Techtopia with Chitra Ragavan

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the entertainment industry was being upended by the rapid pace of streaming and other technology. Then COVID-19 hit, shuttering movie theaters, shutting down the world, and driving people into their homes and in front of our television screens, where we’ve largely remained over this past year.

The pandemic has been a giant wakeup call to an already disrupted industry, which increasingly, is turning to data-driven insights, to figure out how to survive, and how to evolve in the post-pandemic streaming era.

This week, I have two amazing guests to talk about the data-driven transformation of Hollywood and the entertainment industry: Anjali Midha is CEO & co-founder at Diesel Labs. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup delivers cutting-edge content analytics to help media decision-makers address some of the toughest questions confronting the industry today, such as what to produce, where to distribute it and where to market it. My second guest is John Mass. He’s the executive vice president at Content Partners, a Los Angeles-based investment company and leading independent owner in the world of major-studio distributed films, television shows, and related media. Since its inception, Content Partners has invested more than one billion dollars in this marketplace, with more than 500 studio-release films and more than 3,000 hours of television.

In this fascinating conversation, Anjali and John share their insights into where Hollywood and the television industry are heading in the post-pandemic era and their predictions as to what’s in, what’s out, who’s in, who’s out, and outline the shape of things to come including the future of movie theaters and movie watching.

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Chitra Ragavan:

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the entertainment industry was being upended by the rapid pace of streaming and other technology. Then COVID-19 hit, shuttering movie theaters, shutting down the world and driving people into their homes and in front of their television screens where they’ve largely remained over this past year. Hello, everyone, I’m Chitra Ragavan. And this is Techtopia. The pandemic has been a giant wake up call to an already disrupted industry, which increasingly is turning to data-driven insights to figure out how to survive and how to evolve in the post-pandemic streaming era.

Chitra Ragavan:

Joining me now to talk about the data-driven transformation of Hollywood and the entertainment industry are two amazing guests. Anjali Midha is CEO and co-founder at Diesel Labs. The Cambridge, Massachusetts based startup delivers cutting edge content analytics to help media decision makers address some of the toughest questions confronting the industry today, such as what to produce, where to distribute it and where to market it.

Chitra Ragavan:

I’m also joined by John Mass. He’s executive vice president at Content Partners, a Los Angeles based investment company and the leading independent owner in the world of major studio distributed films, television shows, and related media. Since its inception, Content Partners has invested more than $1 billion in this marketplace with more than 500 studio release films and more than 3000 hours of television. Anjali and John, welcome to Techtopia.

Anjali Midha:

Thanks so much for having us.

John Mass:

Thank you.

Chitra Ragavan:

Talk about disruption, did either of you ever imagine that something as destructive as a global pandemic would descend on the world, and what’s it been like to see the effects on the entertainment industry?

Anjali Midha:

Well, I definitely did not see the pandemic coming. I think being in our shoes, starting a company that’s studying the interactivity and the development in the media industry was tough enough as it was, thinking ahead about what were we going to see in the next three to five years. Pandemic was definitely not on the dart board, but it has been a fascinating year in terms of actually, I think accelerating a lot of the change that we’re expecting in the media industry. It’s sort of speeding up because we’re seeing people at home, we’re seeing accelerated change in terms of how movies will be distributed, not just this year, but in the years to come. I think a lot of what we were probably going to see over the next five, 10 years, we’re going to now have that happen in the next year or two. John, I don’t know if that jives with your perspective as well, but interested to hear.

John Mass:

No, absolutely. I think you have to look at… certainly it’s been a devastating year. So much obviously loss of life, which is the saddest component of this, but also businesses have really been shook. But at the same time, I think there’s been a lot of advancements. As you said, things like PVOD and TVOD in the film business, shortening the windows of the licensing of different content from theatrical to various forms of television has happened. I think in many ways it won’t ever go back to where it once was. Those windows will stay very short. Some studios will continue to release both in theaters and on, as loosely defined, television or at home as possible. I think that’s good for the business. Innovation and change is good, and something like the pandemic has certainly accelerated and changed that.

John Mass:

The same time, I think we’re seeing the theaters coming back, the reopening. There seems to be a real demand for people to get out and go to movie theaters. I don’t think 2021 will approach 2019. I think 2022 will be a much better guide as to what the theater business will be. But suffice to say, it’s certainly going to be much better than 2020. I’m glad. I think there’s nothing like going to a movie theater and I hope people do go back.

Chitra Ragavan:

Oh, I totally agree. I just love being in a movie theater. Nothing really quite compares to that. If you look at the transformation of the entertainment industry, even pre COVID, John, what have been the most sort of consequential changes and who are the drivers in how content has been produced?

John Mass:

I think how content has been produced is still been driven by the creators, whether those are writers, directors, actors, producers. The creation of content has been driven by them, but in what form it takes, what distribution channel, it may rest upon or to be delivered, that’s been dictated by the traditional buyers, big studios and networks, and now new players, the more tech oriented type companies that have entered the entertainment business. It’s still to be determined what it will look like in the future.

Chitra Ragavan:

I guess it’s one more area where big tech has playing the 800 pound gorilla now. You’ve got Netflix and Amazon and Apple, and all of these players who are suddenly making their presence known in a very big way.

John Mass:

Yes. Most recently the move that we’ve heard rumors that Amazon may be buying MGM or is in talks of buying MGM is a really big play where you see further consolidation of the business, further vertical integration between a distributor in the case of Amazon and a producer or distributor in the case of MGM. It gets to be real interesting going forward and the role that these new companies in the entertainment business are going to have.

Anjali Midha:

Speaking of creative, it’s interesting too because some of those tech behemoths, as you called them, they have very different decision-making frameworks. It’s completely different wildly different in fact to program an on-demand service with thousands of hours of content, versus how we used to see things get programmed, where it was I need a drama to fill my Tuesday 9:00 PM or Wednesday 9:00 PM time slot. That has also, I think, accelerated pretty fundamentally with the introduction of some of these other services, like Peacock or Paramount Plus that are coming out from the traditional media companies themselves now catching up to thinking about programming in that completely different way, which ultimately impacts what gets selected to get made and where things appear for audiences.

Chitra Ragavan:

Yeah. It’s just not just how we distribute it, but how we actually consume the content, and that’s one of the areas where your company, Diesel Labs is making a huge amount of headway in terms of content analysis and cross platform audience and insight analysis. What are the kinds of things you’re studying and what are you finding?

Anjali Midha:

You know what’s so interesting about the world we’re in right now is that we have more content than ever before and somehow or the other, we have less knowledge about how audiences are consuming that content, because it is now so fragmented, sitting in so many different platforms and requires very sophisticated measurement to figure out because really what’s going on under the hood and did somebody just click away from Netflix and over to Disney Plus? Or maybe they clicked to go to their set top box. Those are questions that are becoming increasingly difficult to solve. What we’re doing at Diesel is we’re using all of the audience engagement data out there across all the major social and video platforms to help us understand what’s happening.

Anjali Midha:

If Netflix keeps their data close to the vest and if Disney Plus keeps their data close to the vest, how are we going to start to unpack what’s really going on with audiences? That’s part of the role that Diesel Labs is starting to play.

Chitra Ragavan:

What are the things you were finding?

Anjali Midha:

I mean, good goodness. Especially this week, it’s been a very tumultuous week with the news about WarnerMedia and Discovery joining forces most likely, as well as, as John mentioned, with the Amazon-MGM news. What’s really interesting, one of the latest things we learned this week actually was, Netflix this year was poised to be the largest producer of content in terms of volume. They had the most titles currently slated for release this year. With the WarnerMedia and Discovery news, that joint new company would actually overtake Netflix and move to first place in terms of volume of content being released this year.

Anjali Midha:

On top of that, then we have the sort of engagement piece of it, which is Disney Plus that releases fewer titles than both of those other companies that I’m mentioning, but has by far the most audience engagement related to its content. In terms of making with fewer titles, they’ve been doing a tremendous job. Those are just a couple of the types of things that we’ve been seeing happening here in these last couple of weeks and months.

Chitra Ragavan:

Wow. That’s amazing. In terms of the types of content that people are watching, you’ve done some really interesting analysis, like around the time when Bridgerton was really hot, and looking at some of these other trends, looking at rebooting of content, what are some of the key trends you’re finding?

Anjali Midha:

I think what’s interesting is that we definitely see that the streaming platforms are taking more risks with their content than the folks on the traditional side. But I fully anticipate that over time, we’re going to see them both meet in the middle to a certain extent. The Bridgerton story is a funny one, actually. Bridgerton as most of you probably all know, was Netflix’s Christmas Day content that came out last year, 2020. What was interesting, the audience signal that we were seeing from that, it was immediately after people finished watching Bridgerton, they couldn’t help themselves. Everybody wanted more period pieces, more regency content, if you will, more drama to consume. At the time Netflix had few options for those folks. So people started asking their friends, asking their networks, figuring out “what should I go watch next?”

Anjali Midha:

Then the top show that became recommended was a lesser known show called Sanditon, which is a PBS Masterpiece title. Chitra, actually, since the last time you and I spoke, Sanditon, which only had one season and was not renewed for a second season, literally in the last week and a half or two weeks, it was announced that they are going to now produce seasons two and three of that show. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say thanks entirely to the excitement around the show that was generated draughting off of the Bridgerton audience’s rabid consumption of like content. That’s just one story and there’s probably a hundred like that where we can see the trends and patterns, how audiences consume content and what they want to consume is actually driving a lot of the very strategic decision making that’s happening at the highest levels.

Chitra Ragavan:

Well, I guess, with all of the streaming, all of this demand for content on the part of viewers, there must be a massive demand for content on the part of the producers who have to shell out all this content, and it seems like just from some of the work you’ve done on rebooting episodes and all of this, and John, in fact, you own a huge amount of entertainment rights to things like CSI and Law and Order and all of these old beloved shows. I guess there must be a huge hunger for those types of shows as well to fill out all the space, right?

John Mass:

Absolutely. The more eyeballs, more people looking for content, more content that you need. And that’s why I think Netflix is geared up to so much content production and creation. One, because the demand is there. Two, because as these media companies start to become more competitive and siloed, they’re not selling to each other anymore. Disney is keeping its content for itself and no longer has, for instance, any of the Marvel content on Netflix. With that, Netflix has to rely on its own or others for their content. They’ve really geared up. They knew this ahead of time when they saw that others were going to start their OTTs and are creating an incredible amount of content. But it’s very siloed and I think it will continue to be siloed. If MGM is bought by Amazon, I assume they will be the in-house studio for Amazon, will be creating content only for Amazon.

John Mass:

And there are very few, as I think they’ve been referenced, arms dealers before, it’s a strange reference, but companies like Sony who will sell to anybody, and I think that’s where you get that reference, has fared very well. You look at their numbers, they just made a big deal at Netflix and Disney for their new releases and some of their library content. And they’ve chosen that path. They’re not going to be competing with Paramount Plus or HBO Max or Amazon or Netflix. They are going to sell to everybody, and there’s a role. We will see if some of the other studios who have started to make forays into this space will combine with others, or will go it alone, or will roll up their tent and just make content for everyone. It’s to be determined. I think there’s still a lot more consolidation and change to occur going forward.

Anjali Midha:

I think that’s probably why franchises are so important, which is why MGM, for example, is such an attractive target given that they do have a big franchise in James Bond, for example, because you made the point earlier about how now Marvel content is no longer available on Netflix, it’s exclusively available on Disney Plus. It means each of these players needs to put a stake in the ground as to what their franchise content would be. And that extends to television also. For example, you mentioned NCIS or Law and Order, those are franchises in their own right, as are all these reboots that we were just talking about earlier coming back. Familiar content has an extremely important and essential role to play in filling out the total value proposition for audiences as they think about “should I subscribe to platform A or platform B.”

John Mass:

It’s a symbiotic relationship in a weird way. Yes. In a way the competitive broadcasters, let’s use traditional broadcast, and those who would take its’ syndication rights off syndication rights or the OTTs, it’s now a symbiotic relationship because you see something like… this example like Grey’s Anatomy. It had almost a rebirth, lot of people discovered Grey’s Anatomy through their streaming platform and then flocked back to broadcast network, to get the latest season. Same thing with Breaking Bad. If it weren’t for Netflix, I don’t know that Breaking Bad would have had its success or been discovered by as many people. They’ve had this great sort of symbiotic relationship and there’s been rebirth. Fuller house, I think became a new show, a rebirth show when the folks at Netflix saw the numbers of how many people are watching old episodes of Full House. Or Seventh Heaven or Gossip Girl or Fresh Prince.

John Mass:

Now, these all have new iterations of them, and I think a lot of it is because of this discovery from people who grew up with those shows and wanted to watch them again, or people who just discovered them, younger generations who discovered those shows and say, “Oh, these are great,” and now want new episodes. Cobra Kai, great example of that too. It’s great. I think it’s been terrific, but that also talks about the value of franchise power, recognized brands that have had success that are being rediscovered and enjoyed by millions.

Chitra Ragavan:

Yeah, that kind of answers, I’ve often wondered, why are they doing these spinoffs of these old shows? Why don’t they just come up with new ideas? Why is there such a lack of originality? But I guess this kind of answers that right? A, the need for content, tried and true content, and then of course, the world of comfort food, the equivalent of comfort food of having these shows on tap.

Anjali Midha:

Absolutely. The comfort food too, when you think about “hey, should I subscribe to this platform and do they have content for me recognizable titles, things you already know about play, I think almost an oversized role in that decision-making process for audiences because they’re not always going to remember every… if I asked you, “Can you name 20 titles of things that you watched off of Netflix last year?” You certainly watched 20, maybe you watched 40, but coming up with all those titles off the top of your head can be harder, whereas familiar content is easier to recall. It’s kind of woven through our lives, as John put it, through your childhood into your adulthood.

John Mass:

That reference to comfort food, and you may know this, Anjali, but I believe that the programming of the major OTTs, something like 70% is licensed content or library content, what is viewed, versus original television shows have been 20 to 30%. They promote and sell and get you to subscribe with new shows, big names and big stars and big directors and big budgets and exciting content. And you sort of stay on the service for the comfort food, the reruns of Friends, or The Office, or Seinfeld or Law and Order, orfortunately, CSI. I think it’s a balance of the two. I think that may be one of the driving reasons for Amazon’s purchase of MGM, which is, they’re going to create more and more new content, but also licensed content or library content for these streamers is equally important.

Anjali Midha:

I completely agree. And I would go a step further in saying it’s even the family and kids content that actually plays an incredibly sizable role in what’s being viewed in between those blockbuster Bridgerton moments. We don’t often talk about that family and kids content, but especially looping back around to the first question that we all were digging into about the pandemic, kids and family content this past year has been absolutely essential when you have the whole family packed in the home, everyone trying to juggle work and school and everything else. The aspect of balancing the library from the big blockbuster, the shiny glossy, fun new stuff, it’s going to be something we’re all going to have to learn how to do together because every platform has their own approach to that.

Chitra Ragavan:

Yeah. John, you have the CSI franchise, you’ve got some of these big franchises. Tell us a little bit about what you have and what it’s been like to see this evolution of the industry and where all of these big shows fit in and how it’s affected your investment company.

John Mass:

Well, it’s certainly been a great beneficiary of the CSI franchise. It’s a brilliant show that has had an incredible run, both in original episodes and in reruns, and now we’ll be coming back, I believe in the fall or mid season, with a new show with the original cast from the original CSI, which was based in Las Vegas and they’re going to call this one CSI Las Vegas. We’re going back. Brands mean something, familiarity means something and it’s a proven commodity, as opposed to starting something with a new original idea, with new cast and not knowing where that will take you. I think that there is a built in audience and a built in, I think while there’s no guarantee of success, you have certainly have the cards in your favor if you start with this, brand name and stars who’ve been proven in this milieu.

John Mass:

We’re fortunate that we own something like CSI, we own other big franchises in the feature film and television area, big movies like Black Hawk Down and Daddy Day Care and 13 Going on 30 and Made in Manhattan, and you think about all these films, The Aviator, it goes on and on, but there’s something there for everyone. They are movies you probably don’t think about all the time, but then when I bring up a movie like 13 Going on 30, you go, “Oh, that was a great movie.” I think many people sort of discovered Jennifer Garner watching that movie. She’s had an incredible career since then. There were a lot of movies that we own, and fortunately, the audience continues to flock to them.

Chitra Ragavan:

I was on HBO Max yesterday and I saw for the first time the teaser for a Friends reunion, and I was like, “Wow, that’s nostalgia.” I mean, that was crazy. I’m not sure I want to see them back together. I like remembering them the way they were.

Anjali Midha:

It’s remarkable. Friends is one of those unique ones that stands out, like The Office, in that these are shows that meant something to a certain generation or cohort of people, and then to John’s point, we’ve had tons of other generations, other groups discover those programs on their own and love them. Basically, I sometimes I think of these reunions specials, reboots, things like that, recognizable brand names, recognizable talent, it de-risks a lot of the investments that are being made. Because again, you can look at these choices as individual choices to, for example, reunite the Friends cast, but you also have to think about what is the sort of overall programming strategy for a platform like HBO Max? They have to have something new every month to make sure that they’re mitigating, essentially, subscribers from churning out, essentially unsubscribing from the platform.

Anjali Midha:

These choices, when you look at them, if you take a step back and look at them from that 30,000 foot view, it’s fascinating to see how they all ladder up to that bigger strategy. And to your point, I don’t know, I’m on the fence right now about whether I’m going to watch it on the first day, first minute when it’s available or maybe sit back and see how people react to it before jumping into it. But it really speaks to an overarching, very interesting approach to programming, to making sure that there’s always something new and fresh on the platform. I think it was Netflix who said every night is premiere night for Netflix because there’s something new for every person every night for you to discover, whether it’s part of that library or whether it’s something fresh, hot off the presses. I thought that was a very sort of telling about the underlying strategy that they’re using to approach how they think about purchasing content, licensing content, producing content, et cetera.

Chitra Ragavan:

Wow. It’s just head spinning, the change and the amount of content, the change in how people are consuming that content, it is quite amazing. I mean, you mentioned earlier, John, you mentioned how people were asking when COVID hit, “Is this the end of the movie theater? What’s going to happen to watching movies in the theater?” Of course, now you have same day theater release and in-home release. There’s all kinds of innovation going on there. What do you think, where does the movie theater fit into the future once we go back to the new normal post pandemic?

John Mass:

Well, as a romantic about the movie business, I certainly hope people go back to the movie theaters. Like I said earlier, where would you want to see the… I remember going to see Star Wars for the first time in a movie theater in my hometown, and I’ll always remember that. Seeing on the big screen and seeing the imagery that the George Lucas was able to create, a Western set out in space was just so fascinating to me. I just couldn’t imagine seeing it on a small screen and premiering that in my living room, even on the big 80 inch TV that I have today. It’s just not the same. I haven’t seen the King Kong-Godzilla movie, because I want to see it in the movie theater, I wanted to see it in a movie theater.

John Mass:

I’m sure it looked great and people enjoyed it certainly, but they also saw… a lot of people are going into the movie theaters to see that now because they realized that seeing it at home just wasn’t going to be the same. I think it was the first big release to work. I did not go and watch Wonder Woman. I was hoping the movie theaters would open up earlier than they did so I could see it at a movie theater and it didn’t. I hope it comes back. I guess I’m sort of thinking right here what will happen. Again, I don’t think it’s going to get to the 2019 levels this year, certainly not. We’ve gone a half a year and they’ve been pretty much closed, but I do think that they’ll come back, people are going to go back in droves, but I also think we’re going to see a number of screens, movie theaters just aren’t going to make it.

John Mass:

We’ve already seen a couple go… two chains here in Los Angeles that haven’t made it, there’s one, the Alamo Drafthouse who went through a bankruptcy, just was bought out of bankruptcy. I think a lot of screens, we’re going to have a downsizing in the number of screens, but maybe an increase in the experience that people have at the theaters. Maybe that’s what’s needed, a shake up is sometimes good, change is good. Maybe the experience will be better for everyone. We’ll have to see.

Anjali Midha:

Yeah, I think what’s really interesting is, there were… it’s funny to think about “are people going to go back to the movies?” If you think about pre-pandemic times, there was always a cohort of people who chose not to go see certain films in the theaters. There were definitely the people who stood in line and went at midnight on Thursday night. But there was also the group that said, “Nah, I’ll wait for it to come out in the olden days on video, or I’ll wait for it to come out on TV or what have you.” I think we’re just going to see that those options are collapsed, and instead of waiting six months or eight months, we may only have to wait 20 days, 30 days, 45 days, whatever the case may be to get the at home variation of the option.

Anjali Midha:

Or in some cases, like what HBO Max is proving out right now, is having them simultaneous where people can opt to go and have the full movie theater experience and pay for that, whereas some people may opt to watch it on their couches at home. The question really becomes: what does that do to the economics of the movie theaters? How many of them can we sustain? That that’s less clear, I think, but we’ve definitely seen that people are willing to pay extra to watch things on their couches, but that they’re also still willing to take the trek to the theater to watch, especially the spectacular action adventure movies that really deserve that big screen. I guess that was not a very good answer because I’m not really predicting anything that hasn’t happened yet, but I think it’s clear that all of the options that are here on the table right now, it’s just going to be a slight question of timing to make sure that we can figure it out post pandemic and give each of those screens their fair share of airtime.

John Mass:

Yeah. You know what I think we might see? Here’s a prediction.

Anjali Midha:

Okay.

John Mass:

And I’m going to say it to someone who is in the research business, Anjali, but I think that we may see someone introduce dynamic pricing like they did on Broadway. If you are the type of person that’s going to line up on Thursday night to go see the next Star Wars iteration or whatever the next movie, big franchise movie might be, you might be the person who’s willing to pay more than $17.50, or whatever the going rate is, for a ticket to go to the theater. And if you’re someone who’s willing to go on a Tuesday afternoon to a movie, you might be willing to pay $3. And that sort of dynamic pricing of paying maybe $100 for opening night and $3 for a dead afternoon will make the industry more efficient, just like the, I guess, dynamic pricing of sorts has occurred in airlines. All of a sudden now airlines are profitable, right? Why? Because they’ve introduced technology that allows people to pay on an à la carte basis for certain things, fill seats, predict demand, and they’re now making money and they’re filling all their planes and they’re not having a lot of planes with empty seats.

