TRANSCRIPT 🔗
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This is the Authority Company podcast Conversations with Leaders that
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are designing our future. Ada I'm Joe Pardifiela, and today's
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guest is doctor Keenan Sahin, who has lived the American
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educational experience from every angle, student, professor, innovator, and entrepreneur.
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In his new book, American Educational Excellence, The Foundation of
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Our Values, Democracy and Market Capitalism, he explores why America's
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unique approach to education has produced so much creativity, innovation,
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and prosperity, and why protecting it matters more than ever.
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Drawing from a life shape by both Turkish roots and
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American opportunity, doctor Sahein argues that our schools do more
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than teach facts. They cultivate the curiosity, adaptability, and collaboration
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that fuel democracy and drive markets. Doctor Keenan Saheen, how
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are you welcome to the podcast?
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I am doing well. Just call me Keenan shorter more
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efficient sounds good.
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I will call you Keenan. Great to meet you, Keenan.
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And so I want to get your take because I
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always love because I feel like in this world of
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agism where we were just like I owe people get
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off to the side, shut up. We don't need to different.
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I loved speaking to people that have been around a
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long time because you've you've seen this movie before. You've
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seen the trends come around and back around. And so
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the trend that we're seeing now in the world of
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education is college. Who needs college? It's overpriced, gonna it's
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gonna ruin your credit. You're gonna be paying for it
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till you're dead. And I grew up in a time
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as a generation extra keenan of you got to go
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to college or you won't get a job. I remember
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looking at sometimes job posts and it'd be like a
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reception position. They'll be like, needs a four year degree.
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I'm like to be a receptionist. Like I don't understand.
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So you've seen this swing of like everyone needs to
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have college now and obviously we are speaking in broad terms, keening,
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but now nobody needs college now that you've seen this
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play out several times because you were around before the
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college thing.
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Was very necessary.
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So tell me about all these swings and where we
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are now here in twenty twenty five in terms of
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how America and Western cultures treat universities.
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Well, let me start with a simple saying, I grew
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up with comfort hurts. It's a very profound saying, very simple,
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and when people get very comfortable, they get restless and
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the comfort begins to hurt. This is actually the best
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of times, but it looks as though to people who
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have not seen these movies before, lost of times. Yeah,
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times are really bad. The country's falling apart, the world
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is falling apart. And yet if one looks at the numbers.
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I'm a data guy. I've been trained as a technologist
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and juder scientists all over time. When I look at
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the data, this is actually the best of times. The
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world has never been discood. Now, coming back to education,
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in a context where everything seems to be really going well,
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there's another paradox. The detail hurts and we begin to
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focus on details. Let me give you an example. You're
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in top shape houses, everything is fine, and you stump
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your toe and it hurts, And now your entire mindset
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is about this minor injury on your toe. But if
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the person has cancer and many parts of his body
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are falling out part he stumps his tall, it's nothing
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I just ignored. So both perspectives, I think, describe what
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is going on. And that's why I appreciate your mentioning
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length of time, the perspective. You know, it's important to
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look forward, but once in a while it's good to
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look back and see how far we've come along, and
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that push things into perspective. That's why I felt compelled,
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almost compelled to write this book, which came out, by
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the way, just a
Load full transcript
few days ago, under twenty First,
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why American education is not only second or none. No
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other system even comes close to the depth and breadths
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of the American education system, both at the primary secondary
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and post secondary levels. But why it is excellent? What
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is the foundation of its being excellent? So that's my perspective,
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and I didn't realize how time it would be because
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yesterday I was at a dinner event. Want you know
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the same perspective that's not being heard all around. Why
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do so many people need college education? And why would
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you what would you suggest that my son or grandson
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or granddaughter about to enter college, what he or she
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should study? And what are we going to do about
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the shortage of tradespeople. I can't get a plumber, I
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can't get an electrician. Why don't some people go into that?
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And on and on it goes and then there's this
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notion in the business community. And I've been on both
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sides more or less the same, about twenty years in
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education as an academic, about twenty years now plus in business,
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and the executives saying the college, especially the college they
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pick on, the college business model is broken. They seem
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to be perpetually going bankrupt, perpetually wanting money, and they
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can't get their act together, they can't stabilize anything, and
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on and on it goes. So I come back to
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my original saying, it's so good, it's been so productive,
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it's hurting people, and they focus on it all and
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you say, look, your body is an excellent escape. You
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don't have artisies, you don't have gesser, you don't have this,
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you don't have that, and you're complaining about a hurting tour. Wow,
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that's my perspective. But I try to tie this to data.
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I try to tie this to fundamentals that people can understand.
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Otherwise I would be a dogmatic person saying, oh, everything
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is good. Why do you say that everything is not good?
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What makes you think everything is worth? Okay? That makes things?
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So that's what I am.
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I love that, and it's so funny because I want
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to double click on your first point there about nostalgia,
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because you know how people there's a phrase of looking
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at life through rose colored glasses, and I wrote this
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something over a piece the other day. I'm not as
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smarter or bride as you, but I wrote this blog
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post about looking at life through nostalgia glasses. Everything always
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looks better in the past, and I brought the point.
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I know you're more of an instinct guy than a
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backstreet boy guy, but I remember twenty something years ago Keenan,
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people like, oh, these boy band songs, they're so terrible,
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nobody cares you. Fast forward twenty five years later and like,
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I want it that way by the Backstort Voice is
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considered like one of the greatest pop songs of all
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time because now we're looking at it through nostalgia glasses
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as opposed to living in real time where we're like, oh,
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this is so cheesy, dancing and frosted tips and mugging
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to the camera, and now we're looking back at like,
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oh man, we'ren't those great those times? So I say,
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we're saying when it comes to the education piece, so
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but so thank you for sharing that and also the
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part of you talking about how things have changed, how
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did things change for you in terms of your perspective
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of education, because like you mentioned years in the as
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in what you guy said, years as a professor, yours
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as an entrepreneur, yours is an executive. Of those, which
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of those change your view on education the most?
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Well, I think my uh, big insights, not the biggest
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insights came about when I moved from academia into the
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business world, kind of accidentally. I had actually come to
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MIT to study applied stuff because my passion was in physics,
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and I thought, well, what am I going to do
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with physics? And I don't want to be an
academic.
