YouSaid · the spoken record

Bradley Tusk

lines on the record: 135
first: 2018-10-29
most recent: 2018-10-29
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Sometimes, yeah, it depends on what the issue is, right? As opposed to the stuff we're seeing in Washington right now, which are, holy shit, these companies got so big so fast. Now we have real concerns about market power and antitrust and privacy and these things we have to deal with it. So I guess maybe because most of my investments and work tend to focus on not just startups but earlier stage startups. I don't want them quite frankly facing the tech clash. I don't want them getting away, which it is tech clash. Yeah, I don't want them flumped in with Facebook and Twitter. There are sometimes and that makes my job harder.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Care of offering drugs, prescription drugs, or sorry, supplements online, things like that. Yeah, exactly. So they're dealing with a different set of regulators, and usually the motives early on are entrenched interests who don't want competition. Right.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's different than the startup in transportation, in hospitality, to energy, like Bird or Airbnb or Fandor or Lemonade or all these companies that are basically tweaking existing industries and trying to make them a little better.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He filed about a year and a half ago an antitrust suit against Google. And the reason that was so amazing is the Attorney General of Missouri has no jurisdiction over this. But his polling clearly said he was running for Senate. More of your constituents and voters are anti-Gugo than pro-Gugle. You know, that went from a world where saying, don't be evil and everyone would applaud. So now you have local politicians saying Google's underwater in their approval ratings. I'm going to go after them, right?”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There was media, but they media mishandled it for a very long time. Right. So they were able to get really big without dealing with that many political problems. The turning point was when Josh Hawley, who will hopefully lose his Senate bidden in McCaskill, hopefully lose him saying. I don't think he will lose him. Just let me hope he loses. He was attorney general, still attorney to Missouri.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So that's really different. And it fits into a couple different things, right? You have your Googles of the world or Facebooks that. Creative in these frictionless environments. In some ways, in the early end, it was much easier for them because they didn't have to, there's no, there was no big search before Google, right, right, exactly.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Had been, yeah, but now a fish starting to get into places that are about to change. And that's different from startups to where we tend to focus, which is by the way, most of the regulation of that tends to be the municipal and state level. And that's more around entrepreneur either has this new idea that is not covered in law because of the bureaucrats could have thought of that. They'd be entrepreneurs, not bureaucrats. They start getting a little traction, a little market share, entrenched interest, doesn't like the competition, their campaign owners to the governor, the mayor, whoever it is. They lean on them to lean on the regulators who say, tell them this is not allowed. And then we have to come in, beat up the entrenched interest and make sure the law is okay. Right. That's different.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I think I would argue that you have to sort of answer that question in two parts. There's startups and there's tech, right? Tech in terms of that, they're the biggest companies in the world, right? So every massive company is going to automatically get into lots of regulated issues and get lots of industry largely.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They misunderstand that. So, have they gotten smarter? Has tech gotten smarter? Because, you know, now Google is one of the biggest lobbyists in Washington. You know, just the way the TV industry had that, just the way everybody.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, I have all the axes in the world because Junck Schumer is my good friend. He's not your good friend. He's just a guy raising a shit ton of money.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, regulatory all over the country and all over the world has certainly raised awareness. Look, when we were first launching our fund, I had to beg people to meet with me about taking my money. Now people will call and say, if you're on the cap table, it's signals that we're taking this stuff seriously. That makes other investors happy. You want allocation may or may not, but that's definitely a sea change in terms of mentality. But you still have a lot of people in tech who think they get politics. And I think it's a result of two things. One is really smart people who don't know what they don't know just because they've been really successful in one walk of life that applies to everything. And the other is because they're rich usually, politicians kiss their ass because they want their money. Right, exactly. They really care what these people think about anything other than writing the check? No. Not the slightest. Right. But you have to pretend. So they get asked, what's your view on healthcare and education and energy policy and all these things that go in one ear and out the other. Some staffer pretends to take notes in the background, but it makes them feel like, A, they know stuff, and B,”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It has changed a little bit because I think the combination of the really big companies having so many problems right now combined with Uber and Airbnb and other startups just having lots of high profile fights all over the country.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. They didn't have any lobbying presence. Just one guy, and he became a big lobbyist for them eventually as they started to hire. And all I remember saying to him was, you know, Washington is full of ex-student body vice presidents with subpoena power. And it seems to me that perhaps you do need that. And then since then, obviously, they stepped up Google stepped up. That's on the federal level, not just on the local level.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, how so? Because my lasting memory is having Bill Gates down to the Washington Post when I was there when he was right before the monopoly thing. And I'll never forget, he said he was in one of those editor meetings. We had invited him there. And it was, it had to be in the 90s sometime, like the early 90s. And he said, I don't need a lobbyist in Washington. I don't need lobbyists. I got some lobbyists up in Rockville, like some guy, like some guy. Good enough. And a federal one. And I said, wow, that's really arrogant of you because I think people are going to start getting interested in your monopoly power.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When I was in college, I was We're going to get into behaves badly. Right, because of that. She doesn't want competition. That's not cool, and that's not good for anyone except them. Taxi cartel. Handy It has to be. It has to be on their phones. We're going to get into all this. And you have like sections of the thing of learning about politics. And so tech people do not know politics.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Startups that we can't work with, at least think about this stuff intelligently, right? And so the book is the first third is my experiences in politics, the good, the bad, the ugly. So Bloomberg, Schumer, Blagojevich, Rendau, all this stuff. Next third was Uber and how Travis and I figured out how to basically mobilize our customers to be the taxi cartel. And the last third are case studies that are hopefully still entertaining to read in the form of what we do.