now to do any more for you or with you or I just can't right now. I have another six weeks that I have to do this and then we can reevaluate then and you know, he's had moments like that too where his grandmother was really sick and he went out to the East Coast for almost a month and And, you know, was kind of tracked out in a lot of stuff and had to sort of really help his family out there. And so I think the biggest thing is that, you know, you really have to look at it as kind of a team, a team game, and that sometimes you have to pull more than your weight, but sometimes you're, they're going to help you up. And I think it's like, you just have to keep showing up. And, and also I think gratitude is a big piece of that. think a lot of people, the longer they've been in relationships is like, it can be very easy to take for granted what the other person does. And you often are just like, well, he didn't do this and he didn't mow the lawn and he didn't, but you're like, okay, but what if you made a list of all the things that they did do? And I think people can very easily get into a negative headspace instead of being like, wow, they're doing so much. Like, yeah, it would be nice if they did this extra thing. I wonder what I could do to help them like make that easier for them. But really, I think coming at it from a place of gratitude instead of resentment is, it's helpful.
Timothy Reuter: That's really beautiful. And I am so excited for you and Andrew and the life that you're building together. And you you learned in one year what it took me about 10 years to learn. you're with. If I can get in one last question, I know we're over time, but I would love to hear what did you learn from working at the forum and what did you learn from working with us? And that could be learning what not to do as much as what to do, but.
Harrison Wolf: Yeah, I was going to ask how has learning to work with Timothy and I been detrimental to your career?
Courtney Gill: Well... Let's say first and foremost you guys brought a lot of joy to work and I really loved going to work every day with you guys and I think that that is such a huge thing. Talking to a ton of my friends they really don't enjoy working and they do not like their, they like everything. They're like if I could quit tomorrow I absolutely would. I hate being here, I hate the people, I hate doing this. I genuinely really enjoyed every day. I thought it was great and I think that bringing joy to whatever you're doing in life is so important. The other thing I think I learned with work with you guys was sometimes you just have to take advantage of like what's going on in the moment and be like, you know what, we're going to go start this program in one, like in Rwanda because all these things line up right now and like, let's go do this. And it might not be the first thing you thought of doing, but that if you kind of just jump on and like take these rides, it'll bring you to great places and being to really new things. And also for me, like running for Congress right now, I have no idea how this is going to go, but I'm here for the adventure, I'm getting a lot out of it no matter what. And I think we did a lot of that as a team where you're like, you can't worry about the outcome. You have to just put your best into what you're doing and what you're doing and ⁓ that it's worthwhile. And you lessons at the end of kind of each project ⁓ and But yeah, I think style of working and joy has a big part of it.
Harrison Wolf: Mm-hmm. That's awesome. Yeah, it's funny you say that because, it would, that's definitely the two takeaways that I would, I would also point to from working with you both is, ⁓ and one of them clearly comes from Timothy, which is the strategic opportunism that you sort of identified, which is, know, take advantage of the opportunities that you're given, if it makes sense. and then bring joy. That was definitely from something from you. So, ⁓ you I could ask the question if we're technically friends, if we're friends, but You know, we were both invited to your wedding and you are always invited to our house. Anytime you need our houses, Timothy and I don't live together. ⁓ Anytime. And so I'm just gonna go ahead and say I know we're friends and I'm excited to continue to be your friends for a long time.
Courtney Gill: You
Timothy Reuter: Hahaha Yes, absolutely.
Courtney Gill: can't wait. Me too.
Harrison Wolf: Best of luck in your campaign and I look forward to seeing just the amazing things that you continue to do, Courtney.
Courtney Gill: Well, thank you so much for inviting me on here and I can't wait to keep listening to you. See, I get to listen to you guys every week, so it's great. Bye.
Harrison Wolf: Cheers! Bye!
Timothy Reuter: Awesome, thanks