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I don't want to pursue a doctorate in physics, So
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why don't I switch to a practical field, engineering where
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I can apply things and I can join a company
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and do things. That was my perspect So I made
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the mistake of doing very well at MIT. I made
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a mistake of doing well.
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Yes, yes, I had your problems, Keen in right.
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That was in retrospect it was. It turns out it
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was both a problem and a wonderful thing, and it
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brought me to the attention of the professors in the
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graduate school. And now they I think they enticed me
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with a wonderful fellowship. They said, look, you can skip Masses.
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You could just enter into the Dark program right away,
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and we'll give you a nice, big fellowship. In fact,
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you'll even have a stipend. And mind you as an underguidget.
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While I had my scholarship that covered my tuition, I
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had to work my head off to earn my own
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keep by lodging my food and all that. So once
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I entered the darktor program, I realized how much I
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loved research and how much I loved teaching. So I decided, well,
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why not just continue push on and along the way. Actually,
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very early they assigned me to teach a special class
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at M I t there are, of course sound the guides.
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They are the Masses students and the darker suits. I
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had no issue with them, and they had no issue
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with me. And then I was asked to teach stanfellows.
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I really didn't know they were. I was working on
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my doctor thesis, and so they came and I distributed
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my syllables. I walk into this classroom, I said, my goodness,
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these people are old. I was twenty five and these
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guys were in their thirties, and to me, they were
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on the other side of thirty. Anyone about thirty for
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me was old, old around the kind of and so on.
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This is a different era. These were the slanfellows, the
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mid level executives and managers and doctors and even colonels
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from the Pentagon who were being sent to get their
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master's degree. And they knew about the sub actually much
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more than I did. But of course I was the prof.
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So I told them. I said, look, here's how we're
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going to approach this. You're a student. Actually I'm a
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student too, but I promised I'll keep one lecture one
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chapter ahead of you, so you learn from me and
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so on with a wonderful time. And so they. I
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was asked to teach them again and again. And I'm
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the pontificating kind of a guy as an academic. I
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take liberties, you know, go in this direction, in that direction,
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and sover And this continued for many years. I was
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totally enjoying it until one day there was a booming
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voice from the back of the class when I was pontificating,
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and I'd be very explicit. This person's a keen and
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that's just full of crap. Wow. So during those years
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and even to this day, you don't really challenge the
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guy who's going to give you your grade. Right, that's
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kind of like just the one on one. You don't
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want to piss off the teacher. Yes, you know what
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to piss off the teacher. So and everyone was just horrified.
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I turned to him, I said, done, that's his name.
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I won't give his last name. I said, you may
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be correct, but let's ask the class and let's discuss
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this and so on. And when we discussed, we both
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gained perspective. It turned out at his company, it was
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a huge company. His CEO had the philosophy that I
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was criticized. And it got to him that in some
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sense I was insulting his CEO, which of course I
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didn't even know who he was, and so on. So
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we came to terms. He saw my viewpoint, I saw
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his viewpoint. We pushed down. But after a while I
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realized I had never practiced an indust and I was
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educating in Bote. These captains of Indo, so one of
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them was Bill Ford, the CEO eventual CEO of Ford
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Kofianon from United Nations. There were kernels from the Pentagon
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that were even mds in their classroom, and so I said,
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I better get some experience, and so started the company
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trying to get some field experience on my own time.
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And that's when I gained a lot of insight. That
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company grew. It grew to be one thousand people eventually
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across the world, and I had twelve officers. I had
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to shuttle from office office, and being a former academic,
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I still would hire the people myself, interview them, assays them,
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and so on. And soon I appreciated the difference between
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our educational system and the educational systems in Europe and elsewhere,
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and it hit me. It hit me hard, and I
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we realized our educational system does much more than educating
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in STEM science and technology and so on. We actually,
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in our system are trained to be functioning citizens in
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a democracy and functioning citizens in a market based capitalist
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which is brutal competition everywhere and no shortage of smart
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people who are willing to boom, get out there and compete.
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And when I looked into it in more detail, I
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realized how profound our system is in doing that. And
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also I realized real STEM education should not be in
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a high school, but in her college. And when I
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looked at our system, I realized it is in our college.
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So now let me tell you the story that opens
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my book. Here I am in hallm and a big
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high level conference on competitiveness, innovation, entrepreneurs, all these things.
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And the person before me, who pretended to be an
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expert on education, I mean, he couldn't find enough bad
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words to criticize our system, and he was extolling the
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virtues of the Irish education system, this education system, that education.
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So I could help, I said, ladies and gentlemen, I'm
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going to shorten my real presentation because I have to
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comment on what is we said before. And I'm the
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--> 00:16:55.519
kind of person who can lecture without any notes. Some
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people have to write everything and if they depart from
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the script, get lost. I have no issue changing organizing
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andign Part of it was trying to teach the sounfellows,
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because you just can't read your lectures. They asked tough questions,
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so I said, let me start with the following. I said,
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engineers who've gone through the US education system are better
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than the engineers who've gone through your system in Europe.
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Did I get their attention. Suddenly people straightened up, leaned
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forward looking at this guy. Who the hell is this
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guy make a statement like that? I mean us Europeans,
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we have a monopoly on intellectual pursuits, education and so on.
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So so I went to explain. I said, I'm glad
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I got your attention. Well, is it in your high schools?
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You have these poor kids sitting at their desks, cramming
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into them math, science, you name it. And when our
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high school students are benchmarked against your high school students,
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we don't do so well. And I said, as a result,
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you pick on us, and as the previous speaker did.
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But I said, let me advance. Now. First of all,
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at age fifteen, sixteen kids are not really ready for
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that kind of deep stuff. They are grappling with how
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to grow up, how to fall in love, how to
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fall out of love, how to make money, how to
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organize their lives, how to be independent of their families.
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They are facing big issues. But what do you do?
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You bring them to the classroom, sit at a desk
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and learn math. Sure they do well in their test course.
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Now let's advance to college. What happens in your colleges?
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I said, For for instance, in England, that's three years.
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It's a joke, I said, three years and the professor lectures.