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'll take care. I'll take care of it. Yeah, exactly. So, a few things. So, one is I actually just love to write. When I was in college, I was in the creative writing program. There was that moment right to side, do I do writing or politics? I pick politics. It's worked out okay. But just the opportunity to, hey, I have still hopefully some writing ability plus a story to tell was enough to get people interested in the book itself. And then, look, we can work with, invest in a dozen startups at a given time. There's 17,000, I think, in the US right now. So even though I want the ones in my portfolio to do better than the other ones, I don't want any of them to get screwed over by pay-to-play politics and just entrenched interests, squashing innovation. It's one thing when Facebook or Uber now or Google behaves badly. That's one thing. But when a series A company isn't able to actually even compete because the casino industry or the hotel industry doesn't want competition, that's not cool and that's not good for anyone except them. So it was like, how can we help the other 16,188?”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I grew up with his brother with my best friend growing up. I've known Michael for 40 years. I'll fix that for a while. I haven't talked to him in a while. What do you say to Jail?”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not necessarily, but my editor, you know, some different profiles have called me that. My editor really liked the title when Michael Cohen started being called that. We were like, oh, maybe we should change it. We're keeping our title.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, okay. So you had spent your time in politics and doing all kinds of deals and stuff like that, but this is so this, you decided to write this book, my adventure, saving death by politics. Talk a little bit about the book, and then I want to get into specifics around Bird and all this other thing with the new regulatory challenges in the next section. Talk about, so you decided to do this book.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, by definition, right? There's lots of VCs that can fund something. But if you say, I need to win this fight in 13 states, 18 cities, whatever it is, like a bird like an Uber, like a fan duel, like a lemonade, whatever it is, then we're the only one to do that. Right. Okay.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Coinbase and circle are both exchanges for crypto. Lemonade, which is the insurance tech startup. Same thing as getting them their license in every state in the US. Row, which is a men's healthcare company that has raised a gazillion dollars, Fandule. Another problem.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Definitely San Francisco, but we won Miami a week ago. New York's looking good in Chicago. We're in Coinbase. We're in Circle. We're in.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I'm assuming that 37 million. We invest mainly Series A, sometimes C. So small. Yeah. Because look, I don't need management fees to run my business because I have other businesses that make money. So the much bigger upside from our perspective is earlier. And it's also just more fun, right? So Bird will invest in their Series A. We've been working all over the country to make scooters. Which is a scooter markets. Having some trouble.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I gotta ask this week. Kuwaiti. No, we were joking the other day that if you're a startup and you are desperate for money, Saudi is probably a predicate. Yeah, right, yeah.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We took on rights here in every market in the US. It wasn't a small undertaking to when I got out of the start to start working with us. And then in raising our fund, same thing. Every LP says, I want a differentiated strategy. It turns out they mean like a different font in the DAC. Like when this political guy showed up and said, I'm going to get access to all of these deals because these companies are going to really need my help and they just can't get my help without me having investment rights. You know, that was like, oh, that's too weird. Now that we're in bird and circle and Coinbase and Lemonade and Row and all these things. Names in the companies you're in. So in terms of the investment fund, how much do you do?”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I went to Stanford. I was in White Combinator. John Doore's on my board. And when that stupid regular pops. So, you know, there was a four-year period or four and a half year period from when I started working with Uber. And we, you know.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But he did to his credit understand the need to take the politics seriously. Right. So I'm working with him and it's fun because these are fun fights to a wedding. Super aggressive. Value of equity is skyrocketing. Not realizing they'll probably never be at one like that again. Yeah, right. But I don't know that, right? So thinking, hey, I should do more of these. Right. And so I would get an introduction to some founder and I'd say, look, you're in this regulated industry. Here's who, if you're successful, you're going to disrupt and take market share away from. I'm the fixer. They're going to politically hurt you in this way, this way, and this way. I can try to stop that. And I'll do it for equity. By the way, not realizing that not all equity is created equal. I don't even know enough to know those differences. And the response I would get consistently was, oh, you poor child, you don't understand.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I mean, the typical answer that I would get, and for all of Travis' flaws to his credit. Travis Calantic, right, because now we also have Travis. He's co-founder and.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you had taken stock, and that's what you wanted. Yeah. Right. But you're offered to them because before, I guess even Steve Case wrote that book about the third wave that a lot of these new startups are unregulated industries, heavily. Your thing was, listen, you people don't know Squad about local.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Started working with Uber in 2011, kind of figured out the whole strategy of how we mobilize our customers to beat the taxi industry and then broaden that into a broader venture business in 2015.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'd been Mike Blur's campaign manager, Chuck Schumer's Communications Director. As you mentioned, Deputy Governor of Illinois. Kanye Rob Plagoyevich, who is now enjoying a 14 year jail.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Around tech companies. So those are probably most interesting to this audience. I found in run a venture capital fund called Tus Ventures. We're the only fund that I'm aware of that works solely at the intersection of tech and politics. Right. So we invest in and work with startups in regulated industries where we think that by virtue of our work, we can really move the needle for the”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, all right, so let's give the background explain who you are. We had last podcast, you worked for Uber, you'd worked for a whole bunch of stuff about regulatory issues around tech companies. That's how we're going to be.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hi, I'm Kara Swisher, editor at large of Recode. You may know me as someone who thinks House of Cards is way too generous to politicians, but in my spare time I talk tech and you're listening to Recode Decode from the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today in the red chair is someone who is sack here before, Bradley Tusk, the CEO of Tusk Holdings. He's a venture capitalist, the former campaign manager for Mike Bloomberg. I think he's been like governor of Ohio at one point. Illinois, okay, whatever. One of those states out there. And he's also the author of a new book called The Fixer, My Adventures Saving Startups from Death by Politics. Bradley, this is such a topical topic now since we last talked. Welcome to Reco Deco.”
2018-10-29 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: 'The Fixer' author Bradley Tusk · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT