YouSaid · the spoken record

Drew H. McElroy

lines on the record

33

first

2017-05-20

most recent

2017-05-20

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

1. “Actually, the greatest battle today is the threat to the current bureaucracies, whether it be on the right or the left, you often defend your own personal income stream, your own job, your own bureaucracy. It's hard to say, hey, this is a great idea. You just put my entire department out of business, but you actually helped poor people around the world. Right. So those of us in the policy world, we have to be willing to do those really hard things and say, you guys are great, but... You actually are a barrier to the ultimate goal.”

   2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “Dictators, bureaucrats, or this. Say, let's help build a network where I can buy something from that person. They can sell me something. The chain is the distribution of the value to their phone. It's a much more elegant human to human way to help the poor around the world than supporting bad governments.”

   2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “Yeah, that's not underrated. That's a great one. I mean, that one is an overarching one that accomplishes public policy goals on the left and the right at the same time. It's great, and American consumers demand it.”

   2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “Oh, I'm one of those that has a whole chain of them on his phone. So you start in the morning with TechCrunch and move on to Coindesk and just on and on and on and on. What has been also interesting is how often this discussion is now popping up on more mainstream publications like the Wall Street Journal, which is a great sign.”

   2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “And look, this sort of goes back to the beginning of the conversation. Most of the consumers, most of government, isn't going to need to know that it's running on a distributive ledger rails. They're just going to be interested saying, hey, did we work with NIST to create a security standard so we could all carry our medical records personally on our phone, even though it would probably be on a distributive ledger chain in the background. That right there is a great societal good. It would help us all with medical costs. It's not right or left. It's just the embracing of technology. And that could happen actually almost today and solve a huge societal problem if we could build the framework saying medical records meet the HIPAA standards if you do this type of encryption or maybe this type of token on a blockchain. Go, let's have it. So it may happen much faster because of our need policy-wise to come up with some solutions.”

   2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “Doug ears. We have no idea five or ten years. However, what we've seen today is a lot of venture capital and funds flowing into this industry, funding all sorts of innovation. I mean, I've met with firms that have invested in 2030 companies. And by the way, they don't know which way it's headed either. That's why they're doing 20 or 30 companies. They're hoping that one of them is the next all-encompassing blockchain success story. So nobody really knows, but when we see all this innovation and funding behind it, when the dust settles, there's going to be some great winners out there. Now, if any of us knew who they would be, we're probably in the wrong room because we'll be, you know, we'd be best rewarded to be somewhere else right now.”

   2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “Dugers, dug ears. So, you know, five to ten years is, you know, we should think more like that that's 35 normal years or something like that. Things are happening very quickly in the space. And I do think that the changes are going to come. They'll be led by technology and government will be chasing. And I actually think that's entirely appropriate. There's a need for regulatory compliance, obviously, to fit in that. I think it won't be 10 years. I think in five years we'll look back and be surprised at how much the world changed. Much similar to something like the iPhone or the internet itself, how quickly things changed in response to that.”

   2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “So, in the time we have left, let's talk a little bit about the next five to ten years. There's certainly a sense among some people in Silicon Valley, at least, that this is just gonna take some time to catch on, but once it does, we're going to look back and we're going to go, how could we have been so foolish to think that blockchain and cryptocurrencies and all the other applications were not going to be central to our future? What is the next five to ten years look like from your perspective, Mike?”

   2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “It gets back to Yeah, I was going to say, one of the reasons I think that governments generally are engaged so early in the process is that this is a hugely disruptive technology. And the spaces it disrupts include spaces that are really important to individual consumers and are in roles that are often either themselves and very, very heavily regulated spaces or actually performed by a government. And those are some of the spaces that are going to get disrupted.”