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Now let me move to our country. It's four years,
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and there's quality control. You can't get away with just
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coming to the classroom listening to a
person who hasn't
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changed his lecture notes in thirty years. He won't even
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talk to you. You can't talk to him. In our system,
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class sizes are small, and the professor is not a
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professor's Joe's Jim. He's almost a colleague. But even though
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he's a colleague, he gives you a pup quiz. You
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have to write a urn paper. You have to take
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me term exams. You can't get away with bullshitting. You
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really able to know this stuff. And there's an actually
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end of the semester exams and you get a grade.
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You're graded is all the other students, and it sees
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you actually have to write an exam paper turns in,
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it comes right with all guys of red marks, red marks.
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And I said, this goes on and on and on.
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So when a person graduates from a college, even a
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lesser college, he's called the control, though she is called
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the control. Then you enter graduate school. It's no joke.
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It's the same thing. You can't get away with just reading,
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as it is called in England, read with a professor. No,
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you have to take an exam. You have to write
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a tone paper. On top of that, you have to
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write a thesis which has to show that you're capable
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of original thinking based on litters. Now, I said, let's
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put all of these things together. A US trained engineer
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goes to Japan. He doesn't speak the language, he doesn't
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know the culture, but he will get up, start a company,
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or advance this company, start a branch. He will socialize you.
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They may say he's awkward, he doesn't what efseness doesn't make.
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He succeeds. And I said that become to our country.
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I said, I've hired engineers in Europe as well as
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in US. Yes, you're best trained, are excellent, but they
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sit there like tulips until you ask them something. You
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as engineer, my goodness, you can't. You can't hold him down.
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He will challenge you. He has his ideas. He's an entrepreneur,
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he's an innovator. He's learned how
to compete. Then I
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went back a little bit into the families, I said,
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in Europe the family is changed now. But in family
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drops the kid off at the door steps, that's the
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end of the story, and the kid comes home. Not
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so in the US. He has music lessons, he has soccer,
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he has football, and the family goes collaps him, criticize
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him at the dinner table. You discuss these things. I said,
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this looks like fun. Actually is training, training to be
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a citizen, training to take initiatives, and training to how
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to deal with conflict in life and life. So I
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went on. So at the end of the conference, the
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terror los a Dutch I came over. He said, you know,
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we Dutch speak that. Frankly, I said, I know that.
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I know. They said, I have one son in the
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US college one son here in Holland, I said. He said,
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I completely agree with you. I said, thank you. So
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that's our system in the BOD. I go into the
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history because without understanding history, it is difficult to appreciate
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what we have. What we have, and the history is
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a fascinating history, and that's why it's so difficult to
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duplicate it because it has really fundamental historical roots that
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fit a rather unique society. We're not like China. We're
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not like friends, We're not homogeneous. We're really a mosaic
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of many notions and so on that they've come together
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and they've created a very successful society. But I'll stop there.
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If you want me to, I can go into some
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of these values.
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No, yeah, yeah, well before we yeah, I want to.
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I want to actually move on a couple of things here,
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because you talked about the history where we are, and
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so we started this conversation talking about sort of like
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the cultural fit of colleges now like do you have
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to go?
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Do you not have to go?
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The price of college? But now there is this relationship
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between universities and the government which I had never seen
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before you obviously, you know, coming back from your experience
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of working in Europe where sort of the government is
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very much intertwined in the university system. In the States
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not so much. So my question to you is how
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can the universities here in the States preserve their independent
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independence while partnering with government and businesses. Because as the
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headlines I've read, you know, Trump versus Harvard, Trump versus
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woll colleges. We don't need to go into all that,
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but that's all performative but what it can have is
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impact when it comes to these universities getting funding. So
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how do these universities toe the line of being places
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for independent thought, for letting, you know, young people become themselves,
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but then have to worry about whether the government is
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going to be mad at them one day and be like, oh,
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I don't like the way that happens, so you're going
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to get less funny. How do we thread this needle
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going forward?
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Joe, I think you're giving me an opening to promote
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my next book. Okay, my next book is under trium
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word the Three Pillars of American entrepreneurship, which rests on
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the flow of innovations into implementation. And I traced back
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the history of these three pillars. The government on the
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one hand, university sorts of generally speaking, and industry general
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is speaking. If you go back to the colonial era,
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before our Great Republic, these were really three islands and
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they had their own objectives and so there was some interaction.
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But after the Republic was founded, our our country, being
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independent of the mothership, England needed to have its own
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civic leaders and lawyers and doctors and so on to
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function as a government. Where did you get them, i'd
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say university, and so there was more interest in that direction.
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But what really gave a big push to the interaction
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between the government and the university and to an extent industry,
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was just before the Civil War, the explosion in the
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industrial revolution in our country. And as that was happening,
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it became clear that these elite universities that were almost
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all founded on religious principles Harvard was, Princeton was, Yale was,
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and so on and so forth. They were all theological schools
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from any way, and there were a few exceptions, for instance,
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Universo Pennsylvania Franklin's Benjamin Franklin's leadership expanded its horizon somewhat.
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So in eighteen sixty one, having proposed it now the
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second time, there was a moral Land Grand Act, and
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our government at that time, mind you, the Civil War
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was just around the corner, realized we needed universities dedicated
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to teaching the sons and daughters of farmers and blacksmiths
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and so on. So the Land Grand College Act was
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passed and signed by Lincoln, and that Land Grant College
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said Okay, to the States, is federal land or your land,
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give it to a new college starting college. But it
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has to be dedicated to not religious purposes, but really
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training entrepreneurs, blacksmiths, you name it, people in trades and
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applied arts, and the military both. So line Grand College
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was the seed for many of the amenent state universities
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across the country. And with two exceptions private one with Cornell,
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the other one's miit it was the two line Grand Colleges.
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And MIT's logo is men's at mans hands and mind.
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It's not just mind, it's not just thinking. You do
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things with your hands. So that really not only revolutionized
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education in our country, but created these ag schools, agricultural schools,
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all kinds of industrial schools, ROTC programs, military training programs
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and so on. And it created a relationship between our
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government and this universal system by government, I don't just
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mean federal but also the state. Now fast forward to
407
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the Second War and that
will bring us to the present.
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We got caught in a very bad way because our
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universities were not on power with the German universities before
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the Second War. When you talked about science, when you
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talked about technology, you had to learn German. Many of
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the publications, seminal publications were in German scientific publications were
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over there. Yes, our university is also the research, but
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not the kind of research that was being done. And
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if you look at some of the luminaries before the
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Second War, a lot of them were in Europe. That's
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why to this day Europe thinks they're still in this era.
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So there was one vun hour. Bush was associated with
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them later on, but at that time he headed an
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office in Washington who went to the government and said, look,
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we almost lost the war to the Germans because they
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had superior technology, they had rocket technology, all of these things.
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Einstein came from there. We need to have deep R
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and D in our country. And the way you do
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that is you pay for full cost in a university.
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So the federal government says, would you like to do
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research in advanced physics, Yes, okay, here's a potential grant,
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and we will pay not only for the professor's appropriate
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proportionate salary, but will pay for the overhead. I will
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pay for the expenses of the laboratory, pay for the
431
00:31:00.759 --> 00:31:04.519
expenses of the lawyers, will pay for the expenses of
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the university, but a proportionate share. And that model was
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extremely successful, and that's what propelled the horrors and mits
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and Berkeley's and you name it to the forefront of science.
435
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Now let me back up and I will interview into
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this another pillar of our educational system, which by the way,
437
00:31:33.839 --> 00:31:37.480
numbers four thousand to five thousand, depending on how you count.
438
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We have four thousands to five thousand universities and colleges
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00:31:42.319 --> 00:31:46.000
institions of higher learning. About half of them actually a
440
00:31:46.000 --> 00:31:53.039
little bit more
than are State and Nebraska and Minnesota.
441
00:31:53.440 --> 00:31:56.839
I I mean, you name it, and about sixteen hundred
442
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of them are private. If you go back to the beginning,
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the first college in our country, it was Harvard College.
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I was private. That's the way the Pilgrims wanted it
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to be because they had rebelled against the king. Last
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thing was give us money. Why would the king do
447
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something like that? So they started Harwood College as a
448
00:32:21.400 --> 00:32:25.680
private institution. And the reason it was named Harvard was
449
00:32:26.200 --> 00:32:30.519
Harvard John Harwood was trained at Cambridge University in England.
450
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He was a minister. He left alvas wealth and the
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library to this new college, which was then renamed as
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Harvard College. Philanthropy that's why our university's private university succeed.
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We're second to none when it comes to philanthropy, let
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me talk about by Alma Mater a mighty even though
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00:32:57.440 --> 00:33:03.000
it's a landgrand college, It's enow is thirty billion dollars.
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00:33:03.559 --> 00:33:08.799
Harvard's endowment is fifty billion dollars and it is a
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major research university. And now let me come back to
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what John I mean, Vana war Bush accomplished. The productive
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of our universities is so immense that the I would say,
460
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in comparison, the modest amount that our government has been
461
00:33:30.240 --> 00:33:37.079
spending on university grants has paid off enormous. So now
462
00:33:38.039 --> 00:33:41.160
there's this notion, Yes, Howard is in the news. Am
463
00:33:41.160 --> 00:33:44.440
I in this news? But it affects only a small
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00:33:44.920 --> 00:33:49.799
number of our universities, and we have four to five
465
00:33:49.839 --> 00:33:54.920
thousand of them, so there's a lot of noise. Am
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I is standing up. I'm on the border of might.
467
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I will say that, and I fully support it. Right position,
468
00:34:02.279 --> 00:34:07.559
that's not the way to deal with universities, and that's
469
00:34:07.599 --> 00:34:11.599
not the way to deal with institutions. There history, independents,
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00:34:11.960 --> 00:34:15.599
there history, an arms length relationship, and the research and
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development our universities provide are so valuable for the government.
472
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Without that, our government really cannot function. So even our
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national lives cannot do. So this situation alarms me, It
474
00:34:30.320 --> 00:34:36.000
bothers me, it upsets me. But I think it's transient.
475
00:34:36.239 --> 00:34:40.480
It's transient, and we need to look beyond that and
476
00:34:40.599 --> 00:34:46.199
we really address a much bigger threat, which is what
477
00:34:46.280 --> 00:34:50.519
you started out by saying at the beginning, our kids
478
00:34:50.760 --> 00:34:54.960
don't need college education, that they're better off being plumbers
479
00:34:55.480 --> 00:34:59.920
and electricians than actually getting a culture is.
480
00:35:00.519 --> 00:35:02.679
Yeah, well, I want to actually jump on the thing
481
00:35:02.719 --> 00:35:05.400
you mentioned with the endowments, right, so I believe because
482
00:35:05.599 --> 00:35:08.840
when we're talking about I looked Harvard's endowment is fifty
483
00:35:08.840 --> 00:35:12.599
six billion, and I almost feel like many of these
484
00:35:12.760 --> 00:35:16.800
uprechelant colleges are almost run like private equity funds, where
485
00:35:16.840 --> 00:35:19.719
it's like they're all about keeping in all the money
486
00:35:19.800 --> 00:35:21.639
and then limiting the number of people that go to
487
00:35:21.719 --> 00:35:24.599
the school. I think the acceptance rate is like five
488
00:35:24.599 --> 00:35:27.440
percent or something like that. So if they have all
489
00:35:27.480 --> 00:35:30.719
this money, it costs hundreds of thousand dollars to go
490
00:35:30.760 --> 00:35:33.679
to school, why do they need the government's money.
491
00:35:33.920 --> 00:35:34.719
Like I'm just.
492
00:35:34.840 --> 00:35:38.199
Devil's advocate, I you're het, why if they have billions
493
00:35:38.199 --> 00:35:42.480
of dollars that they're sitting on and they're more and
494
00:35:42.480 --> 00:35:45.239
more money every year. Why can't the colleges be like,
495
00:35:45.440 --> 00:35:47.920
you know what, we got this, We don't need your money.
496
00:35:48.440 --> 00:35:51.559
I I know, I myself raises that question in a
497
00:35:51.639 --> 00:35:56.800
board meet. Okay, I said, please be careful, because there's
498
00:35:56.960 --> 00:36:04.199
the appearance. There's the reality. The appearance is this Harvard
499
00:36:04.320 --> 00:36:08.480
and Princeton and all these theological schools, except I am
500
00:36:08.880 --> 00:36:13.199
not a theological school. You're sitting on these big endowments.
501
00:36:14.320 --> 00:36:18.559
That's capital over here, and the students have to pay
502
00:36:18.639 --> 00:36:23.920
sixty seventy eighty thousand dollars. You get government grants, you
503
00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:26.760
get patents. Out of those government grants, you turn around
504
00:36:26.800 --> 00:36:30.719
and licensed the patents make money. From the outside, it
505
00:36:30.760 --> 00:36:34.199
looks like you're running a business. And then you open
506
00:36:34.280 --> 00:36:37.400
your hand to the
federal government and say, give us money,
507
00:36:37.760 --> 00:36:42.039
not only that pay for capital costs. I said, please
508
00:36:42.079 --> 00:36:44.800
be very careful because one of these days the federal
509
00:36:44.840 --> 00:36:50.559
government will ask for financial statements and we'll say and
510
00:36:50.719 --> 00:36:55.079
sure enough, I said this ten years ago. Wow, sure enough,
511
00:36:55.280 --> 00:36:57.920
the federal government came and said we're going to tax
512
00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:04.360
your endowment. And it alarmed some people. I said, it's
513
00:37:04.360 --> 00:37:07.679
just slippery slope. And then I said one day the
514
00:37:07.679 --> 00:37:12.480
federal government might attack the overhead rates. Sure enough, that's happening.
515
00:37:13.320 --> 00:37:19.800
Now let me look at it from the other side,
516
00:37:19.000 --> 00:37:26.199
the faculty side. There are three groups in a university,
517
00:37:26.320 --> 00:37:33.039
the students, the faculty, and those faculty who are really
518
00:37:33.079 --> 00:37:37.079
in research deeply, and both starts in front. They don't
519
00:37:37.119 --> 00:37:41.760
do teaching. They don't do teaching. Now, the student tuition
520
00:37:42.159 --> 00:37:46.519
pays for depending on the college, maybe fifteen, maybe twenty,
521
00:37:46.599 --> 00:37:51.880
maybe thirty percent of the total cost. The real cost
522
00:37:52.280 --> 00:37:55.719
is in research and all these labs and so on
523
00:37:55.960 --> 00:38:01.760
that have to be maintained. Now, philanthropy. Endowment comes from philanthropy.
524
00:38:02.599 --> 00:38:06.960
A lot of that money is designated. For instance, if
525
00:38:07.079 --> 00:38:12.280
I want to start a company and raise VC money. Now,
526
00:38:12.320 --> 00:38:16.480
if the VC money, says Kinan, we're going to peck
527
00:38:16.559 --> 00:38:19.760
that money to jaw, We're going to pay We're going
528
00:38:19.800 --> 00:38:24.039
to endow JOW. We're going to end ow XYZ Laboratory,
529
00:38:24.079 --> 00:38:27.599
which has to be named after me, the founder of
530
00:38:27.639 --> 00:38:31.440
the VC company. I don't have access to that money.
531
00:38:31.840 --> 00:38:37.320
It's all fractured. It is for a specific purpose that
532
00:38:37.679 --> 00:38:42.360
the philanthropist has in mind. So I can't take that
533
00:38:42.480 --> 00:38:49.039
money paid for students. It's restricted. Most of the endowment
534
00:38:49.159 --> 00:38:57.360
is restricted because it comes from philanthropists. Very small amount
535
00:38:57.519 --> 00:39:02.760
is unrestricted, and people in the government outside of the
536
00:39:02.840 --> 00:39:08.000
university system don't understand that. You do understand now, with
537
00:39:08.159 --> 00:39:12.400
respect tuition, I also object it's very high, very high.
538
00:39:12.480 --> 00:39:18.559
But fifty percent of tuition is discounted because of scholarships.
539
00:39:19.800 --> 00:39:23.480
So I made the proposal. I said, look, MIT can
540
00:39:23.599 --> 00:39:30.440
go to the philanthropists and say, give us money specifically
541
00:39:30.760 --> 00:39:35.360
to make miit tuition free. How much will that cost?
542
00:39:35.480 --> 00:39:39.000
I made the computations. It's not that much, and there
543
00:39:39.079 --> 00:39:42.800
is in fact, MIT announced the program whereby if a
544
00:39:42.880 --> 00:39:46.920
family makes I believe less than two hundred thousand dollars,
545
00:39:46.920 --> 00:39:54.039
execution is free. And even if tuition is free, universities
546
00:39:54.079 --> 00:39:57.599
make that tuition free, they still would face a huge
547
00:39:58.480 --> 00:40:03.440
cost because they can't touch the endowment to cover all
548
00:40:03.519 --> 00:40:08.119
these other costs. If I'm a university administrator and if
549
00:40:08.159 --> 00:40:12.880
you've given ten million dollars and our professor Joe Smith,
550
00:40:13.599 --> 00:40:17.239
I can't take that money and say, hey, I want
551
00:40:17.239 --> 00:40:19.840
to use it over here. When I'm the president of
552
00:40:19.840 --> 00:40:23.360
a company, I can decide. I can say I'm going
553
00:40:23.360 --> 00:40:26.079
to take this fund over here. I'm going to move
554
00:40:26.119 --> 00:40:30.519
it over here. If General Electric has bought some items
555
00:40:30.519 --> 00:40:34.400
from US, General Electric cannot dictate how we're going to
556
00:40:34.480 --> 00:40:40.519
use that money, but the philanthropist does. So that is
557
00:40:40.559 --> 00:40:42.440
not understood in Washington. Interesting.
558
00:40:42.679 --> 00:40:44.760
Yeah, I mean, and honestly, I think you could blame
559
00:40:44.840 --> 00:40:48.000
the universities for this, because I think most everyone knows
560
00:40:48.000 --> 00:40:50.440
about these incredible endowments of these schools I have, but
561
00:40:50.480 --> 00:40:53.880
they don't know the nuance. They don't know, and I
562
00:40:53.920 --> 00:40:55.679
think that's important for that people to know.