John Mass:

I think that could happen. The pandemic, I think for all, as we talked at the beginning, all the bad things that have come from it, there is some good, there’s some silver lining. I think the collapsing of these windows is interesting and maybe better for some of these companies. Even things not in the entertainment business, like Zoom and how it’s helped distance learning or work from home or Postmates and GrubHub, how that’s accelerated. There’s some good things have come and have accelerated because of it. I think we may see that with movie theaters too. That yes, we’re going to lose some of the movie theater operators, there are too many screens in certain theaters, the malls aren’t what they once were, driving business. It was due for a shakeout and it’s not been accelerated, but maybe, just maybe dynamic pricing or something like that may help it out.

Anjali Midha:

That’s so interesting. Then it sparks this other thought that we’ve been batting around here internally at Diesel as well, which is, what if the movie theaters are an extension of the actual films you’re going to go see? I think you mentioned this earlier about leveling up the actual experience of going to see the film. What if it’s not the same thing that it’s always been with buying a bucket of popcorn and sticky floors? If there’s more fun to be had, especially I think for kids and family, if there’s many Disneyland or Disneyworld in your backyard where you can go and see the next Frozen movie, that might also justify some of that dynamic pricing that you’re talking about, where then it becomes more of an outing, more of an experience, something that’s a little bit higher end than perhaps the regular movie going experiences that when we think of going to the movies, that’s what we have in the back of our heads. there’s definitely potential there as well.

John Mass:

Oh, absolutely. Just like the airlines, I’m just thinking out loud here, if you took a family of four to the theater, would be difficult during a school night, but on off hours, then could you put pricing together, which two buckets of popcorn, two candies and four drinks and with a ticket and put packages together? That will drive people, drive… as we know, a lot of the margin is in the food and drink at the movie theaters, at the concessions. It gets really interesting. I hope that that happens. There’s a role these movie theaters play. It’s not just romantic with me. I just think the experience is so special for certain movies, and hopefully, there’ll be able to continue.

Chitra Ragavan:

That’s great. I mean, that dynamic pricing is a great idea because the cost of going to the movie is pretty prohibitive for a lot of families today. If you actually add it all up, especially if you have a bunch of kids and they all want to eat. Almost wonder if you want a Las Vegas model where the food and drinks are free. I know that’s where the margins are, but in Las Vegas, you can drink and eat as much as you want because they know they’ll make it up with everything you’re gambling away. I wonder if there’s a way to make it a little bit more cost efficient but still maintain profitability and also accessibility for people for whom it may be prohibitively expensive.

Chitra Ragavan:

We can’t wrap all this up without at least one mention, I think, of Baby Yoda, going back to television and how it was so transformative for Disney. Anjali, I remember you saying to me that not only do you do content analysis at the show level and the series level, but you also do content analysis at the character level. What are you seeing? I mean, Baby Yoda was kind of a very special moment for Disney Plus, right? What are you seeing in terms of evolution of characters and what people are looking for?

Anjali Midha:

Absolutely. It’s one of my favorite things to remember from last year, or two years ago, rather, which feels like a century ago, not just because of the pandemic and all of the hardship that that brought, but also just, startup life makes you feel like time passes somehow faster and slower than reality. We actually started to look into characters right around the time that the Avengers End Game came out. We were curious and thinking ahead as to… at that point, Disney really hadn’t talked much about what was the next chapter of the Marvel Universe going to look like. Every couple of years they share with everyone: “here’s our three-year plan. Here are all the films You can expect your. Here are all the shows you could expect.” And that was at the right towards the end of that chapter, if you will, or that phase of the Marvel Universe.

Anjali Midha:

We decided to go ahead and see what we could learn about all of the different characters within the Avengers to start essentially making predictions about which characters could potentially be spun off into their own storylines. I still recall even back then, and we’re finally going to see it come true actually in a few short weeks, that everyone’s favorite character, one of the most talked about characters that didn’t already have his own or her own film series was Loki from the Thor film. And sure enough, it’s not rocket science, but the characters who were well favored are now seeing that they are getting these series opportunities within the Disney Plus universe. We’ve seen WandaVision, we’ve seen Falcon and Winter Soldier and with Loki coming up, I think, this June.

Anjali Midha:

It’s been very interesting. You mentioned Baby Yoda also. Baby Yoda is an interesting one. He took on a life of his own, didn’t he? When we analyze data here, what we’re trying to do is very responsibly reflect who the viewing audiences are of certain titles, of certain shows and movies. But even if you weren’t watching the Mandalorian, everybody knows who Baby Yoda is, everyone’s using the Baby Yoda memes. Even though it kind of made our lives a little bit more difficult here at work because we were trying to parse out “okay, well, when people are referring to Baby Yoda, what kinds of natural language processing or other techniques can we use to understand if this person was a viewer or not,” but then beyond that it’s clear that… and Disney is, they’re incredible… I don’t need to say this to anyone, but they know what they’re doing.

Anjali Midha:

They’re one of the ones out there who have been very thoughtful about this stuff from day one. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if we started to see spinoffs similar to what we’re seeing in the Avengers universe for all of their other universes as well. And that takes us right back to what we were talking about just moments ago, franchises, familiar characters and how important those are to the overall libraries of these platforms. It’s such a use such an interesting strategy. Disney Plus has proven, in the short what, year and some months that they have been around, to be able to pick up as many subscribers as they have is really a testament to not only the content that they’re in the middle of producing and pushing out now, but the Disney vault, as everyone calls it.

Chitra Ragavan:

Great. Well, in conclusion, what I’d love to know is, what are you watching now? What are you both excited about and what are you looking forward to in the coming months? I have been riveted, like a lot of people, by Mare of Easttown. I just can’t stop watching it. It’s been an incredible short mini season of amazing acting and plot lines. What are you watching?

Anjali Midha:

Well, I have to confess that after you and I chatted a couple of weeks ago, that I started watching it myself, and I’m now right there with you, and I’m actually a little upset with you because of all the cliffhangers that I’ve now been held to. I was watching last week’s episode and I won’t ruin it for all of your listeners, but certainly with all the twists and turns that are there, I’m very eagerly awaiting this Sunday’s new episode. Personally, hazard of our jobs here at Diesel is that we watch pretty much everything that comes out. I recently enjoyed the Mitchells and the Machines on Netflix, which as for kids and family content, was very well done, very hilarious. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, definitely, if you need a laugh, that’s something to check out. And I’m excited for Loki actually coming up because this has been on our minds here at Diesel for so long, and I have really high hopes for that show as well.

John Mass:

I’ve been watching Mare of Easttown too. It was recommendation engine, I guess, on HBO max, it came up. I had heard about it, seen some promos for it, and I’m like, “I’m going to watch it with my wife,” and we loved it. I’m a Kate Winslet fan, she’s such a great actress, but the whole cast is fantastic. But what I really like most about it, I’m wondering where you guys stand on it, is that as much as I love to binge watch and I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen next because there are cliffhangers on the show, there’s a lot of cliffhangers here as you referenced, I like that I’m waiting a week for it.

John Mass:

It gives me time to think about the show, like “where’s this going, who did it?” kind of thing. It’s a who done it type of show. You’re like, “Where is this going?” I like that. It’s the old way of watching television, right? Waiting a week and thinking about it, having the water cooler effect for the three of us to talk about this if we weren’t in the podcast and having… we don’t want to have a spoiler alert on your podcast, but there’s something special about it. I like waiting for it and I have really enjoyed it. That’s one show. I’ve been watching Mosquito Coast on Apple, another one that you wait for… the episodes, they’re delivered every week. I think Apple Plus has done a really good job with some of the shows. I really have enjoyed it, like Tehran, which was early in the iteration. I liked Ted Lasso.

John Mass:

They’ve had some really great shows I’ve really enjoyed. I’ve loved during COVID, being at home a lot and watching a lot of television, discovering old shows that I always wanted to watch and didn’t. I watched all the episodes of Deadwood. I’d watched a couple early on, I just never got into it and loved it. I watched all the episodes of The Wire. Between the two of them, two of the best shows ever made, I think. And they’re on a top 10 list of many critics. I’ve really enjoyed it. I’ve watched a lot of television during the last year, and can’t wait for this Sunday night for some more.

Anjali Midha:

I know we’re wrapping up here, but you bring up such an interesting point with the whole cadence of delivery of programming and how important it is and how Mare of Easttown might stay with all of us as viewers longer than something that we just burned through in one night. I’m not sure I have the answer to that yet. I know technically, we’re researchers here and that’s what we do is find answers, but that’s one that we haven’t… I haven’t quite cracked the code on that one yet, which is, are we going to learn down the line that the way to build a franchise and the way to build that familiarity is by having things released in a weekly cadence perhaps, or whatever cadence it is, but not dropped all at the same time?

Anjali Midha:

It reminds me actually, of one of the… I saw a tweet the other day from someone who said that their kid talked about weekly drops of TV shows as being the Disney Plus model. The person narrating the story said, “And then they crumbled into ancient dust,” which I can completely commiserate with because frankly, the youngest generation out there probably doesn’t even realize that that’s the way that we watched TV for decades and decades until maybe 18 months ago when everything really changed, or I should give Netflix more credit than that. Maybe it’s been a few years where we had some shows that are delivered all at once, but it’s quite amazing how much, even in the… let’s call it a 30 year spectrum of generations, how people are going to remember things completely differently.

Chitra Ragavan:

Yes.

John Mass:

I completely agree. It’s a really great point. There is something you were saying about Disney, and I just was reminded of something. When Bob Iger took his position as CEO at Disney, I think many people felt he had big shoes to fill because Michael Eisner had transformed a sleepy company into a real player. It had been a really sleepy company, Disney, when he took over and he transformed it. But Bob Iger really took it to a whole other level. The fact that they have a $300 billion market cap company or whatever it is today is really a testament to Bob understanding the value of franchises. And when he was executing it, I didn’t quite understand what he’s doing, and I was thinking, “Wait, they’re going to go away from making 25, 30 movies a year to focusing on franchises that were proven and leveraging those and putting it through the Disney machine of consumer products and theme parks.”

John Mass:

At the time, I really didn’t understand it, but as you think about it, his first move was getting rid of a Miramax because it didn’t fit with the brand of Disney and buying Pixar. He bought… I mean, maybe he took some time to get rid of Miramax, but his first move was to mend the fences with Steve Jobs and buy Pixar because he understood that they were a brand Pixar was a brand as much as Disney was a brand, and you went to a Pixar movie because it was a Pixar movie. You didn’t know what it was, what the movie might be, but you knew that you were going to get quality entertainment, family entertainment. Then he started going in their vault of old television shows and movies and recreating them, whether it’s Pirates of the Caribbean or High School Musical or whatever, and doing iterations of that. Then he bought Marvel and he bought LucasArts, obviously Star Wars franchise, and franchise became the thing.

John Mass:

Now you realize what they’ve created. Look at Netflix, they have no franchise, albeit they’re building franchises, but if they don’t, they do a deal like Knives Out where they just paid for over $400 million for two films, which is because they have to because they don’t have the franchises that Bob Iger recognized. It was so wise of him so many years ago to understand that that’s where the world was headed. We talked a lot about franchises on the show, but I think no one has executed it better or recognized it earlier than Bob Iger. And he’s really set up Disney for incredible success, really incredible success.

Chitra Ragavan:

Well, on that note, thank you so much, Anjali and John for joining me on Techtopia and for this absolutely amazing conversation about the transformation of the entertainment industry.

Anjali Midha:

Thanks so much for having us.

John Mass:

Thank you.

Chitra Ragavan:

Anjali Midha is CEO and co-founder at Diesel Labs. The Cambridge, Massachusetts based startup focuses on cutting edge content analysis to help media companies address some of the toughest questions confronting companies today, including what to produce, where to distribute it and where to market it. And John Mass is the executive vice president at Content Partners, a Los Angeles based investment company and the leading independent owner in the world of major studio distributed films, television shows, and related media. Since its inception, Content Partners has invested more than $1 billion in this marketplace with more than 500 studio release films and more than 3000 hours of television. This is Techtopia, I’m Chitra Ragavan.

Technology is shaking up the news media — as content creators of every ilk and genre have taken advantage of the digital revolution, commoditizing content and forever blurring the lines between e-commerce and content, news and entertainment, information and disinformation.

One media executive who saw the digital revolution coming long before others did, is journalist, media investor and advisor, Marcus Brauchli. He is co-founder of North Base Media, an investment firm specializing in media and technology in global growth markets. Before co-founding North Base Media, Brauchli was executive editor of The Washington Post, shepherding the newspaper’s digital revolution, and helping the Post win seven Pulitzer prizes. Before joining the Post, Brauchli was managing editor of the Wall Street Journal.

Brauchli believes that the gravest threat to journalism, society and democracy, is the rise of misinformation and disinformation, which he describes as the “accidental by-product” of the technology revolution. Brauchli believes the “moral advocation” on the part of big companies in Silicon Valley to fight online disinformation is partly fueled by their “misguided, naive and ill thought out philosophies of libertarianism that don’t actually reflect what’s good for the society.” But Brauchli says there are growing pressures from all fronts now to start holding these companies accountable and that this likely will happen country by country. Brauchli adds that in the U.S, there are tools to regulate Facebook and Google as economic monopolies. However, the First Amendment precludes the path to disciplining these companies as “information monopolies,” raising questions about how our society can pressure these companies to do the right thing.

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Chitra Ragavan:

Technology has transformed the global media landscape, especially, the news media, as content creators of every ilk and genre have taken advantage of the digital revolution, commoditizing content, and forever blurring the lines between e-commerce and content, news and entertainment, information and disinformation.

Chitra Ragavan:

Hello everyone. I’m Chitra Ragavan, and this is Techtopia. One media executive who saw the digital revolution coming long before others did, is journalist, media investor, and advisor Marcus Brauchli. He’s here to talk with us today about the future of digital media and news. Brauchli is co-founder of North Base Media, an investment firm specializing in media and technology in global growth markets. He has served as an advisor to media groups, including Graham Holdings, Univision, and HT Media.

Chitra Ragavan:

Before co-founding North Base Media, Brauchli was executive editor of the Washington Post, overseeing the Post’s print and digital news operations, shepherding the newspapers digital revolution, and helping the Post win seven Pulitzer prizes. Before joining the Post, Brauchli was managing editor of the Wall Street Journal. His more than two decade tenure at the journal included 15 years as a foreign correspondent, mainly in Asia, and eight years as a senior editor in New York. Marcus, welcome to Techtopia.

Marcus Brauchli:

Thank you so much, Chitra. Great to be here.

Chitra Ragavan:

We were both reporters at major news outlets when the digital revolution began and the end of what you aptly described the other day, when we were chatting, as the end of the Voice of God period, when journalists were highly trained, experienced, reputable, for the most part, respected quite a bit, and the main content creators in media and news media. And then you saw the digital tsunami hit and it changed all of our lives. And you were on the forefront of bringing the Washington Post into the digital age. It must’ve been a huge challenge to pull it off. What was it like?

Marcus Brauchli:

Well, the truth is, the transformation that began with digital technologies, which really led to what you were describing, the end of the Voice of God, the end of the gatekeeper era. It actually began, probably, 10 or 15 years before I came to the Washington Post in 2008. The internet began to erode at the edges. The ability of the big centralized sort of monopoly, oligopoly media players, the ability of them to set the agenda for all other news coverage, because it opened up the door to other people creating content and distributing content via social media channels via start-up media companies, in the early days, via blogs. Allowing people to sort of connect with audiences in a way that previously hadn’t been possible. And it took a long time for the big established media companies to recognize this tsunami of change that was bearing down on them.

Marcus Brauchli:

For a long time, it simmered and percolated along. And the big focus was on whether the digital revolution was going to erode, as it did, the classified ad business was going to take away, as it did, the display advertising business. And it wasn’t so much on how content itself would have the ability of anybody to create content and share content and create groups to share content, how that would erode the credibility and the authority of traditional media houses.

Marcus Brauchli:

And that really, it came slowly. The Washington Post, where I was the executive editor from 2008 until the end of 2012, the Washington Post, actually, was very early into digital media. They were one of the first organizations to put their newspaper online. The Washington Post Company, at that time, owned both the Washington Post and Newsweek, and the then owner of the Washington Post Don Graham, who was the chairman of the Washington Post Company, made a very astute decision early on to put all the digital media operations, of not only the Washington Post, but Newsweek into a separate building in, frankly, a separate state.

Marcus Brauchli:

It was actually in Virginia, a different legal jurisdiction from the Washington Post or Newsweek. Because he was concerned, at the beginning, that all of these digital media companies would be suffocated by the rhythms and obsessions of print journalists, who weren’t at all focused on the much more dynamic needs of the digital media properties. So by the time I got there, in 2008, actually, the Washington Post had been doing a lot of innovative and strong digital content for years, but it wasn’t integrated into the Washington Post newspaper. They sort of co-existed.

Marcus Brauchli:

And I remember when I came to the Washington Post as editor in the summer of 2008, an early meeting in my time there, was ahead of the Republican Convention in 2008, and the editor of the Washington Post online site, Jim Brady, came into the print side newsroom in downtown Washington to ask whether the editors of the print side, during the Republican Convention, could be sure to send over stories as soon as they were ready, instead of, waiting until the end of the print editions reporting and editing cycle, at the end of the day, to send them over.

Marcus Brauchli:

And the print side editors, basically, told him, “We can’t do that. We have a process, and we’ll send all that stuff to when it’s finished editing, probably sometime between 7:00 and 11:00 PM,” which, of course, is not exactly what people are looking to find content online.

Chitra Ragavan:

Yeah, interesting. A New York Times story that wrote about your transformation of the Post newsroom, and bringing metrics into the whole game, in addition to, obviously, keeping an eye on the quality of the journalism, kind of marrying those two together, describes your efforts as one of the most sweeping and closely watched reorientations of any newsroom in the country. And talked about this emphasis on metrics along with quality journalism. And keeping metrics front and center is kind of a given now. It’s something we automatically do.

Chitra Ragavan:

But I’m sure at that time, it must have come as a surprise to some in the newsroom, and, potentially, at some personal cost to you, in terms of your own popularity at the Post, as you were trying to turn that big ship around, in some ways.

Marcus Brauchli:

When I came to the post, in 2008, I was incredibly fortunate to have both inherited a team of incredibly talented, digitally minded people who came from within that Washington Post/Newsweek interactive organization that had been set up in Virginia, and to be able to bring it into the Washington Post, along with me, a guy named Raju Narisetti, who’d worked with me at the Wall Street Journal, who was strategic and incredibly effective on the digital side.

Marcus Brauchli:

So we were able to modernize a newsroom that was, I would say, not exactly in the spirit and operating at the speed and the cadence of the digital era. We did make a lot of changes that were, initially, hard to persuade people of the value of. As you say, putting up metrics, putting up screens around the newsroom that showed how we were doing minute by minute against targets that we’d set for building audience and increasing engagement, was not terribly popular at the time we did it. I mean, now, as you say, it’s widely embraced.

Marcus Brauchli:

There were a lot of concerns in the traditional newsrooms in America at the time that we were doing that, that as people started chasing clicks, as they said, that it would lead traditional newsrooms to go down market and the kind of content that they produced, because it was obvious that you could get a lot more clicks with content that was perhaps a lot less serious. People who wrote traditional journalism on subjects that were seen as dry or policy-oriented were afraid they would suddenly find themselves not getting resources or support from editors, because other kinds of content would draw a lot more attention.

Marcus Brauchli:

I think that’s not exactly how it’s played out, although I don’t think it’s completely wrong. It used to be, one of the criticisms you’d get, if you ran a newsroom or a newspaper was, there was always somebody who would say that you were just publishing news of a murder or something sensational to increase subscriptions or to increase newsstand sales. The truth of newspapers was, until the internet really took over, we were largely, in the US, a subscription-oriented business. And whether we ran pictures on the front page of the Washington Post of an FCC policy deliberation, or we ran pictures of naked streakers on the mall, the same number of newspapers would land in the same number of driveways in the morning. And there might be some additional newsstand sales, but negligible amount.

Marcus Brauchli:

But as newspapers, as newsrooms rather, started focusing much more on digital engagement and audience, and those metrics became important, they began to operate undoubtedly a little bit more like television newsrooms had always done, where television people always knew what their ratings were the night before, and they knew what had worked. And in fact, there’s substantial evidence that the pressure to increase audience and to give the audiences what they want, I think it did lead to a dimunition of the quality of television news in a lot of American markets, including the national news.

Marcus Brauchli:

And I think, in newsrooms today in America, we’ve seen this in the last four or five years with the political coverage, it was clear that if you ran lots of stories about Donald Trump, it drove a lot of traffic. And I think there was probably a self-reinforcing cycle that was driven by the knowledge that, if you publish certain kinds of information, it delivers certain kinds of audience engagement.

Chitra Ragavan:

Yeah, and on the flip side, for readers, it gives a greater level of control, if you have the newspaper, because you solely get to pick and choose what you want to read. But with the algorithms driving stuff to you that you’re interested in, the algorithm knows what you’re going towards and it gives you more of that. So you also see on the flip side, the risks of that as well, in terms of your ability to consume all levels of news. And you see that with all of the disinformation going on now, that YouTube will look at some of your search words, and it’ll start to send you down this rabbit hole of disinformation.

Marcus Brauchli:

Yeah. I mean, it’s deeply unfortunate the impact of algorithms on, well, two things. First, on the serendipity factor. It is true that one of the joys of reading a newspaper is when you turn the page, you never know what you’re going to encounter there. And you could say the same thing to some degree is true, if you switch on Twitter and you start going through Twitter. But the reality is, even on something like Twitter, there are powerful algorithms that are trying to design a feed for you that will keep you engaged and give you content that the algorithm knows you like. Now, the ugly, not widely discussed truth of Silicon Valley, is the products are actually pretty lousy. The algorithms don’t actually do a spectacularly good job at giving you the range of content that you might like.

Marcus Brauchli:

It’s not that they’re not trying, but they don’t work. I mean, there has been tons written on how YouTube drives people into cul-de-sacs of hate speech and extremist content, because somebody watched one piece of content that the algorithm somehow interpreted as meaning that you’re interested in one kind of content.

Marcus Brauchli:

And if you want to see algorithms at work, I mean, one of the things that’s fun to do is go on TikTok and don’t register, and just use TikTok over a period of time. And watch how the TikTok algorithm cycles different kinds of content past you to see what you like and what you watch. It’s trying to figure out what you like, and then it’ll send you different channels of content.