   2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “There's a brilliant example here Arizona's legislature about three four weeks ago actually put into the state commercial code smart contracts and recognition of distributive ledger. So there's already some discussion there saying who's going to be the person that shows up to the motor vehicle department and says we're going to take all vehicle and equipment titling and just put it on a chain and you'll be able to transfer ownership of vehicles on your phone now instead of ever having to go to a DMV office. In Arizona it would be legal now for a county to try to take its real estate ownership records and put them on a distributive ledger. So it's a brilliant example of titling, meeting the willingness of states and local jurisdictions to actually be much more creative than trying to move the monolith that the federal government is.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “Because some of the implications are for the public sector itself and public sector goals. So I think when things are developed by themselves completely outside of that, it takes longer for the public sector to notice. But frankly, many of the things we do publicly, whether it's taxes, whether it's titling, whether it's a variety of purposes that our public functions are directly affected. And there's great potential for efficiency improvements through blockchain.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “Certainly in Coinbase, we believe there has to be, the space has to be regulated, there has to be trust in the space in order for people to have consumers and others to have trust in the space, there has to be a layer of regulation so people know the rules are being followed, no one's got an advantage. That's very important. I should take a step back, though. We are here in the capital of the federal government, but this is a space that still is largely in many ways regulated by state governments. And that's really important. And there's a whole issue about the state role versus the federal role. And I don't think that's an easy issue. I mean, one of the nice things in an emerging technology space is if you have 50, actually I think there's 55 different state jurisdictions because of territories and things like that, looking at it, if somebody makes a misstep, we can correct or people can, the states actually can serve as a laboratory to learn from each other, whereas when the federal government acts, it's a giant step in one direction or another.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “I will say that technology is coming more quickly than people think. Oh, yeah. When David talks about a decade, some of this stuff is going to happen much more quickly. It's happening today, and it's going to continue to happen. The rate's going to accelerate”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “Incredibly important, but if I came to you, and let's just use a life example that's happening, I think, in both of our states, an autonomous vehicle has an accident in your neighborhood. Who do you sue? Well, you actually sue the code. But what would make that code insurable if the code were held in a distributive ledger, you know that if someone touched it, it has a timestamp. You know that the code is the code that was involved in the accident. And that's not esoteric. This is about to change a lot of our lives over the next decade. And the concept of being able to ensure an autonomous vehicles code is possible in a distributive ledger. And that's just sort of the classic sort of creative thinking of we know this technology is coming, but how do we make it fit into our current legal framework? And there was a solution.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “And I would share their concern, and I wouldn't even call it a misstep because we know when there's any fundamentally disruptive technology, there's a bunch of incumbents and legacy operators that come to this town to try to co-op government to sustain their advantage. And that we've seen that in every space I expect it to occur here too. So it's very legitimate fear.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “And look, the ability to meet with a constituent and say, let me walk you through, there is an elegant solution that may not have been discussed. And there is often a technology solution. For many of us, one of the greatest frustrations here in Congress is how many problems that we see come in front of us, and there's actually a technology solution if you just take a step back and think it through, whether it be fraud at the IRS or helping people be able to get certain benefits. There are technology solutions once you sort of drive through the bureaucratic layers.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “We have companies in my state, in my district, working on blockchain technologies, startups, mid-stage companies. They're very excited that they have an ear, not only in their member of Congress, but through the caucus. I mean, these are not the kind of issues that would come up in kind of a mast town hall. There's other things on people's minds. But, you know, I'm always excited when they do.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “To what extent do you make these arguments to your constituents and say, look, these are all the benefits of the blockchain technology? There should be more kind of pressure from the bottom up for the federal government to act on this.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “And there is a sort of magic circle where those of us who may be slightly more libertarian leaning and those who may be, so we sort of come together on some of the civil libertarian and the right to control and own your information.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “And this also is very exciting in kind of a left right alliance, and both of us represent different sides of the spectrum because there's an enormous distrust on both sides of government with private information. And the last thing we want from either the left or the right is a government that controls your information, has access to your information, and can dispense your information to others. Many on the left, like myself, don't want corporations to play that role either, but frankly, the blockchain is a way to address both of those concerns from the left and the right.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “I guess what you were saying, this is more fundamentally disruptive than some of the others in that we don't even know who or what the players will be and where it will impact. It has massive ramifications in developing world for the unbanked and the untitled. So, I mean, there's identity confirmation, and frankly, tying into policy interests like identity ownership, allowing consumers to really control and own their own identity. So there's vast ramifications. Many of them touch law and tax policy, and that's one of the reasons that we have to pay attention absent a deliberate effort to create a legal ecosystem that allows for innovation, it's quite possible that efforts to do innovative things will run afoul of current law.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “What's so interesting to me is that oftentimes you look at the federal government's efforts to catch up to modern day technology. It's really just an effort to catch up to the status quo, whereas a lot of the conversation that you guys are having is really leapfrogging the existing infrastructure or thinking about how to create entirely new frameworks for thinking about these things, not just catching up to where we are. But if you think about it, the blockchain is this relatively new concept, at least for most people. And so it's much more, it's a much more forward-leaning position than other tech caucuses in Congress, like the modernizing IT caucus.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “Move value from one end to the other all of a sudden makes doing sort of micro savings towards your future retirement possible. And so it's trying to come and say there are societal solutions that this technology, if it's understood, can provide.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “Either regulating our space today or considering regulating our space today. And those agencies are clearly very involved, and some of them are very expert. I will say, however, that it's a big executive branch. And if you look at it as a percentage of the entire executive branch, it's a very small percentage. But again, there are experts there who are looking at it. And there's also a concern on some of our parts that it not be seen just as the cryptocurrency platform. And 10 minutes ago in our office, we had a number of folks talking about could we dramatically change the cost of the transmission, the movement of value. You walk into a retailer and swipe a debit card the way it's transmitted and cleared. Could we reduce the cost? Would that be good for society? The Uber driver, the peaceworker who wants to put aside 25 cents every time they finished a driver or a project, could we dramatically lower the cost using a blockchain encrypted network to”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “Even more so, I think, on the executive branch side. But I just want to stress we called it a club, and it is a club, but it's very, very important, right? I mean, the main thing we want to do is make sure that Congress is aware of what we do, has no reason to be afraid of it, and understands broadly what's going on. And the reason for that is it helps put things in perspective when an event good or bad occurs or makes them aware of other options that are out there. It's not the first time they hear about it when something comes up, which is really important for Congress. With regard to the executive branch, some of them are involved actively in”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “I suspect you're in some other Well, I was president of my math club. There is a benefit to it because what will often happen is we worked on a concept for using blockchain or distributed ledger for scheduling at the VA to deal with the fraud issues of people were sneaking in changing the schedules and the benefit of, hey, there's a timestamp. You know who touched it, when, and would get rid of that problem. But if you present that as an idea to the VA committee, you get stared at. If you present it saying, hey, as the blockchain distributive ledger caucus, we've been working on solutions in society. Here's an example. It just has a little more gravitas.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