563
00:40:56.000 --> 00:40:57.960
And I don't think a lot of you they don't
564
00:40:58.039 --> 00:41:03.000
understand it, don't. Yeah. Yeah, I sit on the board,
565
00:41:03.079 --> 00:41:06.119
and I've been kind of studying this. Let me give
566
00:41:06.119 --> 00:41:11.039
you a writer dramatic episode. When there was a big
567
00:41:11.800 --> 00:41:18.760
collapse in two thousand and six, two thousand and seven, Yeah, yeah,
568
00:41:18.840 --> 00:41:23.400
Harvard had to lay off people and people were upset.
569
00:41:24.239 --> 00:41:28.519
My goodness, Harvard sitting on at that time, I think
570
00:41:28.519 --> 00:41:31.760
it was more like forty billion dollars. And here's what
571
00:41:31.960 --> 00:41:38.800
was going on. Some Harvard body had proposed to the
572
00:41:38.840 --> 00:41:45.159
Massachusetts legislature that they passed a law which said, if
573
00:41:45.519 -->
00:41:51.719
an endowment is underwater, you can't touch it. One the
574
00:41:51.760 --> 00:41:54.880
federal government mandates that if you're going to be a
575
00:41:54.920 --> 00:42:01.519
non profit, you have to distribute five percent from that. Otherwise,
576
00:42:02.559 --> 00:42:07.039
what do you mean nonprofit? You just accumulate. So an
577
00:42:07.119 --> 00:42:10.639
institution like Harvard has to distribute five percent to the
578
00:42:10.719 --> 00:42:19.320
operating budget. And if the specific endowment, say for Professor
579
00:42:19.400 --> 00:42:24.000
Joe Smith, which was five million dollars, grew to six
580
00:42:24.039 --> 00:42:27.239
million dollars, so you can take it out, but now
581
00:42:27.239 --> 00:42:32.000
it's underwater because of that sudden drop in the stock market.
582
00:42:32.840 --> 00:42:38.519
It's underwater. You can't touch it. So Harvard had applied
583
00:42:38.559 --> 00:42:43.199
this free cash to all kinds of investments which they
584
00:42:43.199 --> 00:42:48.400
couldn't liquidate, and there are all these restrictions on these
585
00:42:48.480 --> 00:42:54.239
specific endowments. They needed cash, so they had There were
586
00:42:54.280 --> 00:42:59.559
two ways. They issued bonds at six percent to raise money,
587
00:43:00.199 --> 00:43:03.639
and they hit they off people, which from the outside
588
00:43:03.800 --> 00:43:08.199
seemed insane. Yeah, but once you get into it again,
589
00:43:08.280 --> 00:43:13.760
the difference between a university budget and a capital budget.
590
00:43:14.039 --> 00:43:16.480
And let's say my company is capital budget. I have
591
00:43:16.519 --> 00:43:20.360
for answers to the capital budget, and I just I
592
00:43:20.360 --> 00:43:22.480
don't have VC money. But if I did, I'd go
593
00:43:22.639 --> 00:43:25.159
talk to them. I say, listen, we need this, we
594
00:43:25.280 --> 00:43:27.760
need this. Weaned I can't do that in a university,
595
00:43:28.039 --> 00:43:33.280
it's restricted. The philanthropist, especially if it's dead in his will,
596
00:43:34.239 --> 00:43:38.159
said you can only spend it for this purpose period.
597
00:43:38.559 --> 00:43:39.480
Well no, let me ask.
598
00:43:39.679 --> 00:43:43.199
I'll Devil's advocate one more time. So so you you
599
00:43:42.880 --> 00:43:46.119
you put out, you've set the scenario of like something
600
00:43:46.119 --> 00:43:49.719
happens of financial crisis all of a sudden. Universities are
601
00:43:49.719 --> 00:43:52.280
acting like regular profit companies.
602
00:43:52.360 --> 00:43:52.559
Right.
603
00:43:53.440 --> 00:43:56.159
For many profit companies, they could be like, oh, I've
604
00:43:56.159 --> 00:43:58.559
got this little slush fund. I've got this a little
605
00:43:58.559 --> 00:44:01.360
fun at piggy bank. Then I can go to in
606
00:44:01.400 --> 00:44:05.519
case something goes wrong. Why don't universities have a little
607
00:44:05.519 --> 00:44:07.599
piggy bang, Because that's what you do.
608
00:44:08.559 --> 00:44:11.559
They do, They do some, They do some. That's why
609
00:44:11.599 --> 00:44:14.920
the five person distribution comes in. They do have some,
610
00:44:15.719 --> 00:44:18.800
but it is not enough to deal with all these things.
611
00:44:18.960 --> 00:44:23.519
And also university cannot sell assets. If I run a company,
612
00:44:23.920 --> 00:44:28.960
you have a division and I need money, I'm the CEO.
613
00:44:29.519 --> 00:44:31.440
I go to the board, I said, I want to
614
00:44:31.480 --> 00:44:35.000
spin out this division raise money, or I want to
615
00:44:35.039 --> 00:44:38.960
sell this building. You can't do that in academia. Everything
616
00:44:39.079 --> 00:44:44.639
is restricted. Everything is restricted because if if if someone
617
00:44:44.880 --> 00:44:50.880
endowed a building, someone in this they can't just say, oh,
618
00:44:51.079 --> 00:44:53.880
let's just just sell there, let's just sell there. And
619
00:44:53.920 --> 00:44:58.559
also in academia, you cannot fire because there's a tenure system.
620
00:44:58.599 --> 00:45:02.039
And I'm glad for the tenure system, because if it
621
00:45:02.119 --> 00:45:06.360
weren't for detainer system, academic salaries would go through the roof,
622
00:45:07.400 --> 00:45:11.840
and also academic independence would disappear. I can't tell you,
623
00:45:11.920 --> 00:45:15.960
I've even seen it myself. If philanthropist comes is from
624
00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:19.039
a big company, he says, you know that Joe Fellow,
625
00:45:19.360 --> 00:45:23.079
he's a trouble maker. He just published an article that
626
00:45:23.320 --> 00:45:29.199
destroyed my product. You as to the whole world that
627
00:45:29.280 --> 00:45:33.360
my product is toxic. Get rid of him, and if
628
00:45:33.360 --> 00:45:36.119
you get rid of him, I'll give you ten million dollars.