Marcus Brauchli:

I mean, these algorithms they’re still pretty rudimentary. They don’t really give you the range of content and the experience and the knowledge you would get, from a news point of view, if you just sat down and read a newspaper. Because they’re designed to give you more of what they think you like, and therefore they’re not likely to find the things that you don’t know that you like. And I remember once going to Facebook, when they were building out a Facebook newsfeed, and I talked to the guy who was then in charge of Facebook news. And he was telling you about how great their algorithms were, and they knew what I liked. They would know what my friends liked. They could tell me exactly what kind of content I would be interested in at any given moment.

Marcus Brauchli:

It happened to be, the day that I went to see him, I think it was the afternoon of or maybe it was the day after a meteor had come down in Siberia and caused this kind of scary and shocking streak across the sky, and then loud explosion when it hit the Earth, where it hit the Earth. And car windows were rattled, and windows were broken in buildings, and people were thrown off their feet, and there were tons of dashboard cam videos from Siberia showing this thing. It was kind of spectacular and a little bit frightening.

Marcus Brauchli:

And I said to the guy, “All the algorithms in the world, won’t tell you that the minute that thing happens, all anybody wants to do is read about, how likely is it the Earth is going to be destroyed by a meteor? And all anybody’s going to want to watch is these videos.” And of course the algorithms will pick it up pretty fast. They’ll figure out within an hour that everybody’s watching this stuff. And then they’ll pick it up. But it isn’t able to identify the new thing. It isn’t able to know what you don’t… It doesn’t know what it doesn’t know, but a human editor could have told you immediately, instantaneously. I mean, the minute I saw that happen, I knew that all anybody would want to read about that day was that.

Chitra Ragavan:

Yeah, I remember that actually, the videos, and it was crazy and amazing. It’s funny. I’ve been a time newspaper reader in the paper form, and only about a year, maybe a year and a half ago, I switched to digital, and I’m acutely aware all the time. Am I reading everything there is out there? Or is the algorithm just sending stuff my way? So definitely something to think about.

Marcus Brauchli:

Let’s just take the newspaper, for example. I could consume hours talking about what I think is wrong with Silicon Valley. But if you take a digital newspaper, if are a reader of the New York Times, as I was, and I’ll grant you that I may have been a somewhat abnormal or unusual reader, I would tend to read newspapers cover to cover. I would sit down with three or four newspapers in the morning, start reading at the beginning, and finish reading at the end. And I read pretty much everything in between. And I was familiar with sports. I was familiar with culture. I was familiar with business. I knew what was going on in food trends, what restaurants were happening. You could get a lot of information out of a newspaper. If you go to the New York Times website, and you just start going through the New York Times website, there’s tons of New York Times content everyday, you will not find.

Marcus Brauchli:

You may find six articles relating to Joe Biden issuing his executive orders to control guns in some way, because that’s the news of the day. And they’re very quick to put stuff up, because they know they have to surf those waves of interest. But you’ll never navigate your way through to certain kinds of content.

Marcus Brauchli:

And so if you are somebody who is very interested in the arts, you may start reading the New York Times through its art section, and never navigate your way through to the sports section. So people’s information diets, I think, are becoming more siloed, and the internet has made it possible for people to have more information, more authoritative information, faster information than they could ever have before. And in some ways, it’s good. I’ve heard a lot of people bemoan the end of the traditional era of foreign correspondents, where one correspondent for the Chicago Tribune based in Beijing would travel Asia and write these great features stories for readers of Chicago, who we needed to know about what was going on in Asia a little bit, but probably not very much.

Marcus Brauchli:

And there’s a lot of people, especially, in traditional journalism, who worry about the end of that kind of foreign correspondence. I’m not particularly worried about it, because the truth is, and I knew those correspondents who worked for the Chicago Tribune or in my case, the Wall Street Journal. And they would fly into a place, they might not go, but once a year, and they would get into a taxi, talk to the driver about what was going on, go to the hotel, read the newspapers, make a few phone calls to people they talked to the last time they were there, and write a story saying what was happening in Indonesia, say.

Marcus Brauchli:

Whereas today, if you actually care about Indonesia, as opposed to the bulk of the readers, who might read the story, because they’re kind of curious what the Wall Street Journal thinks is important about Indonesia or the Washington Post, if you actually care deeply about it, especially if you happen to be expert, and, let’s say you’re living in Washington, and you’re part of the World Bank’s team that decides whether to allocate resources to development in Indonesia, and you maybe even speak Bahasa, you can wake up in the morning, you can know everything that somebody in Jakarta knows about what’s going on in Indonesia.

Marcus Brauchli:

So the quality and the depth of information for people who care deeply about things is widely available. The hazard of the era we live in, of course, is that people generally are not all communicating on the same set of information, they don’t operate on the same facts anymore because different source is produced different frames of understanding the world around us. And there’s not a sort of general… The number of people have, let’s say, general awareness of important things, who have the information that allows them to make good decisions in democracies or good policy decisions about economics, the number of people who have sort of wide knowledge, I think is greatly diminished, because people read vertically. They read what interests them.

Marcus Brauchli:

They get great information on the things that interest them, and they may be better informed than they’ve ever been on their hobbies or their professions, but they’re not necessarily well-educated on things horizontally. They don’t know what’s going on broadly. They know what’s going on vertically.

Chitra Ragavan:

Over your long career, you’ve touched on, basically, virtually, all aspects of media and news media, photography, writing, editing, design, digital, and obviously integrating digital into news media. What made you decide to go into investing in media companies and creating North Base Media?

Marcus Brauchli:

When I left the Washington Post as editor, I went to work for Don Graham, who then owned the paper as an advisor, and then vice-president at the Graham Holdings Company, it was then called the Washington Post Company, now it’s Graham Holdings, on digital media strategy and investing. And it was a great perch from which to look at all the changes that were going on. The previous 12 years, I had been one of the top editors at the Wall Street Journal, and then I was the top editor in 2007 at the time News Corp acquired Dow Jones, and then I went to the Post and was editor there.

Marcus Brauchli:

And for those 12 years, I was more or less perpetually engaged in adapting big traditional newsrooms to technological change, to workflow change, to audience behavior change. And there were tons of things that were happening that were fascinating to me. A lot of which transcended the traditional news domain.

Marcus Brauchli:

In the old days of newspapers, for example, there was a circulation department or a marketing department, they were combined, and the circulation and marketing department’s basic mission was to decide what the audience that the newspaper needed should be, go out and market and make sure that circulation distribution was available in those areas, and build audience in order for the ad department to be able to maximize sales of and revenues from advertising to those audiences.

Marcus Brauchli:

In the digital world, the audience is determined largely by the kind of content, the timing of the content, the manner in which you distribute content, and all of those things are the domain of news. Traditionally, the content producers who traditionally, they just did content and somebody else worried about what the audience should be and how to sell the advertising. In the digital world, those things all converge. And if you are somebody sitting in a newsroom today, making decisions about what content to distribute, on what platform, to what audiences, at what time, you’re making decisions that fundamentally, and without any exception affect the way the business itself is run.

Marcus Brauchli:

Your decision about what content is distributed what audience, determines, what kind of advertising you’re going to get, and what kind of revenues you’re going to get, what kind of traffic you’re going to get, what kind of engagement you’re going to get. And so, when I went to work for the Washington Post parent company, and started looking at digital media. I realized it was time to broaden my understanding of how media worked well beyond content, to every other aspect, to the business side, to the technology side, to understanding, strategically, where the industry was going to go.

Marcus Brauchli:

We were increasingly, it was clear to me, going to be competing with businesses that traditionally were not considered news businesses. In the digital world, we all coexist on what I call this vast, flat, digital plane. We can all see what everybody else is doing. When somebody is reading an article from the Wall Street Journal on her iPhone, she’s a click away from playing a game on her phone, from making a phone call, from texting a friend, and the experience of consuming content on a phone, on a tablet, on a laptop, increasingly, is indistinguishable from a user point of view. Whether you’re consuming content from a traditional news provider, from a television entertainment company, even from commerce companies. You mentioned this at the very beginning, the convergence of content and commerce is coming fast.

Marcus Brauchli:

Because if you look at Amazon, for example, Amazon is not a place you go shopping. In the old days, people might go shop at a department store, look around, see what they might like, and buy something. But you can’t really go shopping in some Amazon website with, I don’t know, a billion SKUs, different products that are available. There’s no way to, really, conveniently navigate it. So Amazon is forced to, like everything with content, use algorithms to try and drive you to places it thinks you might want to go based on your past behavior. And that’s not really shopping, but it may satisfy some need in you.

Marcus Brauchli:

But I think if you look at how content engages people, if a magazine publishes online floral print dresses are in for spring, and they publish a bunch of images of floral print dresses. Each one of those images is shoppable, because you can click on it, and it’ll give you a range of floral print dresses you might be able to buy, for different price points. That might lead to a convergence of commerce and content, where the content company might get, let’s say, an affiliate fee, a commission for every sale that comes out of an image that they publish on their content site. And that’s happening. That’s happening all the time now.

Marcus Brauchli:

And that’s a much better experience, from a consumer point of view, from a shopper’s point of view, to be hearing from a content company you trust about, like, here are some interesting floral print dresses you might want to consider for spring. As opposed to having H&M or Gucci tell you, “Hey, this is what we think you should be buying,” because everybody knows that they’re pushing their products.

Chitra Ragavan:

Yeah. And it’s fascinating, even the big… If you look at the New York Times and the Washington Post now, that paid content on Wall Street Journal, even, it’s striking to see how much more prominent and interwoven that paid content is along with news articles. You really have to step back sometimes, and say, “Wait a minute, I’m actually looking at an ad. I’m not looking at an article.” And I think that’s both, it’s helpful in some ways, but also very risky. Because you, sometimes, may not know what you’re reading, and who’s pushing the information.

Marcus Brauchli:

Yeah. I mean, I think that it’s very important for content companies to preserve their integrity for people to know what they are and what they stand for. Because in this ever deepening ocean of information, of content, images, words, videos, everything you can look at on your phone and your computer, I do think people are increasingly seeking out islands of clarity. Things that they know that they can trust and rely on. And at some level that’s good. I think it’s been very beneficial to traditional news publishers.

Marcus Brauchli:

I mean, if you look at the growth of digital subscribers to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, it’s driven, I think, in part, because people feel like, I need to know there’s one place I can go and the content they’re delivering to me is reliable. It’s what I want to see. I think there’s a danger in it that, when I say people seek out islands of clarity and this ocean of information, there are, unfortunately, also people who will decide that their island of clarity is the place that seems most resonant to them. And that may lead them to a place that’s not a reliable source of information.

Marcus Brauchli:

I think perhaps that the gravest threat right now, not only to journalism and its credibility with people, but also to our society, in particular, democracies, is misinformation and disinformation. And I think a lot of it has been the accidental by-product of technological changes. Technology, obviously, I don’t think anybody in technology set out to erode democracy, though, I think their products have done terrible damage. And they’ve done it, it started, I think with social media, making it very easy to share information. And it suddenly seemed to people that what journalism was doing was like no different than what they were doing. I can share something on Facebook, and my 300 closest friends see it and comment on it. There’s a fire in my neighborhood, and I take a picture and post it on Twitter, and people all respond to it. It feels like, this journalism thing’s not that hard, getting information and distributing it.

Marcus Brauchli:

And then, the next thing that happened was technology has made it really easy to make all content look the same. So if your email inbox in the morning contains an email newsletter from CNN, alongside an email newsletter from InfoWars, they look the same, and you might say, “Well, what makes this one right and this one wrong?” And people start choosing the ones that they think are more resonant. And next thing that happens is, this AI algorithm machinery that we were talking about before, which directs people into the sort of these cul-de-sac of like-minded people, so-called filter bubbles. Once you say, you’re interested in certain kinds of content, you signal to the algorithm, this is what you like, it feeds you more of that.

Marcus Brauchli:

And all of a sudden you’re seeing all this information that looks like journalism. It seems to have been gathered in the same way, and happens to coincide with your worldview. And so you think, ah, this is something I can rely on. Why shouldn’t I believe this? Why should I believe this other stuff? And then on top of everything else, the big platforms, have these powerful economic incentives for feeding you more content that maybe false, even if it’s reassuring to your worldview, because they know that you engage with it more, and, because they’re driven by advertising, by clicks, their incentives are to, to have you engage more. And there’s been a lot of reporting that’s been quite powerful and disappointing, from the point of view, how the institutions behaved about Facebook and how Facebook executives, knowingly allowed content they knew to be false or misleading or inflammatory, to be distributed on its platform, because it was engaging.

Marcus Brauchli:

And I think that was a bit of a moral advocation on the part of the Facebook. I think there’s been a lot of moral advocation on the part of big companies in Silicon Valley, because they’re a little bit misguided by naive and ill thought out philosophies of libertarianism that don’t actually reflect what’s good for the society, democracy that allows them to even have those philosophies, but it’s what it is.

Chitra Ragavan:

So what’s the solution? What are you seeing that might offset some of these dangerous trends?

Marcus Brauchli:

Well, the easy answer is, it would be really helpful if some of the powerful people in Silicon Valley grew up and got a conscience and a sense of responsibility. I mean, there’s a lot of, let’s say, almost greed driven, childlike thinking among executives in Silicon Valley, who’ve rationalized behavior that’s, at best, amoral. And they say things about what they can allow and not allow and what they can accommodate and not accommodate, and they invoke the First Amendment and they say they have to take all sides into account. And there’s all kinds of rationalizations, but really, they come down to, these are not unsolvable problems. There are technologies that they themselves have built that would allow them to begin to grapple with some of the things like false and misinformation that, whether it’s on COVID or encouraging hate speech in certain countries and different languages, they could deal with it.

Marcus Brauchli:

In the case of the big technology companies, it would require that their profit margins go down. It’s not that they couldn’t address these problems. It might mean there would be less engagement. It might mean that they would spend a lot more money on content moderation and on tools to keep certain kinds of information out. It would mean they would have to make choices that would require them to be, perhaps, smaller and less profitable. Maybe their gross profit margins go from 60% or 70% to 20% or 30%. But that might be the price of being a responsible corporate citizen and participant in a world where these kinds of misinformation and disinformation are potentially fatal to and at minimum toxic to democracies. And democracies are essential for the existence of these kinds of companies.

Marcus Brauchli:

It’s worth saying that, the company that I think is probably most culpable in this areas is Facebook. And Facebook today reaches more people, if you aggregate the audience of Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, all of which are owned by Facebook, they reach more people in aggregate every day or every month than were alive on this Earth the day Mark Zuckerberg was born. And when Facebook went public, Mark Zuckerberg followed the example of, I should say, some big newspaper groups, and created a two-tier shareholder structure, where he controls the voting power in Facebook.

Marcus Brauchli:

And so he has super majority control over Facebook. He’s held all the responsibility for Facebook. He’s kept not all of the economics of Facebook. He allowed that to be made public more, but he kept all the responsibility for Facebook, which publishers of newspapers, when they went public, more than a generation ago in the 1960s and 70’s, they use the similar two-tier your shareholder structure, which I think actually probably should be illegal, but that’s a whole separate conversation. They wanted a two-tier shareholder structure because they needed to preserve the editorial integrity of newspapers, and not subject and commercial pressures.

Marcus Brauchli:

I think it’s interesting, what’s happened with Facebook is, Mark Zuckerberg has this super control over the company. He’s retained the responsibility, but at the same time, he’s rejecting responsibility. They create a supreme court, a super governance body to oversee the editorial decisions of Facebook. Which, frankly, I think, when you keep the super voting control of the company, that’s one of the responsibilities you should be taking, not trying to outsource it to somebody else, so you’re not actually responsible for the thing that you’ve insisted on keeping responsibility for. Again, I don’t have a problem with this body being created, except insofar as, I don’t think you need somebody else to make those decisions for you.

Marcus Brauchli:

I think those are hard, difficult decisions, there may be too many of them for you to make all at once. But I think, ultimately, you can’t set up a separate decision-making body for that. You have to take responsibility for what you’re doing, and in taking responsibility for what you’re doing, you have to confront some of the moral consequences of the product you built. And when Facebook says for months and years, that there are certain things they can’t do, they can’t control certain kinds of content. They can try to control it at the margins. And then a few weeks before the election, all of a sudden, they say, “Well, actually, we’re going to take down all the QAnon content.” Or they say, “We’re going to suspend political advertising for a period of time.”

Marcus Brauchli:

It reminds me of the old joke about Winston Churchill sitting next to Lady Astor, and he asks her, “Would you sleep with me for a million pounds?” And she says, “Well, I suppose I might.” And he says, “Well, how about for a 100?” And she says, “What do you take me for?” And he says, “We’ve established that. We’re now negotiating. We’re just haggling over the price.” And you know, that’s what Facebook basically… It said, they actually can do this stuff, but they choose not to.

Chitra Ragavan:

So looking ahead in wrapping up, to the next year or two years or five years, what do you think will happen to, potentially, rein in companies like Facebook? What do you think will happen?

Marcus Brauchli:

There’s a whole lot of different pressures that are arising. At the end of the day, Google and Facebook should be treated like utilities, and utilities are largely regulated. We’ve never had a situation where one individual has such control over information globally. We have tools for dealing with economic monopoly, which there’s no question Facebook and Google are in the monopoly camp. And there are tools for addressing their economic monopoly. We don’t have tools or even a comfortable pathway in the United States for addressing information monopoly, because the First Amendment, basically, precludes that path.

Marcus Brauchli:

And therefore, we’re going to have to think, as a society, how do we pressure these companies to do the right thing? How do we get them to recognize that maintaining their profit margins at the expense of our democratic societies may be a mistake, that they should take another path? How do we put economic pressure on them, so they don’t continue to do this?

Marcus Brauchli:

Now, it’s going to come from individual countries, I expect. The Europeans are, obviously, well ahead of the Americans, in terms of their concern of a privacy regulations. I’m not sure GDPR was the smoothest solution ever, but they’re addressing it. And they’re very focused on issues of like what kind of content can be distributed. Individual countries are going to restrict what content can be distributed. Some countries are going to start requiring that the big technology platforms, actually, pay fair compensation for the information that they profit from. Both Facebook and Google and Twitter, all these companies, they rely heavily on content other people create for them, whether it’s people just posting about their friends or sharing newspaper articles, or videos. Other people pay for the content and creation that these platforms then monetize, and the platforms rather disingenuously say, “Oh, well, it’s a fair trade, because we’re giving them the distribution and the tools to reach all these people.”

Marcus Brauchli:

But if it was really a fair trade, their profit margins wouldn’t be as fat as they are. A fair trade would suggest much narrower profit margins. So I think it’s going to be country by country regulation. A lot of countries in the world, I think, look at how China regulates its internet . And I don’t want to hold China up as a model for anything, because I think a lot of what China’s doing the world right now is terrible and problematic to democracy, and free movement of people and information.

Marcus Brauchli:

But what China does, is China says to the internet companies, “Look, there’s just certain stuff you can’t do, and we’re going to leave it to you to figure out how to deal with it, but here’s what you can’t do.” And they say, “Don’t publish information about,” for example, “Beijing’s repression of the Uighurs. Don’t publish information about Beijing’s repression of Hong Kong. Don’t publish information that would seem to flatter Taiwan. Don’t publish information that would seem to make the US look good.” They basically issue these edicts, and then the internet companies are in a position of having to figure out how to implement these edicts, and the government doesn’t go beyond that.

Marcus Brauchli:

Now I don’t think the US, again, is ever going to go down that path, and I’m glad that it won’t. But I think there are a lot of other countries in the world that will, and they’ll just say, “Hey, Facebook, if you want to operate here, here’s the rules. Google, if you want to operate here, here are the rules.” And some companies, when confronted with those kinds of requests, may make difficult decisions, as Google ones famously did, when it pulled out of China after China hacked into some Chinese people’s accounts on Gmail, Google, basically, said, “We’re out of here,” and stepped out of China, in a big way, for a long time.

Marcus Brauchli:

Facebook, recently, encounter this in Australia, when Australia insisted that internet companies that want to redistribute content produced by news companies in Australia, who paid to have that content, and who paid the cost of having that content created, if they want to redistribute that content, they’re going to have to pay publishers for it. Facebook in one of the all time insane policy responses I’ve ever seen a company launched, decided that they were going to just stop allowing the distribution of news and other related content, including by the way, a lot of nonprofit content, including from foundations and organizations that were trying to provide information about how to get COVID vaccines or be safe in COVID.

Marcus Brauchli:

Facebook just suspended all that information, and demonstrated it’s bullying behavior in the worst form. In the end, Australia and Facebook reached an accommodation. Facebook agreed to pay publishers for information, which as many commentators pointed out, seemed to favor Rupert Murdoch, who is not considered by everybody to be exactly the little guy that they want to see Facebook helping in this world, but it solved Facebook’s problem in Australia.

Chitra Ragavan:

Interesting. Well, Marcus, thanks so much for joining me today, and for the great conversation.

Marcus Brauchli:

It’s a pleasure Chitra. Thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me. I appreciate it.

Chitra Ragavan:

Marcus Brauchli is co-founder of North Base Media, an investment firms specializing in media and technology in global growth markets. Brauchli has served as an advisor to media groups, including Graham Holdings, Univision, and HT Media. Before co-founding North Base Media, Brauchli was executive editor of the Washington Post, overseeing the Post’s print and digital news operations, shepherding the storied newspaper’s sweeping digital revolution, which began on his watch. And during his tenure, the Post won seven Pulitzer prizes. Before joining the Post, Brauchli was managing editor of the Wall Street Journal. His tenure at the journal included 15 years as a foreign correspondent, mainly in Asia, and eight years as a senior editor in New York. This is Techtopia. I’m Chitra Ragavan.

When tech entrepreneur Anjana Rajan joined Polaris as its Chief Technology Officer last year, she thought she was setting aside her prior focus on domestic terrorism to help Polaris with its core mission of fighting human trafficking.

But then Rajan learned the far-right conspiracy group QAnon had been making outlandish human trafficking allegations against Polaris resulting in massive Denial of Service or DDoS attacks by QAnon followers who were even making death threats against the non-profit.

Suddenly, Rajan found that her world had come full circle. Over the past year, she’s had to bring all of her national security and technology skills to bear to expand Polaris’s mission to investigate this nexus of human trafficking and domestic terrorism.

Anjana Rajan’s work and that of her Polaris team resulted in a recent report called  — Countering QAnon: Understanding the Role of Human Trafficking in the Disinformation-Extremist Nexus. Rajan shares the key findings from that report and what it means for U.S. domestic security.

This is another fascinating episode in our yearlong exploration of conspiracy theories, radicalization, and domestic terrorism in the wake of the January 6th attacks on the U.S. Capitol by armed, violent supporters of former President Donald Trump.

