Building Bridges

Today’s episode of the Building Bridges podcast is my conversation with Tyler Cowen, an economist, director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, blogger at Marginal Revolution, and host of the podcast Conversations with Tyler.

I first met Tyler back in 2019 when my colleague Zineb Mekouar and I spent a few days in Washington, DC to promote my book Hedge and to connect with John Dearie’s Center for American Entrepreneurship. We had lunch with Tyler and his colleague and co-author Alex Tabarrok in a Chinese restaurant near George Mason University. Most of our conversation that day was about exchanging ideas and impressions about the relative situation of America, Europe, and the rest of the world.

Since then I’ve kept reading everything I could find about the political situation in the US, the state of the transatlantic relationship, and recently how COVID-19 was impacting the distribution of power and wealth across the world. Then last year, I realized something: Americans are, by far, the most inspiring contributors to this conversation—yet alas they’re mostly speaking about America, leaving the rest of the world untouched, uncommented on, almost undocumented!

In this context, how about launching a podcast series in which I’d interview American thinkers, but having them focus the conversation on Europe?

Fast forward to today: my 2020 idea has morphed into the Building Bridges podcast which I’m co-hosting with my wife Laetitia Vitaud. The value proposition of our podcast is to provide a platform for anyone who has interesting ideas to share with our vast community of “unapologetic globalists” (to quote my recent guest Chris Schroeder).

* Not everyone that’s part of this roster has much to say about Europe. But whenever I catch one who does, I make sure to focus our conversation on that very subject—and I must say Tyler is one of our recent guests who has the most to say and to share about the Old Continent!

And so if you’re interested in Europe, economics, libertarianism, or the prospects of various other regions in the world, I urge you to give my conversation with Tyler a listen. Here’s what you’ll hear:

* What Tyler likes and dislikes about Europe, and the various countries he’s lived in or traveled to here (which is most of them!).

* Why he thinks Europe is one of the least fragmented regions in the world—which is the exact opposite of how I view Europe!

* Why Americans should be present and invest in India if they want to retain some influence in the future.

* What advice he would give to young Europeans and young Americans who want to prepare themselves for our coming world.

* Why he expects Europe to remain a wealthy and prosperous region, despite, well, everything. And many, many more interesting topics and ideas.

This podcast and the related article were originally published at Around Europe w/ Tyler Cowen. Lobbying. Startups Across Borders. Biden’s Global Tax Reform. as part of my newsletter European Straits (which is about the Entrepreneurial Age, viewed from Europe).

Follow Building Bridges on Twitter! You can listen to all our podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

* Also Building Bridges is part of a network of Substack newsletters, which you may want to discover: there’s Laetitia Vitaud’s Laetitia@Work (about the future of work, with a feminist perspective), and my own European Straits (about the Entrepreneurial Age, viewed from Europe).

(Credit: Franz Liszt, Angelus ! Prière Aux Anges Gardiens—extrait du disque Miroirs de Jonas Vitaud, NoMadMusic.)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit buildingbridges.substack.com

For this new episode of the Building Bridges podcast, I’m excited to share my interview with Ian Leslie, a journalist and author of several books on human behaviour. His latest book, Conflicted: How Productive Disagreements Lead to Better Outcomes should be made compulsory reading in all the schools of the world. 

Disagreement improves our decisions, sparks new ideas, and, counterintuitively, brings us closer together — but only if we do it well. Right now we’re doing it terribly. We either get into fights or, more likely, avoid disagreements altogether, because we find them so stressful. This is a hard skill that neither evolution nor society has equipped us with, but it’s one we all need to learn, because it’s critical to the success of any shared enterprise, from a marriage to a business to a democracy. Isn’t it high time we gave more thought to how we disagree better?

Like a lot of other animals we humans respond to threat with two tactics: fight or flight. Either we become very hostile or we do everything we can to avoid any kind of argument. But both these reactions are completely dysfunctional. The internet isn’t helping: social media are designed to turn what could be productive exchanges into useless cockfights in a public arena.

The counterintuitive truth is that we need conflicts to move forward and live and work together more happily. Conflicts can bring us closer. “Couples and teams are happier when they are in the habit of passionate disagreement. Conflict can draw people together.” That’s why the author devotes the second half of the book to his 10 “rules of productive argument” to help us get better at disagreeing with others.

Establish a relationship of trust with the other person, accept them for who they are, try and make them feel good about themselves, consider that you might be perceived as “weird” by the other person, be curious about their point of view and actually listen to what they have to say...and above all else be real and honest when you interact with them. 