629
00:45:38.159 --> 00:45:41.840
And those pressures exist on a daily basis.
630
00:45:42.320 --> 00:45:43.639
Let me ask you about can you go back to
631
00:45:43.679 --> 00:45:48.880
the because of tenure salaries with skyrocket wide explain that.
632
00:45:49.719 --> 00:45:55.320
The academics are so valuable, they're actually comparable. Salary in
633
00:45:55.400 --> 00:46:00.119
industry is much higher than they get in academia. It's
634
00:46:00.239 --> 00:46:04.800
very easy. For instance, let's take the top position the
635
00:46:04.840 --> 00:46:11.360
CEO at a place like our world, an MIT, and
636
00:46:11.400 --> 00:46:13.960
so on and so forth. They manage a budget of
637
00:46:14.079 --> 00:46:18.119
billions of dollars. That's how big the budgets are. They
638
00:46:18.159 --> 00:46:25.360
manage an extremely complex staff and their compensation is a
639
00:46:25.400 --> 00:46:30.719
tiny fraction of what the CEO gets these days. Is
640
00:46:30.840 --> 00:46:33.960
ceo in a big company getting fifteen million dollars, twenty
641
00:46:34.000 -->
00:46:38.880
million dollars, fifty million dollars. There's no issue, not sure
642
00:46:38.920 --> 00:46:42.440
in academia. And if you look at the professors and
643
00:46:42.519 --> 00:46:47.079
if the CEO in the university is display and a
644
00:46:47.679 --> 00:46:52.679
top rated, normal winning academic is this much so a
645
00:46:53.039 --> 00:46:56.360
the salaries would go up and you would have rotation,
646
00:46:56.599 --> 00:47:01.480
that you would lose the knowledge base and furthermore, that
647
00:47:01.559 --> 00:47:05.280
would be tremendous pressures on academy. Look how much pressure
648
00:47:05.360 --> 00:47:10.039
the government is putting an academy. Why because academics criticize
649
00:47:10.039 --> 00:47:13.519
the government. So the government is saying, we want you
650
00:47:13.960 --> 00:47:18.480
not to criticize us. That's what the government is doing now.
651
00:47:19.320 --> 00:47:24.440
And we want you to sign basically loyalty os. We
652
00:47:24.480 --> 00:47:27.639
want you to turn over all the student records to us,
653
00:47:29.559 --> 00:47:33.599
and we want you to discontinue disciplines that we the government,
654
00:47:33.679 --> 00:47:37.199
we don't think we really need it. If the government
655
00:47:37.280 --> 00:47:39.880
does that, with all the controls that we have, we
656
00:47:39.960 --> 00:47:43.159
have congrus we have our courts and so on and
657
00:47:43.199 --> 00:47:49.559
so forth. Guess what a big company would do. That's
658
00:47:49.599 --> 00:47:55.320
why we need tenures. And that's why I've told by colleagues,
659
00:47:55.800 --> 00:47:59.119
when you accept money from private hands, be very careful.
660
00:48:00.159 --> 00:48:04.719
Make sure you put into that agreement of accepting the
661
00:48:04.760 --> 00:48:09.760
gift the independence of the institution, that they cannot dictate
662
00:48:09.840 --> 00:48:13.280
what courses they will teach. They will happily do that.
663
00:48:14.679 --> 00:48:17.039
I can't tell you how many CEOs would love to
664
00:48:17.159 --> 00:48:21.199
give money. By the way, it's not their money, it's
665
00:48:21.199 --> 00:48:25.719
the company money. I'm going to give ten million dollars, Joe,
666
00:48:26.079 --> 00:48:28.920
But I want you to teach this course that I
667
00:48:28.960 --> 00:48:34.880
always wanted to see in universities. Really, what is that course? Well,
668
00:48:34.920 --> 00:48:37.239
it's the course that's going to help my company a lot.
669
00:48:39.360 --> 00:48:42.000
I don't want to do the research I want you to.
670
00:48:42.440 --> 00:48:44.960
I can go on, but Joe, I don't want to
671
00:48:45.039 --> 00:48:50.400
lose the value of college education for my grandchildren. My
672
00:48:50.559 --> 00:48:54.000
children they're gone through college and I will come back
673
00:48:54.039 --> 00:48:56.920
to that. I don't want to lose that topic. We
674
00:48:57.199 --> 00:49:03.119
are in a different suddenly, and the college education is
675
00:49:03.159 --> 00:49:08.079
even more important. But let me put two data points
676
00:49:08.480 --> 00:49:12.400
as answer to those people who say we need more electricians,
677
00:49:12.440 --> 00:49:16.719
we need for plumbers. First of all, I'll say, which
678
00:49:16.800 --> 00:49:20.159
students will go into that? Your son? No, No, my
679
00:49:20.239 --> 00:49:22.159
son wants to go to college. I want my son
680
00:49:22.239 --> 00:49:25.000
to go to college. So whose son or daughter are
681
00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:28.719
you talking about? You think DA would like to go
682
00:49:29.400 --> 00:49:35.199
and be a trades person, drive a truck and do
683
00:49:35.400 --> 00:49:39.320
people's dirty work. Who are you going to have a
684
00:49:39.400 --> 00:49:43.159
draft that lend is that people go into plumbing and
685
00:49:43.199 --> 00:49:45.480
so on? I said, in the past, unions used to
686
00:49:45.559 --> 00:49:48.840
train them. The unions are gone, so who's going to
687
00:49:48.880 --> 00:49:52.360
train them? So that's one issue. The other is, let
688
00:49:52.400 --> 00:49:57.119
me take you to a nineteen hundred we had sixty
689
00:49:57.199 --> 00:50:01.920
percent of the workforce working in farming. So supposing in
690
00:50:02.039 --> 00:50:06.119
nineteen hundred people said, forget about college, let's just train
691
00:50:06.719 --> 00:50:12.559
farmers how to do farming. Well, fast forward one percent
692
00:50:12.800 --> 00:50:16.159
of the workforces and farming, and yet we're the bread
693
00:50:16.159 --> 00:50:22.079
basket of the world. Why productivity mechanization. In nineteen eighties,
694
00:50:22.639 --> 00:50:26.440
we had one trillion in manufacturing and we had twenty
695
00:50:26.480 --> 00:50:30.320
percent of our workforce in manufacturing. Right now we have
696
00:50:30.400 --> 00:50:34.079
two and a half trillion in manufacturing and six to
697
00:50:34.199 --> 00:50:41.039
seven percent in manufacturing. Why it's mechanization, automation, productivity, and
698
00:50:41.159 --> 00:50:44.639
also outsourcing some of the jobs. But if we bring
699
00:50:44.679 --> 00:50:48.039
them back, who's going to do it? Who's going to
700
00:50:48.079 --> 00:50:50.440
do it? Now? Let me put myself in a position
701
00:50:50.519 --> 00:50:54.559
of a CEO. Certainly I'm forced to bring back manufacturing
702
00:50:54.599 --> 00:50:58.039
that I am doing in XYZ country. I have to
703
00:50:58.079 --> 00:51:02.800
be competitive. It's very expensive to hire locally. What do
704
00:51:02.800 --> 00:51:08.239
you think I will do robots automation? It costs thirty
705
00:51:08.280 --> 00:51:11.920
thousand dollars by a robot, So why would I hire people?