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Chitra Ragavan:

When tech entrepreneur Anjana Rajan, whose expertise is applying cryptography to human rights and national security issues, joined Polaris as a chief technology officer, she thought she was setting aside her focus on domestic terrorism to help Polaris with its core mission of fighting human trafficking. But then Rajan learned that the far-right conspiracy group, QAnon, had been making outlandish human trafficking allegations against Polaris, resulting in massive internet denial of service or DDoS attacks by QAnon followers, who are even making death threats against the nonprofit.

Chitra Ragavan:

Hello, everyone. I’m Chitra Ragavan, and this is Techtopia. Many of you, of course, are familiar with QAnon from the January 6th assault on the U.S. Capitol and on democracy by supporters of former President Donald Trump, triggering a massive domestic terrorism investigation by U.S. authorities. Suddenly, Rajan found that her world had come full circle. Over the past year, she’s had to bring all of her national security and technology skills to bear to expand Polaris’ mission to investigate this nexus of human trafficking and domestic terrorism.

Chitra Ragavan:

Rajan’s work and that of her Polaris team resulted in a recent report called Countering QAnon: Understanding the Role of Human Trafficking in the Disinformation-Extremist Nexus. Joining me now to talk about the report and what her investigation uncovered is Anjana Rajan, who I’m happy to report is also my former colleague at Palantir. Anjana, welcome to Techtopia.

Anjana Rajan:

Thanks so much for having me, Chitra.

Chitra Ragavan:

We spoke almost exactly a year ago when you were moving cross country from California to join Polaris as the CTO, just as the COVID shutdown was starting. You were coming to Polaris with a mission to combat human trafficking. Just to give a brief definition for people of what human trafficking is, how do you define human trafficking and Polaris’ mission as you knew it when you first came onboard?

Anjana Rajan:

Sure. Yeah, it’s hard to believe it’s been a full year. But Polaris’ mission is to end sex and labor trafficking and to restore freedom to survivors. Our approach is to be survivor-centered, racial justice-focused, and technology-enabled. The way we simply describe human trafficking is it’s the illicit business of exploiting vulnerable people for profit. It’s $150 billion industry with 25 million victims worldwide, and that number is only going to grow unless something changes.

Chitra Ragavan:

You’ve had quite a whirlwind year in which clearly everything has changed, including your perception of what you would be doing at Polaris. How did you find out about the QAnon DDoS attacks on Polaris and tell us what the group was alleging?

Anjana Rajan:

When I joined Polaris, I didn’t think that my work on domestic terrorism would be even remotely relevant, and it turns out I was very wrong about that. When I joined the organization, I had learned that in August of 2018, we were the target of a coordinated disinformation campaign that accused Polaris of being part of a fictitious child sex trafficking ring supposedly run by The Clinton Foundation. This outlandish conspiracy we discovered was driven by none other than QAnon.

Anjana Rajan:

That summer, QAnon followers doxed our senior staff and our board. They sent our hotline advocates death threats, and they led a cyber attack on our hotline, which made it impossible for victims and survivors to get the help they needed. As you can imagine, it was a really harrowing and traumatizing experience for the organization. When I heard about this after I joined, I was actually very terrified, because it’s one thing to think about domestic terrorism in a very theoretical sense, it’s a whole other thing when the threat is knocking on your door.

Anjana Rajan:

I was worried that the attack on Polaris was actually a leading indicator of something much bigger. Because while QAnon was not yet part of our mainstream discourse in the way that it is now, the patterns of QAnon followed a very similar disinformation playbook that we’ve seen used by other adversarial actors. It’s the same way ISIS used propaganda to recruit women into their fold. It’s the same way Saudi Arabia launched a disinformation campaign to discredit their enemies.

Anjana Rajan:

It’s the same way the Russian internet research agency has subverted the 2016 U.S. election. The way that I saw it, the COVID pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, the upcoming presidential election, it was all seeming to create this perfect storm of tension. It was clear to me that we were just barreling towards an inflection point that would seem come to head on November 3rd.

Chitra Ragavan:

In a weird, you were the perfect person that Polaris could have had because let’s just look at your background for a minute, right? You were at Palantir, of course, which has a huge national security focus with domestic and global terrorism in terms of the clients for their data analytics platform, and you and I both worked at Palantir. And then you went to Callisto, which is a nonprofit that builds advanced cryptographic technology to combat sexual assault, and then you went to Aspen Institute where you were a tech policy fellow where you were working on preventing mass gun violence by white supremacist terrorists.

Chitra Ragavan:

And last but not least, you’re an independent consultant for the Homeland Security Advisory Council that supports the country’s top national security advisors on cybersecurity policies. In a weird way, you had a perfect mix of skills that brought you to the point at Polaris where all sudden there were these QAnon attacks. What were your thoughts then once you started to learn more about the QAnon attacks, how they evolved and what it meant for Polaris?

Anjana Rajan:

Yeah, it’s a strange coincidence that the timing worked out the way it did, I suppose. I think for me when I joined Polaris a year ago, what worried me the most was that QAnon was a triple threat, right? Not only is it undermining the anti-trafficking movement, but it could threaten our democratic institutions, our elections, and worst of all, it could be a force multiplier for violent extremism. This feeling was really deepened in July 2020 when QAnon launched a child sex trafficking conspiracy against Wayfair, the online furniture retailer.

Anjana Rajan:

Even though Polaris wasn’t the direct target of the attack this time, the deluge of dis and misinformation had devastating impacts on the anti-human trafficking apparatus. In that moment, Polaris decided we need to attack.

Chitra Ragavan:

What was the Wayfair conspiracy theory that was promoted by QAnon?

Anjana Rajan:

The Wayfair conspiracy claimed that the furniture retailer was actually trafficking children in their overpriced cabinets. While that sounds absolutely ridiculous, what made it particularly concerning is that this narrative actually spilled into more mainstream forums. It was one of the first conspiracy theories that manifested on Reddit, not just these fringe platforms. What you’re now seeing is that the folks who were calling the hotline were not just people maliciously spreading disinformation, but it was also your mom on Facebook who was calling the hotline, concerned about these poor children.

Anjana Rajan:

It was a watershed moment in the movement when we started to see these conspiracies spill over into the mainstream.

Chitra Ragavan:

Wow! Before Wayfair, when QAnon started to attack Polaris and make these human trafficking allegations, what started that? That’s an amazing story. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Anjana Rajan:

Sure. I hate to say that I’m now a QAnon historian because I know way too much about their origin story, but this goes all the way, if you want to kind of think about where this started, around the time of Pizzagate, which was actually a predecessor to the QAnon movement. And this actually again is building off of the 2016 election after the email leak from the DNC. A number of highly motivated folks on Internet message boards started pouring over the trove of John Podesta’s emails and started to make these nonsensical connections between a pizza shop in Washington DC and a child trafficking ring.

Anjana Rajan:

We then saw in a few months later the Pizzagate attack on a pizza shop here in DC, where an armed gunman went to a pizza shop and thought that he was rescuing children from a basement and there was not even a basement to be had. Fast forward to after Donald Trump was elected, that’s really when the QAnon movement actually first came to light. An anonymous poster posted pretending that they were in fact a government insider with top secret Q clearance who had the insights on this very insidious deep state Satanic cabal of human trafficking.

Anjana Rajan:

Where that then led to involving Polaris is in the aftermath in 2018. All of that chatter resulted in a Q drop that distinctly targeted Polaris because of a Twitter kerfuffle between Chelsea Clinton and some Twitter trolls. The Q drop literally accused the trafficking hotline of being part of The Clinton Foundation and the rest is history from there.

Chitra Ragavan:

Wow! And a Q drop for those who don’t know what that is, is what?

Anjana Rajan:

It was essentially a post by who… We have a theory of who this person was, but at the time, it was an anonymous post by someone pretending to be Q that would leave these breadcrumbs for their followers to follow the rabbit hole and figure out the secret behind this global cabal.

Chitra Ragavan:

How was Pizzagate affiliated with the Clintons?

Anjana Rajan:

The crux of a lot of these conspiracies was centered around Hillary Clinton in the aftermath of the 2016 election. One of the conspiracy’s origin stories was centered around The Clinton Foundation being the antagonist behind this child pedophile ring with global reach. When we came into the fold, it actually was through this accusation that Polaris was part of the Clinton Foundation and therefore that the hotline was actually a front for something more sinister that obviously wasn’t true.

Chitra Ragavan:

Anjana, why do you think so many people believe in a lot of these really crazy, wacky conspiracy theories?

Anjana Rajan:

I think the widespread coverage of Jeffrey Epstein’s indictment and arrest and death have only served to fuel this idea, because it really allows those who are aiming to spread conspiracies to really bait people in with a very true, but very extreme case of human trafficking. In many ways, Epstein’s method of force, fraud, and coercion are actually very typical of human trafficking cases. He was a very wealthy and powerful man who used his resources to identify and groom and recruit and exploit vulnerable girls, especially those coming from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

Anjana Rajan:

But QAnon followers were much less interested in exploring the underlying systemic inequities that enabled Epstein to commit his crimes for so long and instead focused on these very partisan and extreme details of his private islands and his famous friends, which then fueled the false narratives about a celebrity pedophile ring at the highest levels of power.

Chitra Ragavan:

Fascinating. You mentioned how many women are prone to believing a lot of these rumors. One of our previous guests who was on this podcast wondered if maybe the high numbers of women who say they have been the victim of a sexual assault of some kind may also play a part in some of that. Have you seen that and what do you think of that theory?

Anjana Rajan:

I think the recurrent takeaway here is as we counter disinformation about trafficking fueled by QAnon, we have to continue to remain survivor-centered. I think this is why it’s so important for organizations like Polaris to be leading the conversation and holding that nuance. We can denounce QAnon without denouncing the realities of sexual violence, and I think that is incredibly important to do.

Chitra Ragavan:

How did Pizzagate affect Polaris?

Anjana Rajan:

Ultimately, the conspiracy around child sex trafficking lingered on long after Pizzagate. The accusations of the democratic and Hollywood elite became a core tenet of the QAnon conspiracy. Ultimately, the conspiracy theory accused Polaris of being part of this global cabal.

Chitra Ragavan:

Here you were, you were CTO of Polaris and all of a sudden, you were dealing with a crazy organization and a very serious threat. What were your next actions and recommendations for Polaris?

Anjana Rajan:

Right after the Wayfair conspiracy, it was clear we needed to do something. We decided to build a security strategy that can protect our organization against this threat. Simply put, in order to defend our mission, we need to do four things. We need to defend the reputation of our movement and our organization. We need to defend the operations of our hotline. We need to defend the physical safety of our people, and we need to defend the cybersecurity of our data. In order to do all of this effectively, it has to be rooted in a systems change data driven approach.

Chitra Ragavan:

What did you do next?

Anjana Rajan:

Because I had realized that this problem was incredibly complex, we wanted to take a very multidisciplinary approach. We established a strategic partnership with The Soufan Group, which is a leading global security firm, and their partner Limbik, which is a content science company, and we worked together to build an AI model that can analyze disinformation on the major social media platforms by looking at two key factors. The first factor is how believable is this content, and the second is, is there foreign influence on that content.

Anjana Rajan:

By defining these thresholds, we could start to quantify the risk of disinformation going viral before it actually happens. We were then able to integrate our hotline call line into the model, so we could start seeing when these online behaviors converted into offline actions. By the time the election came around, we had really shifted from a very defensive stance to an offensive posture.

Anjana Rajan:

We were not only able to predict the emerging QAnon narratives that were becoming prominently tweaked, but we were now able to build a daily forecast of call volume to the hotline based on the rising disinformation. As a result, we were now in a position to prepare for that stochastic demand, and that’s been hugely transformational for us.

Chitra Ragavan:

How has that changed things? As you were going into the November elections, you were not probably surprised to see the chatter, right? And leading out of the November elections, none of that was coming as a surprise to you because you had already started to look into it.

Anjana Rajan:

Yeah. Once we got ourselves into a secure posture, put our own oxygen mask on, we started to then translate our knowledge into advocacy work. In the fall, we had launched an entire comms campaign focused on debunking rumors and myths about human trafficking. We had helped bring together 90 organizations in the anti-trafficking movement to sign an open letter denouncing QAnon. We had called upon Republican House leadership to deny committee assignments to the members with openly promoted QAnon theories.

Anjana Rajan:

As the year was ending, we started to see some disturbing patterns of how human trafficking disinformation was being used to radicalize susceptible audiences into violent extremist behaviors. Our team felt that we should share our findings in a policy paper to share with the new administration. Little did we know that we were just days away from an insurrection.

Chitra Ragavan:

Wow! That leads us to January 6th and all of the madness of that day. What was that like watching it unfold on television after all of this deep research and analysis that you had done and all of the things you were finding?

Anjana Rajan:

I mean, the attack on January 6th was horrifying for everyone in this country, because it was a domestic terrorist attack on our democracy’s most sacred space. I’m not alone in saying this, but the imagery was so haunting. The gallows and the noose outside the Capitol conjures images from The Turner Diaries. Confederate flags were being waved, right? These are flags that represent a fictitious white supremacist nation. People were wearing sweatshirts that said Camp Auschwitz and other holocaust and Nazi paraphernalia.

Anjana Rajan:

It was incredibly upsetting, and January 6 will always be a very dark day in our nation’s history. I think for us at Polaris, it was especially bone-chilling because the very worst thing we had been saying could happen actually happened. The people who were showing up in our weekly briefings were now suddenly all over our television screens attacking the Capitol. These very people who had been sending us death threats for years were now all over the news. Yeah, it was especially painful.

Anjana Rajan:

And at the very same time, it was also a wake up call and it was very motivating for our team to put pen to paper and very forcefully and full-throatedly say what we wanted to say about this, and that’s what we ended up doing in our report.

Chitra Ragavan:

People like Jacob Chansley, also known as QAnon Shaman who was sort of one of the most visible on the Hill that day, those were people you were already investigating, right?

Anjana Rajan:

Yeah. Again, we were doing it more just to protect ourselves. It was more, where are these narratives coming from and how do we counter that disinformation? Now suddenly his face is incredibly infamous across the country.

Chitra Ragavan:

Tell me a little bit about how this report that you’ve produced, Countering QAnon: Understanding the Role of Human Trafficking in the Disinformation-Extremist Nexus, come about?

Anjana Rajan:

Well, it was something we had been planning on writing for a long time, but the sense of urgency wasn’t as high. We thought we’d put our findings in our policy paper and share it with the administration maybe after the first 100 days or so, so that they could settle in. And then on January 7th we said, “Okay, I guess we need to write it now.” I think for us at Polaris, it was really about as we have a national conversation about what happened, yes, we need to talk about the role of social media platforms and disinformation.

Anjana Rajan:

Yes, we need to talk about the future of prosecuting domestic terrorism crimes. But the question that we also need to be asking is, what brought people to the Capitol in the first place? That really comes down to the role human trafficking played. The report that we wrote in collaboration with The Soufan Group and Limbik really focused on four key findings that we’re able to share publicly.

Chitra Ragavan:

What were those findings?

Anjana Rajan:

The first one says that disinformation about human trafficking serves a gateway narrative that radicalizes susceptible audiences to condone and even perform acts of violence and terrorism. This ultimately poses a threat to the national security of the United States. The insurrection is actually really a tragic case study because two of the women who died, Ashli Babbitt and Rosanne Boyland, whose names we now come to become very familiar with, they were both radicalized by human trafficking conspiracies.

Anjana Rajan:

When we analyzed Ashli Babbitt’s social media, we can see that her radicalization patterns were rooted in child human trafficking conspiracy theory for several years. But in contrast, Rosanne Boyland had been radicalized extremely quickly, and she first started posting QAnon content after the Wayfair conspiracy itself, just only a few months. The takeaway for us is that human trafficking narratives are a very effective topic to “red pill” people into violent ideologies.

Anjana Rajan:

What’s really interesting is that women are more susceptible to being radicalized by these narratives and we think it’s because it appeals to their altruism to protect children. Our data showed that women are 50% more likely than men to be classified as QAnon fence-sitters, meaning they are more likely to fall for these narratives. That ties in well with previous research about counter terrorism because we’ve seen especially with Salafi-Jihadist groups, women are also using narratives about children being harmed to recruit.

Anjana Rajan:

What this means is that is forebodes that these type of narratives will be used in the future by other groups as well.

Chitra Ragavan:

What else did you find?

Anjana Rajan:

Well, the second finding has a direct impact on how harmful disinformation is to victims and survivors of human trafficking. At Polaris, we actually analyzed the amount of time we spent on nonsense calls about the Wayfair conspiracy theory. A typical human trafficking case results in about 2.5 signals of the hotline. In contrast, the Wayfair case alone was 536 signals, each of which contained no actionable information for us to use.

Anjana Rajan:

Now what that translate to is that the time we spent responding to disinformation about Wayfair could have instead been spent responding to an addition 42 trafficking cases. Now, when you consider that in all of 2019, there were only 600 federal prosecutions of human trafficking, 42 is a really big number. Wayfair is not the only conspiracy theory we dealt with that summer. When you compound that number with all other disinformation, you can start to see how this has a devastating impact on the anti-trafficking movement.

Chitra Ragavan:

What is interesting to me, maybe you can talk a little bit about this Wayfair conspiracy theory and what they were saying about Wayfair, is that most of these ideas are so farfetched, and yet it generates a massive following which goes back to your point of the susceptibility particularly among women who want to do the right thing, to fall for these kinds of ideas.

Anjana Rajan:

Exactly. That actually what our third finding shows, which comes from a study we ran called A Believability Classification survey, and this was driven by our partners Limbik who came up with this proprietary survey. We ran the survey between November 4th, 2000 and January 7th, 2021 with a nationally representative sample of nearly 16,000 respondents, so a very large sample size. And through the survey, we learned that 21% of U.S. adults self-identify as QAnon believers, which is alarming.

Anjana Rajan:

When we asked the question, to what extent do you agree with the statement, “I believe elites, politicians, and celebrities are involved in global pedophilia rings and we need to #saveourchildren,” a whopping 41% of U.S. adults agreed or strongly agreed.

Chitra Ragavan:

What does that tell you?

Anjana Rajan:

Well, it shows that many people are susceptible to these narratives. In contrast, only 18% of U.S. adults firmly rejected the idea that elites, politicians, and celebrities are involved in global pedophilia rings. What this means is the remaining 82% of the U.S. population are at risk of being susceptible to believing this narrative, which means that if you are a violent extremist organization, this becomes an incredibly potent gateway narrative for you to recruit folks into a more radical and violent ideology.

Anjana Rajan:

We’re seeing that happening right now, which is what the fourth finding shows, which is that violent anti-government extremists, white supremacist, and the Neo-Nazis who were not originally associated with QAnon, have appeared to caught onto the allure and the trick of using conspiracies about child trafficking to radicalize and recruit new members. This is very concerning because they are co-opting these disillusioned QAnon followers into these more violent groups, and that can expand the pool of individuals who are willing to commit acts of violence and terrorism.

Anjana Rajan:

What we’ve seen in the deplatforming on social media is that now these groups are migrating to encrypted chat platforms. What we saw in January was that a white supremacy channel on Telegram with almost 3,000 followers posted about how to use a narrative of elites being baby-eating pedophiles as a way to specifically recruit QAnon followers. What this forebodes is this will continue to happen in the future agnostic of the extremist group or the technology platform.

Chitra Ragavan:

Where do we go from here? I mean, what’s the solution?

Anjana Rajan:

Yeah. I’m afraid I’m a bearer of more bad news. Even though Trump is no longer in office and QAnon has been deplatformed from mainstream social media companies, the landscape ahead of us is still very dangerous for the anti-human trafficking movement. There are a couple of trends that I think are very concerning. First, QAnon will remain an enduring threat because it has become a big tent conspiracy and the movement is splintering. The next four years will be pretty important for the QAnon movement because they perceive that the so-called deep state is in political power.

Anjana Rajan:

This can give birth to more conspiracy theories within the QAnon umbrella. Since at its core, the conspiracy is centered around human trafficking disinformation, this is a big concern to us at Polaris. The second trend actually came from the ODNI’s recently released unclassified report on domestic violent extremism. They have labeled racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists and militia violent extremists as a most serious threat to the U.S. homeland.

Anjana Rajan:

As Polaris continues to fight forcefully for racial justice, it means we increase our risk profile from these violent actors. The other really interesting trend, and frankly concerning trend, is something that the field calls salad bar ideology, which basically means that violent actors are picking and choosing ideologies to fit their hateful creed. The most well-known example of this is actually in the climate change movement, which we call eco-fascism, which is when someone combines very militant environmentalism with white supremacist extremism.

Anjana Rajan:

Given that human trafficking is equally a complex problem with intersecting narratives, it means that our movement is also at risk of being cherry picked by extremists to justify their hate and the violence in similar way. And then finally, today’s disinformation landscape is more diverse in terms of capable actors, including state and non-state actors, especially Russia and China. What we’ve seen in recent weeks is that the Chinese Communist Party is willing to target organizations and governments who comment or post human rights abuses in the region.

Anjana Rajan:

As Polaris continues to speak out against human trafficking, both domestically and globally, it can carry significant cybersecurity risks for us as well.

Chitra Ragavan:

Where do nonprofits like Polaris fit in this fight, right? One thinks of nonprofits traditionally, at least in the old days, as sort of somewhat staid, perhaps slow moving entities, perhaps marred in a lot of bureaucracy. And then, of course, you’ve got very cutting-edge organizations like Polaris and all of this amazing work that you’ve been doing over the past few years. Where do nonprofits belong? Do they all have to be like Polaris in adoption of technology and thinking through a different lens?

Anjana Rajan:

I mean, I’m obviously very biased as a technologist myself, but yeah, I think this is exactly why we see our approach as being technology enabled. Because at the end of the day, this has to be an evidence-based movement, and we need to be thinking about what the facts are based on the data that we’re seeing. The human trafficking movement is notoriously data poor. It’s a very hard problem to quantify and measure. Every time we publish our data, we caveat very heavily about what this data does tell us and what it doesn’t.

Anjana Rajan:

I think one of the things we need to continue to support is how do we think about using technology responsibly in a way to not only help victims and survivors, but also be good stewards of data ethics, because too much data collection can also open up some privacy and some liberty concerns that are equally concerning.

Chitra Ragavan:

What do we need that we lack right now in terms of technology tools? I mean, you’ve used some very cutting-edge tools like cryptography in domestic violence and you’ve testified before Congress about the role of technology in fighting human trafficking. What are the things we have and what are the things we need, things like cryptography and encryption, or other tools?