The stories told in the book and the insights shared show this guide to productive disagreement is indispensable reading. I found this conversation with Ian fascinating. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed having it! Do not forget to share it with people who might be interested ⚔️ 💌

Follow Building Bridges on Twitter! You can listen to all our podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

* Also Building Bridges is part of a network of Substack newsletters, which you may want to discover: there’s my Laetitia@Work (about the future of work, with a feminist perspective), and Nicolas’s Colin European Straits (about the Entrepreneurial Age, viewed from Europe).

(Credit: Franz Liszt, Angelus ! Prière Aux Anges Gardiens—extrait du disque Miroirs de Jonas Vitaud, NoMadMusic.)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit buildingbridges.substack.com

🐰 Today, I’m pleased to share a new episode of Building Bridges in which I interview Noah Smith, an opinion columnist at Bloomberg and writer at Noahpinion, which I highly recommend subscribing to since it covers so many topics that resonate with this newsletter—from economic development to immigration to the current paradigm shift to industrial policy to economics in general.

My idea was to focus the conversation on Europe, and indeed Noah has many insights to share. One of them, which I find particularly compelling, is the idea of “optimal fragmentation”. There was a time, in the 19th century, when Europe actually benefited from being a fragmented continent. Britain, Germany and France were of roughly equal sizes; the world was the stage on which their rivalry played out; and the technology of the day made it so that each could grow their national industrial champions and claim to be part of the club of the more advanced countries.

* Today, the situation in Europe is very different, however. The advanced technologies of the day (computing and networks) call for growing corporations whose scale far exceeds the size of any European market. And because they have realized fragmentation isn’t much of an advantage anymore, European countries have been trying to join forces under the umbrella of the European Union—alas encountering many frictions and obstacles along the way.

Here are the other topics I discussed with Noah:

* The various places he’s lived, including Texas, Japan, New York, and the Bay Area—and what specifically attracted him to Japan, where he spent 5 years in total.

* Industrial policy: what it is, why it is so difficult to design and implement during a paradigm shift, and how Europe has been performing on that front.

* Texas and its (so far) failed attempts at catching up on Silicon Valley: it’s all about non-compete clauses, urban sprawling, and universities.

* Where to look for inspiration: Noah shared his assessment of how various European countries are doing and what other regions in the world we should all study.

* Finally, I made sure to ask Noah about his pet rabbits, and he shared the reasons why everyone should consider adopting their own—tl;dr, “they’re like clumsy, vegetarian cats”.

This podcast and the related article were originally published at Discussing Europe (& Rabbits 🐰) w/ Noah Smith. Deliveroo. Delaware. Defensibility. Software Digesting the World. as part of my newsletter European Straits (which is about the Entrepreneurial Age, viewed from Europe).

Follow Building Bridges on Twitter! You can listen to all our podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

* Also Building Bridges is part of a network of Substack newsletters, which you may want to discover: there’s Laetitia Vitaud’s Laetitia@Work (about the future of work, with a feminist perspective), and my own European Straits (about the Entrepreneurial Age, viewed from Europe).

(Credit: Franz Liszt, Angelus ! Prière Aux Anges Gardiens—extrait du disque Miroirs de Jonas Vitaud, NoMadMusic.)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit buildingbridges.substack.com

For this new episode of the Building Bridges podcast, I’m thrilled to share my interview with Diana Lind, a writer and urban policy specialist whose book Brave New Home: Our Future In Smarter, Simpler, Happier Housing I devoured a few months ago. 

In her book, Diana explains that the ‘American Dream’-like single-family home so typical of the 20th-century has become “a lonely, overpriced nightmare”. Even though nuclear families are no longer the norm, housing hasn’t yet caught up with changing social norms and demographics. 

Diana champions new, more ambitious housing policies and she is adamant that we need more options to solve the biggest problems of our times: climate change, loneliness and insufficient healthcare. In this podcast we discuss the emerging trends, the housing crisis, the impact of the pandemic and why there’s some reason to be hopeful about the future of housing.

👉 Read the Laetitia@Work newsletter I wrote about Brave New Home.

Here are some quotes from Brave New Home:

Over the past several decades, American demographics and social norms have shifted dramatically. More people are living alone, marrying later in life, and having smaller families while their lifestyles have also become more virtual, more mobile, and less stable. But despite a different and more diverse America, our housing is still stuck in the 1950s.

This style of living, centered around the single-family home, is a relatively new concept in the history of humankind. Up until World War II, families traditionally lived in more communal situations, ranging from multigenerational households to close-knit neighborhoods full of friends and family. (...) 

The more I searched these issues, the more I became convinced that the presumed benefits of single-family homes masked their negative social, economic, and environmental consequences. The data suggest that the current housing paradigm—predominantly oriented around owning a single-family home—is unaffordable, unhealthy, and out of step with consumer demand. And a large and growing portion of the population is unable to access the homeownership lifestyle, even if they desire it.

I loved talking with Diana about demographics, changing social norms, housing history and housing policies. I hope you enjoy listening to this conversation as much as I enjoyed recording it! Do not forget to share it with people who might be interested 🏘️ 💌

Follow Building Bridges on Twitter! You can listen to all our podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

* Also Building Bridges is part of a network of Substack newsletters, which you may want to discover: there’s Nicolas Colin’s European Straits, there’s my Laetitia@Work, and our French newsletter, Nouveau Départ.

(Credit: Franz Liszt, Angelus ! Prière Aux Anges Gardiens—extrait du disque Miroirs de Jonas Vitaud, NoMadMusic.)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit buildingbridges.substack.com

I’m delighted to share a conversation I had with Chris Schroeder, an American entrepreneur, global investor and author of the book Startup Rising about the thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Middle East. Chris and I met 2 years ago when I was visiting Washington, DC, where he lives, all thanks to my friend Ian Hathaway (co-author of The Startup Community Way with Brad Feld).

Chris, Ian, and I share a deep interest in entrepreneurship as a global phenomenon, specifically the fact that as technology becomes available across the globe, founders can succeed not only in Silicon Valley, but in every entrepreneurial ecosystem that’s emerging on the global map. Chris was led to write his book (whose first edition dates back to 2013) after attending a startup event in Dubai where his mind was blown by the sheer scale and passion of the startup community he encountered there.

* His background was also a contributing factor, however. Before becoming an entrepreneur in the media industry and later focusing on investing in startups around the world, Chris worked as a staff member for then-Secretary of State James Baker, right when the world was undergoing the most radical transformation in our lifetime. He criss-crossed the world with his boss, practically witnessing the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the first Gulf War that the US waged against Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime, and many other (incredible) things.

As he tells me in our conversation, Chris emerged from this experience with an unapologetic global outlook and a deep interest in what is happening in the rest of the world. It was only a matter of time before this interest converged with his passion for entrepreneurship, and now he’s one of the best experts and practitioners I know when it comes to knowing entrepreneurial ecosystems and working with founders based all over the world—a rather unusual positioning for an American.

I hope you like this podcast! If you want to dig deeper into Chris’s thoughts and works, check out his newsletter as well as his book, now in its second edition, Startup Rising: The Entrepreneurial Revolution Remaking the Middle East.

This podcast and the related article were originally published at Investing Across the World w/ Chris Schroeder. Stripe. Consulting. IPOs. Digital Government. as part of my newsletter European Straits (which is about the Entrepreneurial Age, viewed from Europe).

Follow Building Bridges on Twitter! You can listen to all our podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

* Also Building Bridges is part of a network of Substack newsletters, which you may want to discover: there’s Laetitia Vitaud’s Laetitia@Work (about the future of work, with a feminist perspective), and my own European Straits (about the Entrepreneurial Age, viewed from Europe).

(Credit: Franz Liszt, Angelus ! Prière Aux Anges Gardiens—extrait du disque Miroirs de Jonas Vitaud, NoMadMusic.)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit buildingbridges.substack.com

For this new episode of the Building Bridges podcast, I’m happy to interview Kelly Hoey, a networking expert, author of the book Build Your Dream Network: Forging Powerful Relationships In A Hyper-Connected World.

“Networking needs a rebranding”, says Kelly. We’ve long seen it as this (mostly male) activity that consists in “schmoozing at boring parties or scrolling through LinkedIn” and wondering how you can benefit from others.

But that’s not what networking is really about! The pandemic and the social distancing that comes with it have proved one thing: more than ever we need strong relationships to survive and thrive. Our careers but also our mental and physical health depend on the strength and authenticity of the relationships we cultivate. Perhaps we’ve let loneliness become the epidemic of this century because we’ve not learned how to genuinely connect with others in this hyper-connected world.

Dissatisfied with the business-card-minded definition of networking, Kelly looked to the definition of ‘net’ for more inspiration—“an openwork fabric made of threads or cords that are woven or knotted together at regular intervals”—because, she writes,

For me networking is an ongoing process of establishing and strengthening relationships. It is not confined to a single activity such as email introductions or cocktail receptions in the lobby of a corporation's headquarters.

Kelly wrote this book a couple of years ago. But her messages sound more relevant now than ever before. We need a better ‘net’. As the line between life and work gets blurrier and blurrier, it seems more obvious that a new approach to networking will help us in both. 

The first thing we could do is stop presenting “digital” networking as “inferior” or less “real”. Online and offline connections complement one another. The former are no less real than the latter. In fact the two are deeply intertwined. There are so many things we can do to get better at cultivating meaningful relationships, both online and offline.

I loved meeting Kelly (online) and chatting with her. It felt empowering! Thank you for this, Kelly! I hope you enjoy listening to this conversation as much as I enjoyed recording it. Do not hesitate to share it with people who you think would be interested (yes, that’s “networking” and it’s a good thing!) 🕸️ 💌

For access to the full transcript, there will a paid version of Building Bridges to which you’ll be able to subscribe soon. Stay tuned.

Follow Building Bridges on Twitter! You can listen to all our podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

* Also Building Bridges is part of a network of Substack newsletters, which you may want to discover: there’s Nicolas Colin’s European Straits, there’s my Laetitia@Work, and our French newsletter, Nouveau Départ.

(Credit: Franz Liszt, Angelus ! Prière Aux Anges Gardiens—extrait du disque Miroirs de Jonas Vitaud, NoMadMusic.)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit buildingbridges.substack.com

For this new episode of the Building Bridges podcast, I’m delighted to interview Dr Rachel Kowert, a research psychologist from Austin, Texas, who’s dedicated her career to studying video games and gamers. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve spent more time playing video games than ever before in the history of video games. But what if it wasn’t a bad thing?

I discovered Rachel’s work in one of my favourite newsletters, Anne Helen Petersen’s Culture Study. That particular edition was titled: "Parents deserve so much more when it comes to the ways video games are discussed in our popular media." A few days before, the New York Times had just published yet another gloomy piece about the dangers of games and parents’ “alarm”.

In a fantastic Twitter thread following the publication of this lazy piece of journalism, Rachel showed that it was “far more moral panic than actual information”. When the wise man points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger, especially if it can generate more clicks and views.

It’s high time we stopped blaming games (and screens) for everything. In her Parent's Guide to Video Games (which I couldn’t recommend enough: it’s the shortest, most effective read on the subject!), she writes:

“First it was the radio. Then it was film, television, rock and roll, and comic books. Today, video games have become the scapegoat of choice for a variety of societal problems, including gun violence, obesity, and addictive behaviours. The fears surrounding the potential negative influence of video games have become more exaggerated and widespread as they have become more popular, more realistic in design, and now, as they are networked online.”

In this interview, Rachel shares fascinating lessons from decades of video games research. What is video games addiction? What’s the link between games and crime? What’s their impact on cognitive development? What about physical and mental health? Do they help us connect better with others or not? In these times of pandemic and social isolation, many gamers see video games are a lifeline. Their experience of games is more relevant than the “moral panic” of clueless video games detractors…

I hope you enjoy listening to this podcast! Do not hesitate to share it with your friends and colleagues, gamers and non gamers alike! 🕹️

For access to the full transcript, there will a paid version of Building Bridges to which you’ll be able to subscribe soon. Stay tuned.

Follow Building Bridges on Twitter! You can listen to all our podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

* Also Building Bridges is part of a network of Substack newsletters, which you may want to discover: there’s Nicolas Colin’s European Straits, there’s my Laetitia@Work, and our French newsletter, Nouveau Départ.

(Credit: Franz Liszt, Angelus ! Prière Aux Anges Gardiens—extrait du disque Miroirs de Jonas Vitaud, NoMadMusic.)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit buildingbridges.substack.com

I sat down for a conversation with Bill Janeway, an economist, faculty member at Cambridge University, and author of the landmark book Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy.

* It’s a book that really has had a profound influence on me—basically containing everything you need to know about how venture capital came to be and why it’s so relevant today in the context of the transition to the digital economy.

Bill’s long career in venture capital, primarily with Warburg Pincus, and his academic work let him comment on today’s economy from both a business and an institutional perspective. And I consider myself, and the world at large, really, to be quite lucky that he is also such an affable person and generous with his time and thinking.

Our conversation spanned how he’s experienced the very strange year that was 2020, his thesis regarding the retreat from hyperglobalization, the consequences of Joe Biden’s election on America, the world at large, & the tech industry specifically, how he sees Europe’s future, and much more.