27. “Let's start with what cognizance is. Outside of DC, so basically this is a formalized group that members of Congress can organize under to help educate others. So it's like forming a club in college, right? You want to do juggling, you started juggling club, and all of a sudden you have a recognized group. So we're able to take out rooms here, rent rooms for briefings, all of that sort of thing in the capital. And there's a number of these. There's hundreds of these caucuses. So there was none in this area. There was no effort or way or manner of educating our colleagues about blockchain. So we really got together and said, look, let's formalize it so we can take out rooms and do briefings, which is effectively what that means and provide a forum for other members to learn more about the blockchain.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

28. “So let's talk a little bit about how the blockchain caucus came to be, because I think our, I mean, even our DC audience is probably like, what? There's a congressional blockchain caucus. Let's start with the block”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

29. “So it's very similar to say message you give to Congress or to anybody else, which is there are benefits to this. You don't need, as Congress Reicher was just saying, you don't need to be an expert in the underlying technology to know the benefits from it. There are these benefits and there are trusted companies and realize that you're going to be protected as a consumer, that you have access to these benefits.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

30. “And one of the things I think we're starting to succeed at is explaining the benefits. You may be carrying around that supercomputer in your pocket, you call an iPhone. You don't know how it actually works. You just know the benefits of its utilization. We used to actually try to do on the whiteboard the description of how a series of nodes actually talk to each other and how it stamps and time and those things. And I realized there's no reason for that. You just now explain, here's the benefit.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

31. “A lot of people Well, and it might not even be that sophisticated. Keep in mind the demographics around here. I mean, we have a tough time explaining cloud computing. I mean, you know, this is a challenge. Now, what members of Congress have, though, is they have talented staffs of 20-somethings that get this stuff a little bit more. Now, many of them are not hard science people, but they've lived that era in their lives. And so they certainly do get that. And hopefully it's their job to kind of explain that to the member of Congress or Senator they work for.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

32. “Yeah, it's one of our great difficulties so often when we actually say, hey, distributive ledger can provide all these types of solutions in our society. They immediately want to talk about Bitcoin. And that's both wonderful, but at the same time, the underlying technology is so much broader than just a cryptocurrency. And trying to walk through saying, okay, let me explain the stamping of nodes and the matching and permission and levels of permission. You get a couple moments and Jared and I get into that and about two minutes into it. They're just staring at us.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

33. “Well, Mrs. Jared Polis, I think people still turn their heads and say, What's that? I think there's some awareness of Bitcoin, for instance, or online currencies. But outside of our caucus members and perhaps a few members of Congress that have an engineering or computer science background, I don't think we're quite there yet in explaining what this is to people.”

    2017-05-20 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: The Blockchain, in Congress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source