Anjana Rajan:

I think in the survivor centered space, technology can be actually a really powerful weapon in the arsenal in these fights. I think as people are building products, the key tenet I think is to constantly be centering the victim and the survivor. Because I think one of the challenges we’re seeing when building technology products is sometimes in an effort to move this movement forward, we take on a bit of a paternalistic approach. What we talk a lot about at Polaris is that we don’t want to be in the rescue business.

Anjana Rajan:

It’s not our job to rescue anyone. It’s our job to restore power, and that’s a really key tenet I believe in survivor centered work. I think, again, this goes back to why this is such a complex system and it’s not as simple as pulling just one lever. We have to think about all of the levers, whether that be policy levers, market dynamics, cultural dynamics, all of these things actually need to inform the way we think about these problems.

Chitra Ragavan:

It’s been an incredibly eventful year for you. Looking at all the work you did prior on cryptography and domestic terrorism, human trafficking, all the stuff you did at Palantir and Callisto and the Aspen Institute, looking back at this year of learning for you, what would you say has been the biggest takeaway for you on all these things and this year that it’s been?

Anjana Rajan:

Oh man. I mean, I think as you mentioned, the first… I’m an engineer by training, and I did my undergrad and graduate work at Cornell. I do credit them for getting me interested in these complex and gnarly problems. But I think the complex system that I’m always been the most interested in has been human rights work. Because when systems are broken, injustice happens. I think for me the takeaway is having the patience and the confidence to sit in the complexity rather than trying to over simplify something.

Anjana Rajan:

But at the same time, making sure that we’re communicating this in a way that is easy to understand. That I think is not an easy task and one I think Polaris as leaders of this movement are excited to shift in the way we talk about human trafficking. What I’ve noticed especially in the last year is even though we’re seeing the rise of QAnon and we’re aware of the role of disinformation, it doesn’t make human trafficking any less of a real problem. I think at the end of the day, that’s a really important thing to remember.

Anjana Rajan:

When a lot of people think about human trafficking, they envision Liam Neeson from Taken and that is not an accurate representative at all. It’s actually the end result of a range of other persistent injustices and inequities in our society and our economy. Simply arresting traffickers will not by itself end human trafficking because it’s too complex. There’s too much out there. If we want to fundamentally reduce the amount of trafficking, we have to actually change the conditions that make trafficking possible in the first place.

Anjana Rajan:

Traffickers, they pinpoint what people need and then they pretend to give it to them. Maybe it’s a job or an apartment. Maybe it’s love or a sense of belonging. These traffickers, they target communities where the needs are greatest, right? These are communities struggling with poverty and addiction and trauma. If we want to disarm the traffickers, we have to actually create a world where those needs are met by somebody other than the trafficker.

Anjana Rajan:

What that ultimately means is we need to fix the broken systems that fail to meet those needs, and that includes fixing our foster care system and having affordable housing and worker protections and immigration and criminal justice and on and on. But it also does mean that we need to go deeper, because preventing trafficking means facing the fallout of racism and sexism and economic discrimination.

Anjana Rajan:

That’s why at Polaris, we see the fight against human trafficking as a fight for social justice, because it means that we need to repair the damage done by these unjust and unequal policies that have over generations led to greater needs in some communities over others.

Chitra Ragavan:

I was thinking that when you first started talking to folks at Polaris about what QAnon really meant, the threat that it really represented, you were barely, what, 90 days into your job at Polaris and they’d never had a CTO before. Here you were, all of a sudden, you were just raising alarms about something that they knew was serious, but all of a sudden, you are putting it in an entirely new light, right? What was the response?

Chitra Ragavan:

And I’m curious, looking back, are you glad you were right? Were there moments when you felt like, “God, I hope I’m right about this thing.”

Anjana Rajan:

I mean, I wouldn’t go that far. I mean, I hope no one… I think part of security work is preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how quickly Polaris grasped the problem. I think it’s not surprising because at the end of the day, Polaris is in the business of dismantling human trafficking networks and taking down dangerous adversaries. Our hotline advocates spend every single day responding to calls of survivors in crisis and helping them build their safety plans.

Anjana Rajan:

When you go to an organization like that and you talk about security and you just reframe it as, “This is what we already do. We are now facing a new adversary called QAnon, and we’re building a safety plan for ourselves,” then it clicks. I have to commend not just the leadership at Polaris, but everyone at the organization is taking the values of security to be really tightly aligned with our mission. Because at the end of the day, if we’re not able to protect ourselves, it doesn’t help victims and survivors either.

Chitra Ragavan:

One last question I had in wrapping up is a lot of the political temperature in this country has been lowered, at least for now, compared to where we were in November, December, and, of course, January leading up to January 6. But the sense I’m getting from you is even though the political temperature is down, the threat remains from QAnon and similar groups, that it’s simmering under the surface just ready for the next provocation. Would you agree with that?

Anjana Rajan:

Yeah, definitely.

Chitra Ragavan:

What do you see from what you are seeing in the data that’s coming in as to how it might manifest itself or how things are right now, the things that we don’t see under the surface?

Anjana Rajan:

I think at the end of the day, and we talk about this when we talk about the disinformation-extremism nexus at large, right? The way this grows is by exploiting political fault lines. Human trafficking is one of the few issues that is a bipartisan issue. The over politicization of human trafficking is I think the red flag we need to be very careful about. Because once you start to politicize something, then you’ve now created sides. And when you create sides, that’s when these narratives become exploitative.

Anjana Rajan:

And when it becomes exploitative, that what leads to political violence. I think what we have to be very careful about is as we speak about this issue, we need to be disciplined. And I say this not just Polaris, but everybody who cares about this topic needs to be very disciplined about speaking about this credibly, with truth. And that applies to people on all sides of the political aisle, not just on the right.

Anjana Rajan:

I think we need to be very committed to saying, if you care about protecting our democracy, if you care about fighting for racial justice, if you care about preventing violent extremism, then you need to be really thoughtful about how do we talk about human trafficking in a way that recognizes that this problem is not as simple as we like to think it is.

Chitra Ragavan:

Anjana, thank you so much for joining me today and for this fascinating conversation.

Anjana Rajan:

It was so great to speak with you.

Chitra Ragavan:

Anjana Rajan is the Chief Technology Officer of Polaris, a non-governmental organization that’s leading a data driven social justice movement to fight human trafficking. Rajan’s expertise is applying cryptography to human rights and national security issues. She’s the former Chief Technology Officer at Callisto, a nonprofit that builds advanced cryptographic technology to combat sexual assault. Recently, Rajan was a tech policy fellow at the Aspen Institute, where she worked on preventing mass gun violence caused by white supremacist terrorists. She’s also an independent consultant to the Homeland Security Advisory Council that supports the country’s top national security leaders on cybersecurity policy. Rajan has testified before Congress as an expert witness to speak about ways technology can protect survivors and victims of human trafficking. This is Techtopia. I’m Chitra Ragavan.

Chitra Ragavan:

Techtopia is a podcast from Goodstory, an advisory firm helping technology startups with brand strategy, positioning, and narrative. Our producer is Jeremy Corr, founder and CEO of Executive Podcasting Solutions, with production assistance from Kate Cruz. Our creative advisor is Adi Wineland, and our research and logistics lead is Sarah Möller. Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcast or your preferred podcast platform.

Chitra Ragavan:

And if you like the show, please rate it five stars, leave a review, and do recommend it to your friends, family, and colleagues. For questions, comments, and transcripts, please visit our website at goodstory dot io or send us an email at podcast at goodstory.io. Join us next week for another episode of Techtopia. I’ll see you then.

For nine years, Vanessa Slavich took a traditional, reactive, “whack-a-mole” approach to manage her battle against a rare and aggressive tumor, working with highly specialized doctors operating in various treatment silos. Frustrated with the outcomes, this year, Slavich is taking a new more proactive and strategic approach. She’s using her career in technology startups as a model for turbo-charging her research and treatment options in a unique way — which she describes in a recent post in Substack, called “The Startup Body: managing my health #Likea Boss.” And Slavich is “designing her health” in collaboration with Peter Kane, Founder and Executive Director at Research to the People, a non-profit biomedical research initiative based in San Francisco. Research to the People helps patients co-lead and direct new research and treatment options for their conditions. The group is creating a bold new model for patient-centric treatment and giving voice to patients who are grappling with rare and complex diseases. Slavich and Kane talk about their collaboration and how it represents a model for the future of precision, personalized medicine.

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Chitra Ragavan:

For nine years, Vanessa Slavich took a traditional reactive, whack-a-mole approach to manage her battle against a rare and aggressive tumor, working with highly specialized doctors in various treatment silos. Frustrated with the outcomes, this year, Slavich is taking a new, more proactive, and strategic approach. She’s using her career in technology startups as a model for turbocharging her research and treatment options in a unique way, which she describes in a recent post in Substack called The Startup Body: Managing My Healthcare Like a Boss.

Chitra Ragavan:

Hello, everyone. I’m Chitra Ragavan, and this is Techtopia.

Chitra Ragavan:

Vanessa Slavich is taking a strategic approach to combat her rare tumor in collaboration with Pete Kane. He’s Founder and Executive Director at Research to the People, a nonprofit biomedical research initiative based in San Francisco. Research to the People helps patients co-lead and direct new research and treatment options for their conditions. The group is creating a bold new model for patient-centric treatment and giving voice to patients who are grappling with rare and complex diseases.

Chitra Ragavan:

Slavich and Kane are both here today to talk about their collaboration and how it represents a milestone for the future of personalized medicine. Vanessa and Pete, welcome to Techtopia.

Vanessa Slavich:

Thank you for having us.

Pete Kane:

Thank you.

Chitra Ragavan:

Vanessa, tell us when and how you first found out about your tumor and what kind of tumor it is.

Vanessa Slavich:

I found out about it in 2011. I had just started working at Square. It was a early startup back then, and I was actually at my friend’s graduation, and the chair was hitting my back in a very particular way. And I remember shifting back and forth and being like, “Man, this chair sucks.” And then my friend looked at my back, and she’s like, “Oh, you have a little bump.”

Vanessa Slavich:

And I ended up getting a biopsy, and they found out it was what’s called a desmoid tumor. It’s also called aggressive fibromatosis, and it’s a rare tumor. You’re more likely to get struck by lightning than have this tumor. There’s about 900 cases per year in the United States. And it basically is part of my connective tissue so it’s everywhere in my body, but it’s considered locally aggressive in that it likely won’t show up in my foot or my brain. It’ll probably always be somewhere near my back. But in the last 10 years, we haven’t found a really effective treatment option.

Chitra Ragavan:

What was that like to know that you had a tumor that was rarer than being struck by lightning. That must’ve been quite a shock.

Vanessa Slavich:

I think the optimist in me is like, “Wow, I’m so special and unique. I’m really one of a kind.” And then actually at one point, so part of the reason I’m working with Pete now is we’ve done quite a bit of genetic testing in this time period, and we’ve never found the traditional molecular markers of a desmoid tumor.

Vanessa Slavich:

So I’ve had one doctor tell me, “It looks like a desmoid and smells like a desmoid, but we can’t actually prove it’s a desmoid.”

Vanessa Slavich:

And I even got a biopsy a month ago, and they tested it again. It came up with the same conclusion and so there’s a possibility that my tumor is also a rare one in the world of desmoids, and so I could be one of a kind which, intellectually, is really fascinating and working with Pete… I told him this week, the innovation side of this I love, and it’s like, “Wow, this is so interesting.” And then I’m like, “But it really sucks.” So I’m really curious about it, but it’s also really pretty overwhelming.

Chitra Ragavan:

I guess the startup, techie geek in you really appreciates it, but at an emotional level, it packs a punch, doesn’t it?

Vanessa Slavich:

For sure.

Chitra Ragavan:

Now, you’ve given the tumor a nickname. Tell us how that came about and why you call it what you do.

Vanessa Slavich:

So my tumor is called Ursula which is funny because my fiancé used to date someone named Ursula, so that’s a complex name, but I actually named her a long time ago when I found out that the way desmoid tumors kind of react is that they don’t invade in that it wouldn’t show up in my blood as I was kind of explaining, but they push, and they have tentacles. So there’s no… the idea of clear margins is kind of nebulous, partly because it’s part of the connective tissue. And so it’s kind of this evil thing that’s very hard to die or very hard to kill, and it has tentacles.

Vanessa Slavich:

And so I started getting this image of Ursula from the Little Mermaid, and it just felt fitting. And then after a pretty massive surgery I had in 2018, it came back in three places. And so now, Ursula has her little eels and it just… the metaphor keeps going, but I actually met another desmoid patient probably five years ago, and she also named hers Ursula for the same reason. So I feel like it’s quite fitting.

Chitra Ragavan:

That’s interesting. Now, it’s rare, but very aggressive at a local level. And it’s not a cancer, right, but it acts like one, and it’s typically treated by cancer doctors.

Chitra Ragavan:

What kinds of treatments have you had to date? I mean, this has been going on for a long time, hasn’t it?

Vanessa Slavich:

Yeah, like I mentioned, 10 years. So depending who you ask, it’ll be classified as cancer or not. As you mentioned, technically, it doesn’t metastasize, so in a typical sense then, you wouldn’t consider it as cancer, but I had one doctor tell me it’s actually worse because it’s part of my connective tissue which is everywhere.

Vanessa Slavich:

And so my treatments, as you mentioned, are all cancer centers. I get treated at UCSF, Ohio State. I’m now being treated at MSK in New York as well.

Vanessa Slavich:

And the treatments I’ve had to date, I’ve had surgery twice. I’ve had an operation called HIFU, which is High-Intensity Frequency Ultrasound, which they basically hack an MRI bed and shoot laser beams at your back which I did twice. And then I did two months of radiation, had a really massive surgery in 2018 where they took half my lat out and part of the spinal processes and then put a big skin graft, basically the size of a sheet of paper, over everything. And then it recurred after that which then came back in three places and then it pushed through the skin graft, so now I have an open wound and then since then, I’ve been on three different types of chemotherapy. And we’re looking at kind of really interesting… there’s a lot of progress in this space. And so we’re looking at more localized chemotherapy options where the same chemo compound could be put directly on the tumor instead of systemically throughout my entire body.

Vanessa Slavich:

So that’s some of the possibilities in the future, but then with Research to the People and all these different doctors I’m working with now, we’re considering basically vaccine-type technologies and gene therapy, and there’s a lot of other new innovations that could be potential treatment that’s in the future.

Chitra Ragavan:

So you said in your piece that you were taking a fairly traditional approach to managing your treatment and care, and you likened it to or contrasted it with hair care. Can you give us that analogy and explain what the change has been in how you manage your care?

Vanessa Slavich:

So for a long time, so I also used to race at Ironman Triathlons and be super active. And actually while I was getting radiation, I did an Ironman. It’s like, I was just kind of like, “Cool. Let’s go.” And so I tried to compartmentalize it, basically put Ursula in a box and live my life, and so I was still working at startups and crazy hours, and I did research in a refugee camp in Tanzania. And at the time, I was on chemo and struggling walking and my hair is falling out. So it’s like, I’ve definitely tried to live my life, despite all this happening in the background.

Vanessa Slavich:

And I used the hair metaphor. I have an amazing hairdresser. I’ve been going to him for almost 10 years. And he has helped me… basically, I go to him, and I’m like, “Hey, I’ve actually, quite a few times, wanted to look like Taylor Swift.” I just think her hairstyles have been lovely over the years, and so I’m like, “This photo of Taylor Swift.” And then he’s like, “Cool,” and then he just does it, right? And he cuts it, he cleans it, he styles it. He does everything, and I don’t have to think about it.

Vanessa Slavich:

And I’ve wanted that from the medical doctors and field in that I have my oncologist, and I just want to go to him and be like, “This is what I’m noticing,” and then we talk about the scan, and we’re like, “Cool. This should be your treatment.” I’m like, “Great.” And that’s what I want, but that is so far from reality.

Vanessa Slavich:

And this is not a fault of the doctor, right? It’s just a part of the complexity of the system, but B, the way the medical institutions are set up right now and kind of the medical industry, at least in the US, is it’s all around silos and specialties. And the patient is the only connection between all these different doctors.

Vanessa Slavich:

And so in one regard, it’s really empowering that I can make decisions and navigate my care, but am I equipped to do that, and how do I actually navigate when one specialist is telling me A and another specialist is telling me B. And I’m really trying to get clarity, not consensus. And I think the default is you kind of get into a world of consensus. Well, if three out of four doctors recommend that I get chemoembolization then maybe I should get chemoembolization where, in reality, that might not be the best option for me, especially when I don’t have data to clarify what that path should be.

Vanessa Slavich:

So we’ve been flying blind. It literally feels like you put your finger in the air, and you’re like, “It feels warm today. It’s like, “Can we measure it? Can I tell you what’s the temperature outside?”

Vanessa Slavich:

I kind of started with all of my treatment at UCSF with one doctor, and then I went to MD Anderson in Texas and Ohio, and then I was kind of triaging decisions, as I mentioned, looking for consensus. And then, now it’s a totally different approach in that I recognize that I just need to drive the process. And Pete has definitely helped a ton with this mindset and the team at Research to the People.

Vanessa Slavich:

And so instead of waiting to be told what to do or what my options are, it’s doing a lot of independent research, deciding what data we need, having an independent team. We have weekly stand-ups, et cetera, and so we’re kind of… we have our own, actually, three-part strategic plan, and I’m tapping into these different institutions and doctors that align to my plan.

Vanessa Slavich:

And so kind of going back to the hair metaphor, then, it’s a totally… I’m not going to one doctor or one hairdresser for a plan. I’m coming up with my own and tapping into the resources that I need to execute on it.

Chitra Ragavan:

So Pete, tell us a little bit about yourself and why you founded Research to the People.

Pete Kane:

Hi, so the organization actually had quite a runway to become what we are today. In short, what we’re doing right now is working with patients with the most challenging cases where they’re in rare cancer or rare disease and really, patients that are, like Vanessa, who’ve been on nine lines of therapy and still trying to figure out what is going to work for them. And especially… and Vanessa’s case is especially unique because it hasn’t been able to be clinically diagnosed as a desmoid tumor.

Pete Kane:

Our program got started in 2017. And back in the early days, we were a community group that was doing a lecture series about how AI has been used in healthcare. And we had just some of the smartest people showing up on a monthly basis to our lecture series in the Bay Area. I was really eager to do more with the wonderful folks who were showing up.

Pete Kane:

So I had had the idea to get a dataset from a hospital or something that we could work on as an open source community project. I call up the hospitals that I knew and said, “Hey, do you have any rad data that we can hack on as an AI community group?” And every hospital said, “No.”

Pete Kane:

So approximately around the same time, I met Onno Faber who is now a quite well-known patient and founder in the Bay Area. And Onno has a rare condition called NF2, neurofibromatosis type two. He had his tumor sequenced at the Broad Institute so he had exceptional data for his tumors, and he was dissatisfied with the current clinical options for NF2 and was seeking alternative routes.

Pete Kane:

So Onno and I decided to host a hackathon where we bring together a bunch of scientists, interdisciplinary scientists across AI, bioinformatics, biology, and computational biology and get everyone in the same room and release his genetic data to the group and see what more could be done or what new avenues could be presented for Ono and Ono’s case.

Chitra Ragavan:

And so how did that then lead to Research to the People as an organization?

Pete Kane:

So after the first event, there’s 150 people that showed up at Google in San Francisco to work on Onno’s case. And the energy in the room, all the cues was… it was more amazing than we could ever have predicted. The energy that it created was phenomenal. Folks were… the passion that the scientists came to the room with and being able to work with a patient and contribute to a patient case was… it cued us in that we were onto something really important and really, really big. And we shifted our entire organization to replicate what we had done with Ono for other patients.

Pete Kane:

And the second patient we worked with was actually a participant who helped analyze Ono’s tumors in the first case. Bill Paseman, he approached me afterwards and said, “Hey, I have a rare kidney cancer. Can you do the same thing for me?” And so we embarked on getting sequencing for Bill’s tumors and replicated the same type of event.

Pete Kane:

And since then, we’ve worked with two other patients, so four patients in total, and currently, we are working with four patients in 2021.

Chitra Ragavan:

So you’re working on a small scale, but the results and the model could be broadened out, do you believe, on a large scale?

Pete Kane:

I believe it can be expanded quite a bit. Whether or not this work can truly scale to the masses is TBD. I think that there’s going to be a lot of technology innovation that comes out of our group. Frankly, there already has been a lot of technology innovation that has come out of our group or where our group has been a connecting point for scientists who go on to work on collaborations together or in some cases, start businesses together, startups.

Pete Kane:

I think we’re really focused on being low volume and going really deep with one patient versus trying to tackle a larger space right now.

Chitra Ragavan:

What’s your background, by the way? Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Pete Kane:

Well, I studied Chinese language and literature at the University of Minnesota, and then I embarked on a long healthcare entrepreneurship journey. Started a number of healthcare startups, started a healthcare technology community based in Minnesota. And then when I got to the Bay Area, I just defaulted to the community building side of what I was interested in, and that’s the foundation of this group.

Chitra Ragavan:

Did you say you started by learning Mandarin? Is that what you said?

Pete Kane:

Yeah, I did. Yeah.

Chitra Ragavan:

So there’s a story here about how you went from Mandarin to healthcare research.

Pete Kane:

I don’t know. I studied Chinese language and literature in school. I mean, I have three Chinese adopted sisters, and so it made sense. But in terms of career, I wanted to do… I wanted to be in healthcare and technology.

Chitra Ragavan:

That’s great. So how does it work? Say, let’s take Vanessa and Ursula, and she’s hit a dead end in her treatment or not entirely satisfied with the how it’s being managed, how to find the state-of-the-art research because it’s such a rare condition. What happens next, Vanessa, when you found Pete somehow? How did that happen, and then how did you guys end up deciding to work together?

Pete Kane:

I mean, Vanessa can talk a little bit about how she found out about our organization. The first thing that we do when… we have a patient application process, and we recently implemented a system where the new patients to our program are selected by the previous patients that have gone through our program as a committee because the past patients know exactly what makes a good case and a good patient for our program. We end up working extremely closely with the patients, and in most… in a lot of cases, it becomes sort of a full-time position where the patient is working alongside with us every step of the way.

Chitra Ragavan:

That’s great. Vanessa, how did you find Pete?