This podcast and the related article were originally published at The Digital Economy w/ Bill Janeway. Reinvention. Bezos. Musk. Communications. as part of my newsletter European Straits (which is about the Entrepreneurial Age, viewed from Europe).

Follow Building Bridges on Twitter! You can listen to all our podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

* Also Building Bridges is part of a network of Substack newsletters, which you may want to discover: there’s Laetitia Vitaud’s Laetitia@Work (about the future of work, with a feminist perspective), and my own European Straits (about the Entrepreneurial Age, viewed from Europe).

(Credit: Franz Liszt, Angelus ! Prière Aux Anges Gardiens—extrait du disque Miroirs de Jonas Vitaud, NoMadMusic.)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit buildingbridges.substack.com

For this new episode of the Building Bridges podcast, I’m delighted to share the (long) conversation I had with Toni Cowan-Brown, a European in Silicon Valley, whose newsletter I’ve followed since the beginning.

Toni is a true European at heart (albeit with a British passport) who’s lived and worked in San Francisco for a few years. She’s one of those few people who loves to compare and confront cultures the way I do. Perhaps it’s why we just couldn’t stop talking!

She used to work for a startup called NationBuilder which develops software for political campaigns. (She was in charge of its European expansion). And she continues to see herself as being at “the intersection of tech and politics”.

At this intersection we had a long chat about how she experienced the pandemic in San Francisco, her view of the US healthcare system and how the Valley was impacted by everything that happened in California and the world in 2020.

Toni has a weekly newsletter called Idée Fixe, a podcast called Unapologetic Women (with Sorcha Rochford), and Another Podcast (with Benedict Evans).

I hope you enjoy listening to this podcast! Do not hesitate to share it with your friends and colleagues! 🤗

Follow Building Bridges on Twitter! You can listen to all our podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

* Also Building Bridges is part of a network of Substack newsletters, which you may want to discover: there’s Nicolas Colin’s European Straits, there’s my Laetitia@Work, and our French newsletter, Nouveau Départ.

(Credit: Franz Liszt, Angelus ! Prière Aux Anges Gardiens—extrait du disque Miroirs de Jonas Vitaud, NoMadMusic.)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit buildingbridges.substack.com

For this new episode of the Building Bridges podcast, I’m so pleased to share the conversation I had with Hilary Cottam, an author and social entrepreneur whose ideas about reinventing the welfare state everybody should hear. Relationships should always come first, and we should design every social service around that. 

I met Hilary in London a little over two years ago. Before meeting her I had been very impressed by her TED talk “Social Services are broken. How we can fix them” (and so I was intimidated to meet her in person!).

Then I read her amazing book Radical Help: How we can remake the relationships between us and revolutionize the welfare state (2019) which influenced my own work enormously (I cited her book extensively in my own Du Labeur à l’ouvrage about the future of work).

Radical Help is about new ways of organising living and growing that have been developed with communities across Britain.

The British welfare state transformed our lives.  The model was emulated globally, setting the template for the ways we think about social change across the world.  But this once brilliant innovation can no longer help us face the challenges of today.

Radical Help argues that our 20th century system is beyond reform and suggests a new model for this century: ways of supporting the young and the old, those who are unwell and those who seek good work   At the heart of this new way of working is human connection.  When people feel supported by strong human relationships change happens.  And when we design new systems that make this sort of collaboration feel simple and easy people want to join in.

Radical Help shows how we can make change and how we can make a transition now towards a new system that can take care of everyone.

In this podcast we talk about the welfare state, healthcare, the future of work, the pandemic and its impact on workers, families (and women in particular). Covid-19 has made Hilary’s message even more urgent and topical. Now’s the time to innovate and give people what they need to flourish in this century.

I hope you enjoy listening to this podcast! Please share it with every social entrepreneur, politician and designer you know 🤗

For access to the full transcript, there will a paid version of Building Bridges to which you’ll be able to subscribe soon. Stay tuned.

Follow Building Bridges on Twitter! You can listen to all our podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

* Also Building Bridges is part of a network of Substack newsletters, which you may want to discover: there’s Nicolas Colin’s European Straits, there’s my Laetitia@Work, and our French newsletter, Nouveau Départ.

(Credit: Franz Liszt, Angelus ! Prière Aux Anges Gardiens—extrait du disque Miroirs de Jonas Vitaud, NoMadMusic.)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit buildingbridges.substack.com