706
00:51:12.800 --> 00:51:16.280
So this notion that if we bring by bringing, I
707
00:51:16.320 --> 00:51:20.000
mean expand manufacturing into areas where we really don't want
708
00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:22.159
to be in. But if we're
forced to be in,
709
00:51:22.760 --> 00:51:31.280
we still want hire, maybe temporarily, but very quickly adopt automation.
710
00:51:31.800 --> 00:51:35.280
Which brings me to why college education now is even
711
00:51:35.400 --> 00:51:42.400
more valuable. My son, who's sons should be wiser than us,
712
00:51:42.400 --> 00:51:47.199
wiser than he said that the world is changing from
713
00:51:47.400 --> 00:51:54.239
content to asking the right question. And if you interact
714
00:51:54.280 --> 00:51:59.639
with CHATCHBT it is not about content. You're not showing
715
00:51:59.719 --> 00:52:04.280
your expertise, But if you ask the right questions, you're
716
00:52:04.320 --> 00:52:08.800
going to get expertise. And on the spot. If I'm
717
00:52:08.840 --> 00:52:15.119
a surgeon, and I've forgotten a specific procedure. I can
718
00:52:15.159 --> 00:52:19.480
take two minutes off. Hey, that TVT give me a
719
00:52:19.679 --> 00:52:23.840
detailed prescription of how I do it. We use it
720
00:52:23.880 --> 00:52:27.960
in our company. We're not surgeons, we're a material scientists,
721
00:52:28.400 --> 00:52:32.599
but we get a complete recipe how to run eleven experiments.
722
00:52:33.280 --> 00:52:37.440
So I don't need to know spend ten years in
723
00:52:37.519 --> 00:52:41.800
practice trying to learn a specific procedure. But I have
724
00:52:41.880 --> 00:52:43.960
to know how to ask the right question. If I
725
00:52:43.960 --> 00:52:47.039
don't have a college education, if I'm a plumber, if
726
00:52:47.079 --> 00:52:51.480
I'm an electrician, I don't have the context. But more
727
00:52:51.559 --> 00:52:55.639
than that, Joe, our society is getting so complex that
728
00:52:55.880 --> 00:53:00.000
I have to know how to process so many things
729
00:52:59.880 --> 00:53:05.000
that I can be irresponsible citizen and structure my life accordingly.
730
00:53:05.079 --> 00:53:09.559
So college education is even more important. But I have
731
00:53:09.599 --> 00:53:16.159
some ideas how college education can be adapted hybridized. One
732
00:53:16.280 --> 00:53:21.960
is Northeastern University uses has a program basically an internship
733
00:53:23.079 --> 00:53:26.800
in the sophomore year. You can find a company and
734
00:53:26.920 --> 00:53:30.199
go and work for that company for a semester or so.
735
00:53:30.679 --> 00:53:35.880
The company benefits and the student raises some money. My
736
00:53:35.880 --> 00:53:42.679
idea is a program called Undergraduate Professional Opportunities. You pop
737
00:53:44.079 --> 00:53:51.320
Its comparable program is europe Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. If
738
00:53:51.320 --> 00:53:54.239
I'm a freshman, I get linked top with a Nobel
739
00:53:54.320 --> 00:53:59.280
laureate and I do research and it advances me. Or
740
00:53:59.360 --> 00:54:02.559
if I want to interact with the company, I have
741
00:54:02.599 --> 00:54:06.559
a professional opportunity. The company gets to see me and
742
00:54:06.599 --> 00:54:09.920
I get to see the I think all the universities
743
00:54:09.960 --> 00:54:14.840
across our country can have programs which allows students to
744
00:54:14.960 --> 00:54:20.199
link up with industry in various ways and enhance industry
745
00:54:20.719 --> 00:54:25.400
deal with these issues. Because the UNIVERSITYSTEM can be trained
746
00:54:25.840 --> 00:54:30.480
in a specific skill set very quickly, one doesn't need
747
00:54:30.559 --> 00:54:33.800
to have a specific program and so on and so forth.
748
00:54:34.000 --> 00:54:37.039
So I have many creative ideas, but I'm not alone.
749
00:54:37.679 --> 00:54:41.800
Don't I start with our university system. Let our university
750
00:54:41.880 --> 00:54:43.880
ecosystem adapt.
751
00:54:44.440 --> 00:54:48.079
And he can read all about it in American Educational Excellence,
752
00:54:48.079 --> 00:54:51.280
The Foundation of our Values, Democracy and Market Capitalism. He
753
00:54:51.440 --> 00:54:54.159
is doctor Keenan Sahein. Doctor Keenan, thanks.
754
00:54:53.920 --> 00:54:54.519
So much for the time.
755
00:54:54.519 --> 00:54:55.480
I really appreciate it.
756
00:54:55.280 --> 00:54:57.920
It's a pleasure, and that's going to do it for
757
00:54:57.960 --> 00:54:58.440
this episode.
758
00:54:58.440 --> 00:54:59.960
If you want to find out more information about doctor
759
00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:03.760
Sahein and her other amazing authors, go to the authority company,
760
00:55:04.119 --> 00:55:22.599
dot com