Vanessa Slavich:

It was in December. I was looking… I was doing some research and just recognizing that I needed a new approach and kind of what other options are out there, and I read an article about the last case they worked on, the woman named Leila who was the founder of Samasource. And just hearing about the approach, I was kind of curious, and then I read their website, and I applied using a Google form which I remember being, “Wow, that’s so interesting for the medical field.” I was like…

Vanessa Slavich:

And then, literally, it was a Sunday night and then an hour later, I got a response being like, “Let’s do a call.” And I was like, “Whoa, this is very different than any other kind of medical experience I’ve had.” And Pete and I had a call, and then we talked about going on a bike ride when he was in town, and it just felt exciting.

Vanessa Slavich:

And when we started talking, I think one of the things Pete’s downplaying a bit, but his strength is really the interconnection between understanding how the hospitals work and what the doctors’ motivations are and what the patient needs are and what the nonprofits and the funders. He kind of sits at the intersection of all these different organizations and can translate.

Vanessa Slavich:

And so for me, he’s speaking, “We’re going to do this hackathon. It’s going to be open source. We’re going to get more”… I’m like, “Cool. Got it. All of the above.” But then when talking to doctors, it’s like, “We’re going to have a patient deep dive. You’re going to have access to X and X data. We’re going to do the sequencing.”

Vanessa Slavich:

And so in talking with him, he was speaking my language and kind of understanding where I was at. And I was like, “Absolutely, this sounds amazing.” And I knew that it’s just something that I wanted to put my energy towards.

Chitra Ragavan:

So what does the Goodbye Ursula strategic plan look like in this new sort of startup scenario with your hackathons and your Slack channels and your weekly stand-ups, and you’ve got a team you’ve put together. Tell us what it looks like and how it’s different than traditional sort of relationships with doctors and all of that.

Vanessa Slavich:

So our team is currently eight people, and it’s cross organization and institution. And that’s just the core kind of working group that we meet weekly and have meetings with all different experts.

Vanessa Slavich:

And then the strategic plan is a three-part phased approach. So the first part is shrinking the current tumors and hopefully, kind of eliminating to some degree. And then once my back is flat, and we have kind of that situation under control, there’s going be a different team of experts that come in to help actually close the wound. And one of the doctors thinks we can actually do it in a way that’s cosmetically appealing as well as going to stay closed and resolved.

Vanessa Slavich:

And then the third part is what’s our long-term suppression strategy? In the last five years, at least, nothing has been able to stop the growth. It’ll shrink, and it’ll grow off something or recover from a surgery and then it’ll come right back. And so it’s been this yo-yo for the last five years.

Vanessa Slavich:

And so we need some sort of systemic treatment modality, not that I necessarily need to be on it forever, but we need to explore what the options are and kind of understand at a root level what’s driving the growth again because we haven’t found the traditional markers or mutations which may be there, but if we do find that in the research, then it could point to different clinical trials that I could be part of, for example.

Vanessa Slavich:

So part one, shrink, part two, close, part three, long-term strategy.

Vanessa Slavich:

And then there’s kind of the core working group, but then we’re tapping into different doctors and organizations based on the treatment needs or kind of the different findings at each phase. And so as part of this whole plan, there’s collecting all of the data. So we had a big meeting with about 10 doctors on Monday, doctors and scientists, working through what is all the data we want to collect which is about, I think, 15 different kinds of sequencing-type tests. And then once we get all that together, organizing this hackathon of sorts or this kind of patient deep dive experience. We’re deciding if it’s remote or in person, given COVID, and then actually presenting the findings to teams of doctors, including my doctor to help them navigate decision-making and help me find treatment options.

Chitra Ragavan:

So I’m curious to know what are the biggest obstacles both you and Pete confront in this type of approach? I mean, one thing I’m thinking of who’s paying, right? How do insurance companies react? Is this different in any way? And you’ve got this huge team and is there… I mean, just tell me what are the intricacies of getting somebody to pay for this stuff and then other obstacles that you might find?

Chitra Ragavan:

Vanessa, do you want to go first?

Vanessa Slavich:

So, as part of the program, I haven’t actually paid anything yet which is also quite amazing that Pete’s been able to do a lot of this bootstrapped. But Pete’s working on a separate kind of longer term fundraising plan for Research to the People.

Vanessa Slavich:

But as far as my data sequencing, we’re reaching out to the different companies like Oxford Nanopore to see if they would donate the data. And then in exchange, have a case study for how the data is used. But then also doing fun things like familiar, I work in crypto, and we’re creating an NFT inspired by Ursula, and so that could potentially help fundraise for not only myself, but for the cohort, for Research to the People and so looking kind of fun, innovative ways to also bring more awareness to the program because I do think as this program scales, there’s going to be a lot more opportunities for people to kind of understand and kind of embody the patient-led research approach. And so I do want to share this program and all the amazing things that it’s already done for me with the broader tech community.

Chitra Ragavan:

What does the NFT or non-fungible token look like? What is it?

Vanessa Slavich:

So it’s still a work in progress. It’s actually a woman’s name, the artist’s name is and she has some really innovative ideas. I have a pretty massive scar on my back and so relate it to ecosystems and potentially something related to Ursula, so it’s going to be some sort of physical body work.

Chitra Ragavan:

Sounds great. You mentioned your back and in your piece, I think in your earlier piece about “Ursula, the Origin Story,” you talked about how you had massive surgery on your back and that you really couldn’t bear to look at your back for almost a year. So there’s a… you’re very strong and positive, but I see there’s this huge emotional component in dealing with an adversary that just won’t go away. What’s that been like?

Vanessa Slavich:

Been hard, for sure. I’ve definitely gone through my own spiritual journey and in relation to Ursula where, initially, I just wanted to get back to life. And so when I was getting radiation, I was feeling really fatigued, and my back was getting really fiery, and the skin was breaking down, and it was emotionally taxing.

Vanessa Slavich:

And so I planned a funeral for Ursula, and it was Little Mermaid themed, and we ate fish, and it was like, “See ya,” and at the time, she wasn’t gone. She was shrinking. And so it made me feel like I had something to celebrate.

Vanessa Slavich:

And so that helped, but that was kind of… I was like, “Once you’re over, just need to get this over and be done with.” And over time, I’ve just kind of moved into acceptance that maybe it’s not going to be over. Maybe it’ll never be over. I don’t know. But grateful for today and grateful for this life and just trying to kind of take it as it comes and not overthink it. And in the process and especially the last five years, I’ve really moved a lot more to acceptance.

Vanessa Slavich:

I read a book called The Book of Joy with Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama. And they talked about the difference between finding a cure, but still being healed. And I may never have a cure, but I can still find healing. And so that’s been a big focus for me is just how do I heal through this process, both physically and mentally and emotionally?

Chitra Ragavan:

And Pete, I’m sure that one of the big things you offer in addition to all of your expertise around the healthcare system is sort of this ability to support patients like Vanessa in their journey as they tackle these very rare conditions.

Pete Kane:

Working with patients is incredible. Vanessa has been absolutely amazing.

Chitra Ragavan:

How do you see this, potentially, in terms of the future of precision and personalized medicine at this incredible genetic and molecular level, and where do you think this can lead in the future? Pete, what do you see as your vision for this?

Pete Kane:

It’s a really special place in time where we have more data types coming online, especially in the research-grade data coming online and more and more algorithms being developed to provide personalized insights on this data. And I think the patients like Vanessa and the patients that are sort of more advanced and taking more ownership of their care really realizing that there’s a lot more data out there that you can get.

Pete Kane:

I mean, if you read the research, there’s incredible things happening on the research level that just aren’t really accessible at the clinical level. The number of cancer patients that aren’t getting sequenced is still quite high.

Pete Kane:

And one of the biggest things that people should realize is that there’s a huge delta between what’s available through the clinic in terms of sequencing and what’s available at a research level in terms of sequencing and other data generation.

Pete Kane:

So part of the genesis of our program is generating research-grade data for a patient and then bringing that data to the researchers who are experts in that data and seeing what more we can uncover and provide insight back to the patient and/or their doctors.

Chitra Ragavan:

Vanessa, what do you see as the future, having actually, from a patient perspective, having been through all this?

Vanessa Slavich:

I think a big part of it is the mindset leading into it, moving from, “I go to this doctor, or I go to this hospital.” I’ve learned a lot of things like the bigger the hospital brand, the more risk-averse they’re going to be because they’re protecting that brand. And so the best cancer centers might not actually be the best treatment. And so a big part of it is that you’re the one living the reality and so as the patient, and so you have to advocate for yourself at the end of the day.

Vanessa Slavich:

And it’s overwhelming when you are the one getting treatment and managing all this stuff. You need a team around you. That’s literally the only way to do it. And I’m so grateful to Pete and the rest of our team for kind of jumping in. Pete’s educated me so much on gene sequencing. I would watch the docu-series. I read the book. I’m learning so much about this process, and he’s definitely helped educate and advocate for me.

Vanessa Slavich:

And in that process, I’ve been owning more and more of my journey and my kind of own medical care. And I think this is the future that the reality is it takes a lot of time and energy. And so, again, the team is an essential component of that.

Vanessa Slavich:

But if we can get real data and this is where the startup and data-driven decision making, right? Data’s not the answer. Data’s not everything, right? It’s art and science, but right now in the last 10 years, it’s only been art in a way. It’s like, “Well, we could try this. We could try that,” and there’s been no data to kind of justify any decision for my care ever.

Vanessa Slavich:

And so I can be on some chemo for a year and not know if it’s going to work. Even the way we measure it, the MRIs are kind of a broken system too. And so this kind of patient-centered care where it’s literally about my case and not about some standard norm. Clinically proven doesn’t matter when you have a rare disease because it’s rare. The stats don’t matter, and so what are my stats?

Vanessa Slavich:

And so I think the future is really driving your own kind of data discovery and bringing a team around and then tapping into the care that you need. And I hope that more people have access to this because it’s really… I predict it’s going to be a huge game-changer in my care.

Chitra Ragavan:

I was very struck by one of your thoughts in your piece. You say, “As this journey continues with no end in sight, I have slowly transitioned towards a mindset of acceptance and love. I attempt to speak positively to Ursula, to check in and see what she needs. I’ve slowly let go of my suffering and moved to a place where I can mentally and emotionally help others and surround myself internally and externally with joy.”

Chitra Ragavan:

And I was just so struck by this idea of being able to speak positively to this incredibly aggressive tumor that’s haunting you, and this huge step that you’ve taken from when you had major surgery and you were dealing with all of the consequences of that.

Chitra Ragavan:

What advice would you give others who are dealing with these situations of how they can get to the place where you are of being able to speak positively to a tumor that’s endangering them?

Vanessa Slavich:

Are you familiar with the word equanimity? It’s that still point between effort and ease and so acceptance… some people are like, “You can’t just be accepting and passive,” right? And so there’s this… that’s kind of one end of the spectrum, but you also… my initial approach was like, “Let’s get… this is going down.” And so it was probably the other side of that spectrum. And so I’ve personally found this state of equanimity by going through the range of acceptance to full kind of aggression. And I think it is an evolution.

Vanessa Slavich:

There’s something called the grief cycle. And when I get new information that the tumor’s growing, I definitely go through my own grief cycle of denial, et cetera, but then eventually, I get to acceptance, and I have a bunch of tools. I play the harmonium, I hike, I bike, I have a community, I cook. There’s all these things that help bring me and ground me.

Vanessa Slavich:

And then once I can process the reality of this kind of situation or whatever’s going on, I move into planning and in December, when I reached out to Pete, that’s where I was. I was like, “I need a plan.”

Vanessa Slavich:

And so I think part of it is just recognizing as a patient or as someone who’s dealing with something kind of heavy and overwhelming. It’s like, “Where am I on? Where am I on this grief cycle” because it’s overwhelming. And again, right after surgery, I wasn’t ready for a plan.

Vanessa Slavich:

And so part of what’s helped me is recognizing where I’m at, acknowledging it, moving myself through the cycle. And then once I’m ready to plan, finding the right people or resources to help me kind of put together what I need to do and kind of move on.

Vanessa Slavich:

But the reality is if you got some cancer diagnosis today, you’re probably not going to be ready to engage with Research to the People tomorrow. It is definitely a journey. So just being kind to yourself and knowing that you might just be in the cycle and you might be in this process and finding whatever tools help you lift out of that cycle so that then you can find the people who can really make a difference for you.

Chitra Ragavan:

That’s amazing. And you even managed to run a half marathon last March in the middle of all of this. I don’t know how you pull that off.

Vanessa Slavich:

That was amazing. It was actually March 1st, so it was right before they shut down. And so I’m so grateful I did it. I was on chemo at the time, and I ran 8:30 pace which I was pretty proud of. And it was my first big run post-surgery, and it felt like a huge accomplishment just getting back out there and training with my good friend, Arielle, waking up every day and just seeing what the body is capable of.

Chitra Ragavan:

Physical and symbolic.

Vanessa Slavich:

Exactly.

Chitra Ragavan:

Wonderful. Pete, do you have any closing thoughts on this journey that patients like Vanessa are going through and on your efforts to try to help them?

Pete Kane:

The program that we’ve put together is really possible because of the huge biotech influence in the Bay Area and the universities here. And none of what we would have done, none of what we’ve built, and how we’ve worked with the patients would be possible without an incredible number of industry and academic partners and just the all the scientists willing to dedicate their time to a patient case. So I think I like to default to their accomplishments and the patients versus our program. I really just feel like a connector in between the two spaces.

Chitra Ragavan:

And you have some really important strategic partnerships, both completed and underway, as well with some of these major healthcare institutions and academic institutions as well.

Pete Kane:

We’re excited to make some announcements soon.

Chitra Ragavan:

That’s great. Well, Vanessa and Pete, thank you so much for joining me today and for this great conversation.

Vanessa Slavich:

Thank you, Chitra.

Pete Kane:

Thank you so much.

Chitra Ragavan:

Vanessa Slavich is head of community for Celo, an open source platform making financial tools accessible to anyone with a mobile phone. Slavich is taking an innovative and strategic approach to combat her rare and aggressive tumor. You can read about her efforts in her fascinating new post in Substack called The Startup Body: Managing My Health Like a Boss. And don’t miss Vanessa’s original story about her battle with the tumor, which she’s nicknamed Ursula, also in Substack, entitled Ursula: The Tumor Origin Story.

Chitra Ragavan:

You can follow Vanessa on Substack under Vanessa Slavich.

Chitra Ragavan:

Pete Kane is Founder and Executive Director at Research to the People, a nonprofit biomedical research initiative based in San Francisco. Research to the People helps patients co-lead and direct new research and treatment options for their conditions. The group is creating a bold new model for patient-centric treatment and giving voice to patients who are grappling with rare and complex diseases.

Chitra Ragavan:

This is Techtopia. I’m Chitra Ragavan.

Chitra Ragavan:

Techtopia is a podcast from Goodstory, an advisory firm helping technology startups with brand strategy, positioning, and narrative. Our producer is Jeremy Corr, founder and CEO of Executive Podcasting Solutions with production assistance from Kate Cruse. Our creative advisor is Adi Wineland, and our research and logistics lead is Sarah Möller.

Chitra Ragavan:

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or your preferred podcast platform. And if you liked the show, please rate it five stars, leave a review, and do recommend it to your friends, family, and colleagues. For questions, comments, and transcripts, please visit our website at goodstory dot io or send us an email at podcast at goodstory dot io.

Chitra Ragavan:

Join us next week for another episode of Techtopia. I’ll see you then.

The extraordinary scientific and technological innovations around the COVID-19 vaccines have enabled the U.S. government and governments around the world to deploy multiple vaccines against the lethal virus — allowing a gradual reopening of society and return to a new normal. What do we need to do to defeat COVID-19 once and for all and how can technology be used to prevent such devastating pandemics in the future? It’s always a wake-up call to speak with Dr. Robert Pearl, author of a new book out this spring called “Uncaring: How the Culture of Medicine Kills Doctors and Patients.” Dr. Pearl also hosts two popular podcasts, Fixing Healthcare and Coronavirus: The Truth.

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Chitra Ragavan:

The extraordinary scientific and technological innovations around the COVID-19 vaccines, have enabled the U.S. Government and governments around the world to deploy multiple vaccines against the lethal virus, allowing a gradual reopening of society and return to a new normal. Hello, everyone I’m Chitra Ragavan and this is Techtopia. What do we need to do to defeat COVID-19 once and for all? And how can technology be used to prevent such devastating pandemics in the future? Here to answer those questions and more is Dr. Robert Pearl. He’s the author of a new book out this Spring called Uncaring: How the Culture of Medicine Kills Doctors and Patients. Dr. Pearl hosts, the popular podcasts, Fixing Healthcare and Coronavirus, The Truth. Dr. Pearl, welcome to Techtopia.

Robert Pearl:

Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Chitra Ragavan:

It seems as if we’re finally seeing the light at the end of a very dark tunnel with these multiple vaccines being given emergency authorization, more and more shots given in arms, schools starting to reopen, businesses reopening. What’s your assessment of where we are today compared to even a month ago, here in the U.S. and what are we likely to see in coming days, weeks, and months?

Robert Pearl:

Great question. Let me go back to one thing that you said earlier. I want listeners to know that all the profits from the book Uncaring: How the Culture of Medicine Kills Doctors and Patients, goes to a charity, Doctors without Borders, so if they purchase the book, they actually are going to be contributing to some global healthcare delivery. Thank you. In terms of the vaccine, this is a massive breakthrough. In “The Coronavirus: The Truth” podcast that Jeremy Corr and I do, I talk about chess games, an opening set of moves that the United States totally failed at. We did insufficient amount to limit the spread, to provide education, to have a national strategy, we could spend hours talking about the failures. But the middle game that we’re in right now, is one of the vaccine and it’s absolutely brilliant, particularly the messenger RNA vaccines.

Robert Pearl:

I know that a lot of your listeners are in the tech world, CEOs of companies, so to help to provide context, the human body or the viral organism has genetic material, and that material directs the body to create proteins. And between the genetic material in humans inside the nucleus and the actual proteins that are created, there is a code sent out. It’s called messenger. Think about that, the message is trotting out there with the code and RNA for the ribonucleic acid. And although it’s been thought of for a long time, that we could take this RNA, this messenger RNA, and inject it into people, get their bodies to produce the proteins that are responsible for the infection, the proteins that are specific to the virus or the bacteria for that matter, and then get our bodies to create an immune response, it had never been done. Despite two decades of trying to make it work.

Robert Pearl:

It’s why it was a long shot. And I wrote a piece in August questioning whether we’d be successful. And that was only seven months ago, and today 95% efficacy, tremendous safety, that’s what the vaccines currently are able to do. And the beauty of it is how fast, I knew vaccine can be produced. In the past, it took a minimum of five years, and that was fast for a lot of vaccines. Now we can do it in a matter of about six weeks. And we’ll probably talk a little bit about some of the new mutant strains, which is a great threat to us. We can actually modify the vaccine as needed to be able to respond to the mutants. Because we understand the single change protein in these new viruses and we can design new messenger RNA to create that exact protein going forward.

Chitra Ragavan:

Yeah. And in fact, Moderna is trying out, it’s doing a trial, looking at some of these variants and Johnson & Johnson, I think has been found to be very effective against some of the variants, so already you’re kind of seeing that the existing vaccines may offer some, if not a lot of protection plus any new vaccines that may come out to deal with the variance, right?

Robert Pearl:

Absolutely. The current vaccines, there’s three main variances, there’s one in the United Kingdom, one in South Africa and one in Brazil. The one from United Kingdom is the one that right now represents as much as 30% of the disease in the United States, and the vaccines are still effective, although probably slightly less. It’s less clear what’s going to happen with the other two variants, although there should be at least some degree of protection and the opportunity to be able to change the vaccine and as you say, people are looking at that. They’re also looking at giving a third dose to boost the antibody levels that are produced even higher as a possible alternative solution. Again, for listeners, what then happens technologically is that this messenger RNA has to be put into the human body, and it can be done that in one of two ways, the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines injected directly into the muscle, the messenger RNA is surrounded by a lipid, a fatty capsule that keeps it from being broken down, it gets inside the muscle and it stimulates the response.

Robert Pearl:

The Johnson & Johnson, which is a single dose vaccine, takes that same messenger RNA and puts it inside of actually a chimpanzee adenovirus from which humans don’t become sick, and that accomplishes the same goal and outcome. So I’m very optimistic that we have the tool to succeed. I am concerned because we’ve done such a poor job overall that… In this, I’ll call it the end game, that we’re not going to be able to checkmate this virus. And I say that not because of the technology, the technology should be able to accomplish it, but it’s going to require that enough people have the vaccine to reach what’s called herd immunity. So if you think about a virus that has, what’s an R naught, it has the ability to go from one person to three, which is what the original Coronavirus could do, and you’re able to immunize two out of those three people, then what’s going to happen is the virus can’t propagate and slowly it will disappear.

Robert Pearl:

The challenge of these new mutant variants is that they have an “R naught” (R0) closer to five. They’re about 60, 70% more transmissible, and therefore more people are going to have to be vaccinated. And my big concern is that sometime in May, maybe June, but probably in May, we’re going to get to the point where the supply and demand for this vaccine is going to start flipping around, and where fewer people are going to want it than we have vaccines, and we’re not going to be able to reach the point that we can actually eliminate this virus. And if that happens and the mutant forms, even let’s say, continue with one more change to make it even more transmissible, we could find ourselves way back where we started rather than being at the end of the tunnel.

Chitra Ragavan:

Wow. A lot to think about. And obviously we’ve had, like you mentioned, so many hurdles, the politics, the testing, manufacturing, deploying, supply chain, and all of those are still sort of ongoing to various degrees, and there’s going to be a ton of second guessing and soul searching going on for years, as you said, about what could have been done differently, but looking forward a bit, what are some of the biggest shifts both from this technological perspective of this vaccines, plus COVID testing,, quarantining, that would change the way we will deal with future outbreaks of this or other diseases?

Robert Pearl:

One thing that’s very positive about the mRNA type vaccine, is that every living structure has genetic material. So the opportunity exists that we could develop successful vaccines against diseases, malaria being a great example, that has frustrated us and actually kills millions of people every year, not in the United States, but in other countries, and we could come up with a vaccine. One of the issues, as you know we’ve dealt, with is that particularly for some diseases that are predominant in poor countries, the economics have not led vaccine manufacturers to create vaccines although they could have, all that potentially could be changed as a result of this new vaccine technology. In terms of future pandemics, hopefully we’ll have in place better opportunity to identify it. We were probably two months late globally, and being able to understand what was going on inside China, I’m hoping that would not be the case.

Robert Pearl:

The technology that is out there in a variety of ways, both directly being able to see the scientific findings, being able to see the healthcare changes, and be able to see the kinds of questions through artificial intelligence, that people are asking. When everyone starts asking about some disease we haven’t heard of, we can have a pretty good guess that this could be the start of some kind of pandemic and we’ll have a better technological tools to be able to understand the landscape, and then to be able to find the offending organism, be able to do its genetic sequencing and come up with a vaccine. So that opportunity sits in place. Having said that, I think we have to understand a variety of challenges that this Coronavirus has created. One example is, we think about the national borders, the virus doesn’t care about borders. There are 7 billion people in the world, and it can mutate in almost any place around the globe and pose danger to those nations that are seemingly protected.

Robert Pearl:

The second one is going to be the economics. We’re seeing that right now with the Coronavirus vaccines, countries like the United States are holding on to more doses than the citizens could even take, no less that they might be willing to take. We’re seeing some of the same, called hoarding, in Europe and there’re nations that are going to be looking at two years from now. We’re seeing the economic challenges created even by a relatively inexpensive vaccine in a country that is so poor that it can’t afford to purchase it, and we’re seeing issues, very strong issues about race. This is the theme of one of the chapters of the book Uncaring: How the Culture of Medicine Kills Doctors and Patients. Why would black individuals have three times higher rates of death percentage-wise to population from Coronavirus.

Robert Pearl:

Pose that question to a group of physicians and what are they going to point to? They’ll point to the social determinants of health, the social economic factors around them, they’ll point out the fact that African-American workers tend to be in jobs that can’t be done virtually and therefore they have to go into work often taking buses and subways, areas of ease of transmission. Maybe they live in homes with multi-generations, and it can be brought into the home by others, and then they become sick, and if they become sick, they have the possibility of critical disease and death. And then you look at some of the statistics. You have to ask yourself why early in the pandemic, when there were not enough testing kits, and two people came to the emergency department, one a white patient one a black patient with exactly the same symptoms, the doctors test the white patient twice as often.

Robert Pearl:

Why when the black patient had a procedure performed, did he or she receive 40% less pain medication than the white patient? We can look at the fact that the mortality of black patients delivering a baby is three times higher than white patients. Except when the attending physician is a black physician. There’s all these issues sitting there in a culture of medicine, beyond the systemic ones. One of the things I believe that we have to do going forward, if we want to protect the people, both in the United States and around the globe, is to address both these systemic and these cultural ones, and the place that comes together is going to be technology.

Chitra Ragavan:

And on a related note, you’re seeing the emergence of biosurveillance technologies like vaccine passports, suggestions for electronic bracelets that can monitor quarantining, and of course, wearable devices, even like the Fitbit are able to detect changes, right? In respiratory rate or other potential indicators of COVID-19. And on the one hand, these can be powerful tools to be able to prevent pandemics, but on the other hand, going back to your comment about the racial inequities in society, there are a lot of potential downsides to creating the haves and have nots in society. Where do you think biosurveillance technologies will head in the future given COVID-19 and the issues they’re going to raise.

Robert Pearl:

There are so many areas of technology in healthcare that are massive, that are going to explode in the future or I should say, should explode in the future. What’s going to inhibit them? The culture of medicine. The fact that physicians are not as interested in some of these areas as they need to be, instead, they’re very attracted to certain technology like robots, that sound very cool and things that they can build for, but don’t have the same impact. What you’re describing is tremendously relevant. If I had to break it down into a few pieces, what you’re describing is, how do we understand what’s going on sooner in the world around us? And they’re using these monitoring devices, whether you’re going to do it through some input on your smartphone, through a Fitbit, whether you’re going to do it by looking at social media and seeing what people are commenting upon, the opportunity to use artificial intelligence, to me is a remarkable tool that’s there assuming that we take action as soon as we identify a problem that is not yet great enough.

Robert Pearl:

One of the problems. And you listeners are, many of them are engineers and have mathematical backgrounds. It’s the difference between arithmetic numbers and exponential numbers. When a virus expands from one to three, what you see is that it’s very small, incidents early, mask the fact of how it’s going to explode. And early on, we talked about the lily pond that doubles each day in size. And it takes, let’s say 60 days to become fully covered. At day 59, it’s only half covered. At day 58, it’s only a quarter covered. In day one and two, three, four, five, you can’t even tell that anything’s going on. That’s what happens in those areas because the human mind can’t calculate exponential change, machines have no problem doing it.

Robert Pearl:

AI has no problem figuring this out and coming up with a longer term view. So that opportunity is sitting there. The ways that we can use monitors to be able to evaluate blood pressure, pulse, oxygenation is very advanced right now and becoming more advanced. The problem that exists right now, this gets back again into this culture of medicine, and it also gets into the legal and the companies with this technology, is that we are not applying the most advanced technological mindsets to their use. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, let’s assume that we can do continuous blood sugar monitoring for a patient with diabetes, right? If in doing that, what do we want to be able to do? We want the machine or the AI loaded into a machine to be able to tell the patient how they’re doing. We might even want that machine to make treatment suggestions, but more significantly what we want it to be able to tell the individual each day is that they’re okay.

Robert Pearl:

Now, what do I mean by that? Well, think about how we deliver healthcare in the United States today. I see you with a chronic disease, let’s say it’s diabetes, and I tell you something about changes you should make. And then I say, I’ll see you again in three months. Well, tomorrow you may be in trouble or you might not be in trouble for a year, and yet we treat every patient the same. The technology has that ability to be able to look at the changes, given the inputs and the minimum maximum levels that I set as a clinician and be able to inform you each day, and so now I say to you, “I’ll see you whenever you need me to see you.” I don’t need to see you in three months, I may need to see you in three days or might not just see you for a full year, I should see you once a year just to make sure everything’s okay, but the technology will help monitor you with that.

Robert Pearl:

There’s a device right now that does that. It’s the artificial defibrillator, the implantable defibrillator. And the way the implantable defibrillator works by law, is that when it fires, which means that you had a heart problem, for which you’d have to restart your heart, there’s a national collecting place to which that information gets sent, and then the clinician gets immediately notified. That’s the only example of where the machine is basically saying, the doctor doesn’t need to see you because it hasn’t fired or the doctor needs to see you because it did fire, and then he or she needs to see you today. That’s what I believe we need. Now, why isn’t Apple or Google developing it today? Because of the legal risks.

Robert Pearl:

If something goes wrong, they’re going to have to defend why a patient had a problem that theoretically, a doctor might’ve been able to prevent. The reality is that problems happen all the time, because that’s the nature of medicine. You make your guesses based upon 95%, 98%, 99%, 99% still means 1% of people will have an untoward effect. It’s just that 99% will be better. That’s a risk right now, a legal risk that no company has been willing to undertake. I hope that some of your listeners will move forward and make it happen. It would transform the way that healthcare is provided in the United States.

Chitra Ragavan:

You are the former CEO of the Permanente Medical Group, which is the nation’s largest medical group. Your’re former president of the Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group. And in these roles, you’ve led 10,000 physicians, 38,000 staff responsible for treatment of five million Kaiser Permanente Members, and you’ve been named one of Modern Healthcare’s 50 most influential physician leaders. But you have been unafraid to really turn the lens on your profession and ask some really hard questions based on your experience. Your first book was called Mistreated: Why We Think We’re Getting Good Healthcare. And Why We’re Usually Wrong. And your upcoming book, this Spring is called Uncaring: How the Culture of Medicine Kills Doctors and Patients. What’s it been like to sort of turn the lens on yourself and your fellow colleagues and what is the premise of your new book and how did COVID-19 inform your thinking?

Robert Pearl:

When I wrote Mistreated at the time, pre-COVID, the way you promoted a book was to go around to a variety of conferences and give talks, to go to a variety of communities and give presentations, and I worried. Going on radio shows, TV shows, I was worried how doctors are going to respond. I didn’t write the book in any way to castigate the physicians providing the care, I wrote it to castigate the healthcare system. One that fails to encourage prevention, one that undervalues primary care, one that is overly expensive, not the people but the system. But I worried about the people and what was interesting to me, I didn’t hear a single physician who complained about the book. In fact, most of them came up to me and thanked me and they thank me for two reasons. First of all, a lot of them had their own family stories. And I begin the book with the story of my dad and how he died of a preventable medical error. And they said to me, “If it can happen to you and me and we’re both doctors, imagine what happens to everyone else.

Robert Pearl:

And the second thing they talked a lot about was burnout, and 400 physician suicides a day. And that’s what led me to writing this second book, Uncaring: How the Culture of Medicine Kills Doctors And Patients. And it’s similarly is not a castigation anyway, for the people providing the care, they work incredibly hard. You do remarkable work. It’s the culture of medicines not the system, it’s the culture of medicine. Now what do I mean by culture? Culture is the combination of beliefs and values, norms, they’re not taught in any classroom, you can’t find them in any textbook, you learn them by observing those more senior to you, you’ll hear the stories that are told, you are able to watch the actions of people, the language they use. And so that’s the question that I looked at.

Robert Pearl:

And the culture of medicine, the physician culture, has a beautiful side to it. It came out during COVID. You had physicians going to the hospital, working 12 to 24 hour shifts, facing great personal danger. When there weren’t enough gowns, they put on garbage bags, and when there were not enough N95 masks, they put on . . . they knew that as they passed the tube through the mouth, towards the lung, through the vocal chords, the minute it hit the vocal chords, the patient would always cough and spew virus into their face. When there weren’t enough breathing machines for the patients who needed them, they figured out ways to put two patients on the same machine. Something we had not, not only not been done it’d never even been thought of in the past.

Robert Pearl:

Yeah. The culture of medicine is… The physician culture, is capable of helping physicians to do remarkable, remarkable things. But what’s not seen? Is that as in all cultures, it has a negative side. One of the things we saw during this pandemic is that 88% of people who died had two or more chronic diseases, these could be diabetes, hypertension, obesity, chronic lung or heart disease, and many of these problems are either preventable or easily controlled. And it’s not that we couldn’t do it, hypertension is a great example, it’s the most common chronic disease that patients who went on to be hospitalized and died had. Across the nation today, we control it 55% of the time. In Kaiser Permanente, when I was the CEO, we controlled it over 90%. Now, why, how did that happen? We had the same doctors, the same medication, the same, or we had different technology, we had a different culture, a culture that valued prevention, a culture that valued avoidance of complications, patients’ safety, a culture that had a common electronic health record so that every clinician is sharing the same information and can act upon it.

Robert Pearl:

But in the culture of medicine, the physician culture, in most communities, those things are just not valued, we elevate the cardiologist who unblocks the coronary arteries, we don’t elevate the physician capable of preventing them in the first place, for being there. We saw during COVID-19 that African-American patients, black patients had three times the mortality of white patients. If you think it, about how did this happen? Doctors would quickly point out all of the, it’s called social determinants of health, all the societal and economic issues that are out there and pour to the fact that black workers often are in jobs that didn’t allow them to stay home working virtually, they had to go in to do a lot of the maintenance work, let’s say at a particular organization. Had to take buses and subways to get there. They were exposed. Maybe they lived in households with lots of people. But then they skip over the other issues, they skip over the fact that when the black patient or the white patient came to the ER, with the same symptoms that the white patient got treated twice as often, that the white patient got the 40% more pain medication after a procedure. All the things that exist in the culture, the culture allows us not to see the racism that is institutional and provided and the culture maintains values from the last century. That will be interesting for the technological leaders listening in to fully understand.

Robert Pearl:

You see, in the past, in the 20th century, we didn’t have enough medical knowledge. What did we elevate and value? The intuition of the doctor, the anecdotal experience of the individual physician. We saw variation as a way of finding out answers. 21st century. We know most of those answers. What’s the most valued now? Using technology to provide consistent care to patients. And this is part of the problem because physicians clinging to the culture of the past, don’t see this as being as valuable. They see it as demeaning, the physician, rather than elevating the individual and the book, looks both at the problems that exist and what the solutions are going to look like in the post-Coronavirus era.

Chitra Ragavan:

And is that what you mean when you say that today’s physicians have… In your book, have a surprising disdain for technology?

Robert Pearl:

Technology that undermines the values of the culture is technology that is seen to threaten them. I talk about Ignaz Semmelweis. Ignaz Semmelweis was a physician in 1850s, in Austria, and he got appointed the head of the maternity unit. And at the time, people thought that the cause of death following delivery, well, they knew the cause. 18% of people in his particular hospital were dying from what’s called Puerperal fever. And they thought the cause were miasmas, this little smelly particles wafting up from the streets. Semmelweis when he takes the job though, notices that the adjacent facility, one run by midwives, not by skilled physicians, has a mortality of two thirds lower, he’s embarrassed. Often in medicine it’s serendipity that helps us understand what’s going on, a colleague of his nicks a finger while doing an autopsy on a woman who’s just died from Puerperal fever, and he goes on to develop a clinical course and to die with seemingly the same symptoms and findings as this particular woman.

Robert Pearl:

And he comes up to the idea that somehow it’s physicians who are carrying something, either on their hands or the leather aprons they wore over the three-piece suits from the autopsy room to the delivery room. And he makes people change their leather aprons before they go in to do a delivery and dip their hands in chlorinated water and low and behold, mortality drops from 18% to 2%. what do you think happened? Do you think the rest of the world followed the lead, did every hospital started putting these mechanisms in place? No. He publishes the paper, no one pays any attention, he ultimately is hospitalized in a psychiatric facility and dies alone four years later. I mean, think about it all the systemic reasons that we would be thinking about for this tremendous advance in science are overwhelmed by this culture.

Robert Pearl:

Why? Because the idea that physicians could carry an infection from one room to the next room means that then it lowers their esteem, their position in the societal hierarchy because now they’re not just healers, they’re actually causers of disease. And those leather aprons, they were signs of respect in the culture. The more pus, the more blood, the more experience you had, the idea that they could be causing the problem was simply not one that Semmelweis’ colleagues could entertain. Now, why do I think the story is so powerful? It hasn’t related today. Well, today hospital acquired infection is still a major problem. It’s the third leading cause of death in the United States. 1.5 million people get infected and over a hundred thousand go on to die. The most common bacterium is C. Diff, Clostridium Difficile. And unlike the Coronavirus, it’s carried on people’s hands not transmitted through the air and you can solve it through hand-washing.

Robert Pearl:

But what our studies show doctors today fail to wash their hands one in three times, when they go from one hospital room to the next hospital room, it’s no different than in Semmelweis’ time. Technology that is going to make the practice of medicine seem routine, that’s going to make the value or the doctor seem less important. It’s going to be at a flattening in the hierarchy in medicine. These will be resisted by physicians, not because they don’t save lives, but because they reduce status. That is how culture works. And yes, the problem is going to be that the best solutions, whether they’re algorithmic solutions around evidence-based medicine, AI derived approaches that we already know are going to be as good or better than physicians can do in many areas, those will be rejected if, as a consequence of that physician esteem, physician position on the hierarchy drops, that is how every culture works, including the physician culture.

Chitra Ragavan:

Dr. Pearl, thank you for that great story and sobering anecdote, and for joining me on Techtopia, it’s always so good to talk to you. Dr. Pearl, where can people learn more about your book and about your body of work?

Robert Pearl:

For listeners who would like more information, they can go to the website, robertpearlmd.com. There they can sign up for the monthly musings at no cost and with no advertising, on the monthly musings, themselves. They can access if they pre-order the book Uncaring: How the Culture of Medicine Kills Doctors and Patients, with all profits going to Doctors Without Borders. They can get four freebies, a signed bookplate, your reading guide, a reference guide of all the books that can be learned from on this particular area, and a preview of the introductory chapter. That’s robertpearlmd.com, and I look forward to getting any feedback that listeners have about these ideas or what they find on the website. Thank you so much. I hope the listeners will now use this as the opportunity to create the technology that patients deserve and physicians need to use, that’s going to make American medicine once again, the best in the world.

Chitra Ragavan:

Dr. Robert Pearl is a clinical professor of plastic surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine, and is on the faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Named one of Modern Healthcare’s 50 most influential physician leaders, Pearl publishes a newsletter with more than 12,000 subscribers called Monthly Musings On American Healthcare. And he’s a regular contributor to Forbes, he’s been featured on CBS This Morning, CNBC, NPR, and in Time, USA Today and Bloomberg News. This is Techtopia, I’m Chitra Ragavan.

A large number of women participated in the rioting at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 by violent supporters of former President, Donald Trump. Some allegedly played a key role in plotting the protests and two of the five people killed in the riots were women. How have women exploited technology to expand their reach and influence in the alt-right movement? And have technology companies done enough to counter and combat their disinformation campaigns and hate messaging by white nationalists? Seyward Darby, author of Sisters in Hate: American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism has some interesting insights.

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Chitra Ragavan:

I was struck by the number of women taking part in the rioting at the US Capitol on January 6, by violent supporters of former President Donald Trump. Who are these women, I wondered? How have they exploited technology to expand their reach and influence in the alt-right movement? And have technology companies done enough to counter and combat their disinformation campaigns and hate messaging.

Chitra Ragavan:

Hello, everyone. I’m Chitra Ragavan, and this is Techtopia. Here to answer those questions and more is Seyward Darby. She is the author of Sisters in Hate: American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism. Darby is the editor in chief of The Atavist Magazine, a forum for great long-form journalism. Darby previously served as the deputy editor of Foreign Policy, and the online editor and assistant managing editor of The New Republic. As a writer, she has contributed to The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Elle, and Vanity Fair, among other publications.

Chitra Ragavan:

Seyward, welcome to Techtopia.

Seyward Darby:

Thank you so much for having me.

Chitra Ragavan:

What led you to start researching the role of women in white nationalism and to write Sisters in Hate?

Seyward Darby:

I began this project immediately after the election that preceded this one. So I guess four years prior, so in 2016. Just like January 6th of this year and the aftermath of the election in 2020 has led a lot of people to ask questions about the state of the country and to ask questions certainly about women’s complicity in the far right in this country. I had a similar question after 2016. But in that case, rather than number of women who were suddenly in the news, it was the opposite. There were no women who were ever quoted or mentioned as being part of the so called alt-right movement, which had gotten a good amount of press attention over the course of the election, because of the movement’s affinity for Trump and the way that he projected dog whistles to them.

Seyward Darby:

So I would read articles about the alt right and find that there were always mentions of how they were angry white men, and it was so misogynistic, and a woman was never quoted, there were no photos of women. There was just a complete absence of women. And that struck me as wrong from the standpoint of how social movements actually function and what is required for social movements to function, particularly social movements that are all about making sure you’re preserving an identity, a way of life, a race in this case. You literally need women for that. And history has shown us that women have been very deeply involved in many oppressive, racist regimes and organizations.

Seyward Darby:

So, I went looking for the women. They were quite easy to find. They were exactly where you’d expect them to be on YouTube, and Twitter, and Facebook, and all of these different platforms. I then dove into these questions of who are they? Why do they believe what they believe? How did they come to believe what they believe? But also, why are we not talking about them? Why have they been erased from the wider narrative about the far right? And so that was exactly four years ago, basically, that I kicked this into gear.

Chitra Ragavan:

When you use the phrase “dog whistle,” for those of us who are not familiar with that, what do you mean?

Seyward Darby:

Dog whistle is essentially coded language, suggestive language. I mean, frankly, you could argue that make America great again, and America first are dog whistles, because embedded… Well, first of all, there are echoes of actual clan slogans from the 1920s. But then on top of that, within that is embedded this idea of America as being very much for white Americans. And so “dog whistles” are things where you’re not… Trump isn’t using the N word, or Trump isn’t saying America for white Americans, but the language is coded such that people who do, believe these more hateful ideas, will hear what they want to hear in that language. That’s a dog whistle, obviously, is something that only a dog can hear. And in this case it’s language that people who know what to be listening for can hear the truth inside it basically.

Chitra Ragavan:

You were so deep into researching all of this when the January 6th riots took place at the US Capitol, and you see all of these women not just participating, but several of them taking the lead. Others had been involved in planning and two women actually died of the five people. In addition to the Capitol Police Officer, Brian Sicknick, there were two women. Ashli Babbitt, she was an Air Force veteran, a former Air Force veteran. You saw images of her pushing through the window and getting killed by a US Capitol Police Officer. And then you had Rosanne Boyland, who may have been crushed to death by fellow rioters while trying to push through a police line. When you saw this unfolding, what were your thoughts having done all of this research that you had already done?

Seyward Darby:

It was certainly horrifying to me what happened on January 6, and it was definitely one of those moments I don’t think I’ll ever forget. It’s like watching 9/11 transpire on TV. You’re watching this protest that is suddenly moving closer and closer, and then suddenly is inside the halls of government and you’re witnessing history in that moment. So I certainly was horrified, but I was in no way surprised. And I think that there were two reasons for that. One was that they had literally been projecting online, I should say, using the Internet as a bullhorn to say, “This is what we’re going to do. We are going to go. We are going to do this. This is the plan.” I don’t know how they could have been more explicit in a way that would have gotten media attention or… Governmental attention is obviously difficult to get when the administration is on the side of what you want to do, but they had literally been spelling it out.

Seyward Darby:

And then I think on top of that, the reason I was not surprised about women specifically, was that in the course of my research, I had been hearing the ways in which for the last four years, but also stretching further back in time, the far right has been making appeals to women as important actors or telling them they can be important actors in this space. That in times of great struggle and in times when revolution is necessary, which is the way that they talk about the present moment, that women will need to be on the front lines, shoulder to shoulder with men. That in better times and in good times, women can be at home with their families and taking care of children and doing the things that “women are supposed to do”.

Seyward Darby:

But in moments where it feels like something has been taken away, when it feels like the enemies of all that they stand for and all that they believe in, are winning, which this is how the election and the Biden administration was cast by the far right, that women should be on the front lines too.

Seyward Darby:

And I should say, just as a quick aside, I do not know the specific politics of every single woman who showed up there. I do not know if they would all consider themselves white nationalists. I’m sure that many of them would in fact not identify that way, but I think that what’s interesting about the evolution of the far right is that identification matters less in some ways than what it is that you actually believe, the actions that you take based on those beliefs, and also where you’re getting your information. I think that the far right has done a very good job over the last several decades, frankly, of poisoning different wells on the Internet, if you will, of information and saying, “Oh, you’re interested in natural living.” Or, “You’re skeptical of vaccines. Oh, let us pour a little bit of what we believe into the water.”

Seyward Darby:

And so you start consuming the same conspiracy theories and grievances, or what you’re told should be grievances, even if as you’re consuming them, you’re not necessarily thinking, “Oh, this is making me a white nationalist.” So that’s a long way of saying, “I was going to be an aside and here I am going off. I’m more of a tangent.” But I think it’s important to recognize that the people who were at the Capitol, they were absolutely about white nationalists, white supremacists. But then there were people who would say, “No, no, I’m not that. I’m just a patriot.” But that, in fact, they are and had been consuming the same ideas, regurgitating the same ideas that the white nationalists and white supremacists had.

Chitra Ragavan:

I think that’s a really important point and a fair one to make, just so that we can better represent who may have been there that day, but also sort of some of the underlying subtext to what’s out there on YouTube and all of these other channels. We’ll talk about that in a minute or two. But one of the women that you featured in your book, Lana Lokteff, said in a speech in Stockholm in 2017 that, “It was women that got Trump elected.” And I guess to be really edgy,” she continued, “It was women that got Hitler elected.” That was an interesting point that she was trying to make and I wonder if you could give us a little bit of history. Obviously, there were many, many women on the front lines fighting against Hitler and Nazi Germany. But at the same time, there’s also this history of women who were deep into white nationalism, who were really fighting on behalf of Hitler.

Seyward Darby:

Sure. Yeah, the Third Reich is such a fascinating example of white nationalism made manifest in the most extreme way possible and coming into real power, real institutional power. There was for a long time… In the decades immediately after World War II, there was kind of this… I don’t know. Idea that women were not as complicit as men in the regime. And this actually tied in ultimately with my fascination with how women were not being included in narratives of the alt-right. I think that a sort of benevolent sexism that dominates media, dominates certainly or has dominated the study of history, means that women are seen as better angels. That they are seen as having better instincts than men, more compassionate instincts than men. And after something terrible has happened, that many people were complicit in, women sort of get swept to the side in terms of their accountability and their complicity in these regimes. You certainly see that with regard to the Antebellum South.

Seyward Darby:

Only recently, there’s a fantastic book that came out a few years ago about women who were very, very important, or how women were very, very important actors in the slave trade and in the actual ownership and management of slaves. And how they were just written out of history for the longest time. And so something similar, I think, happened after World War II. I say that based on… There are two really wonderful books about… Well, wonderful if you can really bear reading about the Third Reich. But there is one called Hitler’s Furies by Wendy Lower, who is a historian I believe, at Claremont McKenna. And then there’s another great book, kind of a classic in the field called Mothers in the Fatherland, by Claudia Koonz, who is a professor at Duke University.

Seyward Darby:

Hitler’s Furies is a history of women who specifically served on the Eastern Front of the Nazi regime. And by served I mean, because it was a hyper traditional “regime” that believed very deeply in traditional gender roles, that they were secretaries, they were wives, they were mistresses. They were in these kind of supportive roles on the Eastern Front, and some of them to be clear, were in more of supervisory roles where they could actually commit violence. But point being, the book is a look at the ways in which women were complicit in upholding the structure of the regime on the Eastern Front.

Seyward Darby:

And then Mothers in the Fatherland is a bigger look at Nazism and women’s role in it, at the ways that women were cast, yes, as mothers and wives, but that being a mother and being a wife was very much presented as a political act. Being those things was political, because the importance of a wife and a mother, and by extension the home that she builds and the children she raises and the things that they believe, that was all vital in the Nazi’s belief system to the perpetuation of the Aryan race.

Seyward Darby:

And so, again, after the fact, I think a lot of people looked at the Third Reich and said, “Oh, well, women, they didn’t have a choice because this was a misogynistic regime and they were they had to do this. They were just wives. They were just mothers.” There was this minimization of what those roles actually meant to the regime.

Seyward Darby:

And to Lana’s point, and that’s really quite a speech that she gave at this far-right conference in Stockholm. It’s true that women got Trump elected, because as we all know, a plurality of white women voted for Trump both times. And then with regard to Hitler, it’s fascinating because Hitler technically wasn’t elected, he lost a presidential race. And I have a footnote about this in the book. The Nazis got enough votes in a subsequent parliamentary election… I believe, subsequent. Parliamentary election to become the dominant party in the Reichstag. And that is actually what led him to be appointed chancellor.

Seyward Darby:

And if you go back and look at the history, and there’s a particular study that I found that that explains this, between 1928 to 1932, the Nazis on the parliamentary front around the country did indeed win an increasing number of votes from women. And the women who were surveyed or… I forget exactly how the research was done, but they reported casting their votes out of self-interest and a concern for the future of German society. So you can absolutely imagine that transplanted onto the Trump era and white women today saying, “I’m voting out of concern for my community, my family, and my belief in ‘America first.'” So there are definitely eerie parallels between those two points in time.

Chitra Ragavan:

And you find some of these really interesting themes you uncover them as you started, reaching out and talking to dozens and dozens of women and doing all of the research that you did. Can you paint a broad picture of the Sisters in Hate, as you call them? Sort of the age, race, other demographics, education, socio economic levels, and some of the themes that you were starting to hear over and over again. Living the traditional life, anti-feminism, all of that, having more children, things like that.

Seyward Darby:

Sure. Well, I think with regard to your first question, one of the important things and… I don’t know. Maybe one of the more dispiriting takeaways from this research is that there isn’t a clear pattern in terms of who becomes a white nationalist, why they become a white nationalist. Like, yes, they are white. Certainly, there’s that. Although there are people who identify as part of this movement who consider themselves “nationalists” and support white nationalism, but are in fact of other other races or backgrounds. But think that yes, in fact, everybody should keep to themselves through their own kind, but that’s a whole aside. But if you’re talking about white nationalists, they are white, yes, but then they come from quite a mix of backgrounds. They come from different socio-economic circumstances, different educational circumstances, different families circumstances.

Seyward Darby:

I think there’s a desire when we think about people who radicalize to imagine that something terrible happened to explain this. That there was some great trauma or seismic event that made them think… To curdle them somehow. In the way that like milk curdles, or whatever. But often, that’s not the case.

Seyward Darby:

And in the women I researched and spent time in some cases getting to know them, but in other cases really getting to know about their lives via the way they had documented them online over the years, it was more of an accrual of things over time. A sense of life is not turning out the way that I wanted it to turn out, which didn’t necessarily mean that something catastrophic had happened, but more jobs weren’t showing up in the way that they’d been told they would if they got a bachelor’s degree and then a master’s degree, or feeling like they didn’t have a voice in the way that they wanted to have a voice.

Seyward Darby:

A lot of these women, particularly women who were in their 20s 30s, early 40s, very much grew up as creatures of the Internet, where so much of your life is lived and so much communication happens online. And there was this sense of, “I’m not being heard. I’m lost in the cacophony of things.” Or a sense that too much was being asked of them, because they were being told, “Well, actually, that thing you said was racist?” Or, “Have you considered this?” Or, “Have you considered that?” And feeling very targeted somehow, which I mean, to be clear is in my view, ridiculous from the standpoint of what really matters. What are the gravity of these grievances?

Seyward Darby:

So, they have these ideas, these kind of senses of harm that they are nurturing inside themselves, and then white nationalism tells them that they are right, not only that they’re righteous, because the things that are being done to them are wrong on some almost like deep, ethical, existential level. And it also says, join us. And if you join us, you will have those things that you feel like you are lacking.

Seyward Darby:

One of the interesting things about studying this space is realizing that radicalization is a very individualized process. Which isn’t to say that there are trends and currents and things to pay attention to, but it really does have to do with an individual’s need set and a feeling that some piece of their need set that is not being met, and white nationalism meets it from the standpoint of the narrative it gives them to explain their place in the world, the power it gives them, the sense of belonging it gives them. I could go on and on about the needs that white nationalism might be filling.

Chitra Ragavan:

Yeah, and I think that those needs are seen very clearly in the three women that you focused on. Tell us a little bit about them and how you selected them and how they kind of represent the movements so to speak?

Seyward Darby:

The first woman is Corinna Olsen, who was a neo-Nazi between about 2008 and 2012, I want to say. Her story was interesting to me because it showed both the dynamics of radicalization and deradicalization. And there are certainly plenty of people who fit that mold, but I think that Corinna’s story had a very, almost foundational quality to it, where in presenting her story, readers were really able to see this is what radicalization looks like, this is what deradicalization looks like. And then this is what the aftermath of that looks like.

Seyward Darby:

She grew up in Oregon, she is trained embalmer. Actually, I’ve been in touch with her recently, and she’s had quite a year because of COVID and the number of deaths. She now lives in the Seattle area. The number of deaths she’s been dealing with. I don’t need to go into too much detail, I guess, but her story is very much one of feeling like she didn’t have a sense of purpose and a sense of community and white nationalism, which she did discover online, gave her that.

Seyward Darby:

The second woman is Ayla Stewart, who goes by or went by when she was more active online, the name Wife with a Purpose, and her entire mission is about building a traditional life being a traditional wife. She’s part of a community that in the last few years has gotten some attention, an online community called Trad, short for traditional. Her story is one of, she used to identify as a liberal feminist, she was pro immigration, anti-death penalty, very much kind of a crunchy leftist. But she was a person who was always seeking to be the best mother in the room, the most unique mother in the room, to be the person who everybody looked up to as a mother. And over the course of embracing that identity… She has six children. Over the course of embracing that identity and trying to differentiate herself from other women, she started moving further and further to the right, getting very disenchanted with feminism as she defined it. And ultimately, she became a very vociferous anti-feminist and white nationalist.

Seyward Darby:

And so her story is interesting because it allows some delving into these issues of traditional gender roles that permeate the history of white nationalism, and also to look at religion and its role in white nationalism, because she ultimately became a conservative Mormon and then kind of left Mormonism behind but very much still considers herself a conservative Christian. And also to look at anti-feminism as very much intertwined with white nationalism and also as an important gateway to white nationalism.

Seyward Darby:

The third woman is Lana Lokteff, who you mentioned earlier, and she is a bit of a queen bee, as I have described her before in white nationalism. She and her husband run an alt-media platform called Red Ice, which for a long time was not banned from social media. But recently, in the last year and a half, has been banned, but still very much operating. And it is a hub for white nationalists. It is a hub for conspiracy theorists. It is just a platform for really dispersing any number of bigoted and paranoid ideas. But Lana is interesting, because she presents it all under… She’s attractive, intelligent woman and she too is from Oregon. She’s, for instance, better known and more widely quoted and recognized on the far right than her husband. And she puts a palatable face on things, which really is both savvy and terrifying.

Seyward Darby:

Her story is really one of someone who wanted to be that kind of person, who wanted to be a figure that people listen to, a figure that helped people realize things about themselves, a figure that people turn to for some kind of wisdom, so to speak. And she came from more of a… I guess, kind of libertarian, almost slightly anarchist, like grungy mid-90s mentality, but she ultimately radicalized about… I guess, nine or so years ago, to become arch conservative white nationalist ultimately. And she and her husband’s platform has been very influential.

Seyward Darby:

The research nugget that I think about a lot is that what when the massacre happened at the mosque in New Zealand, there was a research paper done looking at the rhetoric that the shooter had used in various I think online… I don’t know if it was a manifesto or just an aggregation of language that the shooter had used online and then compared it with rhetoric of various far-right figures. And Lana was one of the people whose rhetoric was most similar to his rhetoric.

Chitra Ragavan:

Yeah, it was so fascinating to read that. I mean, the way that they were able to identify those patterns I think was super interesting. And when you look at these women, one of the underlying themes, if you look at how they’ve evolved, I think their evolution as leaders in white nationalism evolved parallel to the rise in technology. Social media and all of that, with Corinna starting with Stormfront, the old dial-up Bulletin Board System. And then slowly as social media began to evolve with Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and of course going on to Discord and Telegram, and all of these different… You can just see that evolution, and you even saw it going back through the Wayback Machine which shows you the history of websites and things like that.

Seyward Darby:

Yeah, it really was interesting to see, first of all, every single one of the women that I found was radicalized online to a certain degree, and usually to a very large degree. Which isn’t to say that they’re not things that were going on in their personal lives that had nothing to do with the Internet, but the Internet was absolutely the tool that got them from point A to point B in a radicalization sense.

Seyward Darby:

I think what’s interesting to me is that the Internet has been a boon for racists and has been since its earliest days. Like in the early 1980s, when you had… Not even dial up, like what they called BBNs. I always forget exactly what they were called. But the very early ways of dialing into a system and having a conversation with people, white nationalists started using them very early on, and had conversations and published articles about how the Internet was going to be this great tool for them, because it would allow them to communicate over distances, it would allow them to communicate outside of traditional channels, and would keep prying eyes away. And so this is a long way of saying that when it comes to the Internet, white nationalists have always been ahead of the curve.

Seyward Darby:

Stormfront, as you mentioned, has been around since the mid-90s. It’s still going strong, it’s very creaky and old-fashioned by Internet standards at this point, but it is still frequented, and we’ve seen white nationalists be early adopters and very vigorous users of many, many different technologies over the last 25, 30 years. What I will say, though, is that if you then look back in time, so in the pre-Internet period, white nationalists have often been at the forefront of thinking about ways to use new communication strategies that are evolving and coming to be democratized. They have always been very savvy about utilizing those tools.

Seyward Darby:

So whether you’re talking about creating newsletters, making their own magazines, starting their own publishing houses. Certainly in the ’80s and ’90s, there was a lot of talk about how they were using music, popular music, and starting their own record labels and things like that. And so it is very much yes, the Internet without question has been a huge asset for the far right, in a way that something along the lines of magazines was not, but at the same time it is in keeping with a tradition, it is in keeping with the ways that these individuals and people who believe in white nationalism have utilized communication tools over time.

Chitra Ragavan:

And you say something really fascinating that even though as far back in the 1990s, you even had people like Don Black, Alabama’s former KKK leader, saying, “The potential for organizations and movements such as ours,” he said, “is enormous. We’re reaching tens of thousands of people who never before had access to our point of view.” But you also say that till like 2003, it was very much what you describe as a cloaked strategy and that the whole intent was to widen the so-called Overton window. Can you describe what that is and what the strategy was and how that changed over time?

Seyward Darby:

Sure. I think that there’s this assumption for folks who aren’t acquainted with white nationalism, and I certainly count myself in this pre-2016. This was a space that I knew about. I grew up in the south and I was very aware of white supremacy and the harm that it does, but I was not acquainted with the actual inner workings of the far right. And when I started looking into it and becoming better acquainted with it, it’s not that if you’re in this space people are using extremely racist language necessarily, or are saying things that are just completely, “Oh my gosh, I’ve never heard the N word used so many times.” Or, “I’ve never heard people say such anti-Semitic things.” Yes, absolutely, that material exists, but that exists deeper. And if you think of it as almost like concentric circles, that’s at the very heart of white nationalism, and at the very heart of available information on the far right.

Seyward Darby:

And as you move outward in the concentric circles, you get this widening of the Overton window, this idea, the sociological idea that if you are constantly widening the topics that are considered acceptable, or the viewpoints that are considered socially acceptable, you’re starting to let in people who might otherwise be considered on the fringes. And white nationalists have definitely been for years trying to find ways to widen the Overton window to get their viewpoint into what would be considered a more socially acceptable space.

Seyward Darby:

Certainly, in the later 20th century, there was a lot of discussion amongst like the David Dukes of the world, and other white nationalists, who were prominent to say, “Okay, let’s stop with the Ku Klux Klan robes and the Nazi symbolism and think about how we can appeal to the average white American, and make this seem like just another way of thinking about politics.” I think that people who get radicalized into white nationalism, those are the channels through which they often come. That it’s not, “Oh, don’t you hate people who aren’t like you? Don’t you feel angry about the existence of Black people or Jewish people,” or whoever a target might be? It’s more something along the lines of, “Do you consider yourself a patriot? Do you consider yourself a good American? Do you miss the way things used to be? Do you value your safety and the integrity of your community?”

Seyward Darby:

What is baked within that, and I’m certainly you know riffing, and there are lots of other types of language that service similar function, but what is in that is it is veiled and coded language about what is normal, and this idea that whiteness and that white Americanness is kind of normal, and the thing that we should all be striving to protect and to inhabit, certainly. And then once people buy into that language, yes, then absolutely, it’s a slippery slope into well, I’m just saying what everybody else is thinking by using racist language or believing racist things. But that entry point, it can seem very benign, but in fact is not. And they have worked hard to make it seem benign.

Chitra Ragavan:

You discuss a lot of the different digital platforms that are online platforms that are out there. Obviously, you’ve got 4chan and you’ve got BitChute and you’ve got Twitter and all of these channels, but you give YouTube a special mention, for becoming perhaps like the biggest channel for spreading hate and hardcore conspiracy theories, because even if you’re searching for something relatively benign, like Tucker Carlson, you quickly get pulled into this rabbit hole of fake news. How do you see YouTube’s role compared to all of these other platforms? They’re all powerful, and they’ve all been buffeted with these issues, but YouTube seems to be one of the worst.

Seyward Darby:

I mean, first of all, I would say Tucker Carlson is not benign. I mean, we could go down a long rabbit hole about, or I should say digression about Tucker Carlson’s full-on dive into-

Chitra Ragavan:

I mean, if you even look for like a Fox News-

Seyward Darby:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I understand what you’re saying.

Chitra Ragavan:

… The algorithm pulls up more and more negative things for you very, very quickly.

Seyward Darby:

Right. And I think that, first of all, YouTube is very slow to react to the fact that there was hateful and just false information on the platform. It also has this powerful algorithm certainly. And the far right also has been very savvy about flooding YouTube. And then when YouTube started to actually ban white nationalists, to flood other platforms with their content. And so the whole idea is not just the algorithm’s going to push you in a more extreme direction, which it absolutely does, but also that if you’re just flooding the market, so to speak, people are more likely to wind up at the content you want them to wind up at, because there are just more opportunities for them to do so.

Seyward Darby:

And so YouTube is interesting, in no small part because of the algorithm, yes, but then also just the power of video. And that people, anybody could get a microphone… Not even get a microphone. I’ve watched white nationalists’ videos that were shot on somebody’s iPhone or whatever, but that people could put their information out there and find ways that they intersected with other content creators. And so, “Oh, you agree with this. We can start making videos together.” Or, “I’ll feature you on my channel or recommend your videos.” And it starts to become this very interconnected ecosystem.

Seyward Darby:

I think that simultaneous to people beginning to really put their content on YouTube. And certainly, I should say too, you have more power of not just individuals, but more powerful media entities that are on the far right, like Red Ice, for instance, that Lana and her husband run. We’ve seen a new number of… I wouldn’t call like the Epoch Times or Newsmax white nationalist, per se, but these arbiters of disinformation and bigotry, starting to create YouTube channels and really push their worldview through that platform. But I think too, this all happened simultaneous to the rise of this anti-media sentiment that certainly Trump spent four years hammering and saying, “Fake news. Enemies of the people. Mainstream news is bad news.” And certainly, there were people who then said, “Well, Fox is the only news I care about.” But then I think there were a lot of people who… And I heard this when I was doing my research. People who said, “The first place I go to when a news event happens is YouTube. I go to find the voices that I trust and care about on YouTube to tell me the real story, to pull the cloak back and tell me what really happened.”

Seyward Darby:

The problem with that, of course, is when the content is always filtered through a white nationalist lens, truth is not really the point. Propaganda is. And so I think that YouTube and content creators on YouTube, white nationalist content creators on YouTube, very much benefited from YouTube’s lax approach to their content, to the algorithm, the ability to flood the platform with information. And then on top of that, the fact that more and more people who considered themselves on the right, conservative, or even further to the right, were starting to turn to alt media, because they were being told that the mainstream media was bad. And maybe this is where we’re going next, but I really do think that powerful platforms like YouTube were just incredibly slow to respond to all of this, and to see it as a real problem.

Chitra Ragavan:

That’s exactly where I was going. You read my mind. I mean, I was struck by another quote from Lana in your book. She says to her followers, “Be loud. When women get involved, a movement becomes a serious threat.” What can we expect to see from the Sisters in Hate in coming months and years? How serious a threat is it? And what do tech companies and the US government need to do to counter and combat what we’re seeing unfolding every day?

Seyward Darby:

I will confess to not being terribly optimistic. I think I say this at the end of the book, that I’m just a bit of a pessimist by nature. And having studied this and seeing the ways that white nationalism has actually been very resilient over time, I think that certainly in the Obama years, there was the sense of, “Oh, we’re post racial. We’ve passed this important milestone. We’re on our way to a better America,” was a lie that we were telling ourselves. Meanwhile, the far right was gathering a lot of steam in no small part online.

Seyward Darby:

And now what we’re seeing and the reason that I feel rather pessimistic is that we’ve gotten to a point where there’s really no middle ground between people who have a vision of a more progressive America, a more inclusive America in which the dismantling of white supremacy is an ongoing project. And people, millions of people who voted for Trump, some of whom identify as white nationalists, some of whom are white nationalists without even realizing it, who have pretty much the polar-opposite view. I think what’s scary about that is it’s not as though the pendulum will settle in the middle somehow, I think it’s going to keep swinging back and forth. I’m not a political scientist, and maybe political scientists are listening to this and saying, “No, you’re wrong and you’re just a sad sack pessimist.” But that’s very much where I am from thinking about politics writ large standpoint.

Seyward Darby:

With regard to white nationalists, specifically in the far right, they lost something. And so far as Trump losing the election, means they don’t have someone in power, who they… Even if he was frankly never far right enough, for the most avowed white nationalists, but he was about as close as a president can get. And they lost something in so far as he’s not in power, but I mean, the far right has always thrived on having a lost cause, quite literally. The lost cause of what happened in the Civil War, and this attempt to rewrite history after the fact and to create a new America in their racist, retrograde image. I think that the Trump era is already becoming something similar, where something has been lost, which means that we need to fight to regain it.

Seyward Darby:

I think you’ll see white nationalists taking advantage, or certainly actions and certainly taking advantage of that almost outsiderly position, even though what’s fascinating about the way that they center themselves as outsiders and say, “We’re fighting against power.” Really, they’re not fighting against power… Sorry, they are the power. White supremacy is like the baseline of everything in the United States. And so they’re fighting to keep something in place as opposed to dismantling it, but they will act as though it’s the opposite because that’s beneficial to them from a propaganda standpoint.

Seyward Darby:

Point being, I think you’re going to be seeing a shifting of rhetorical strategy to a certain point, taking advantage of new technologies, which we’re already seeing. I remember right after the election when a bunch of far-right types and also just Fox News types were like, “I’m going to Parler. I’m done with Twitter. It’s banned the president. This is terrible. I’m going to Parler.” And I remember on Twitter at the time, there were a good number of progressive pundit types or journalists who were mocking, and certainly just average people who happen to use Twitter were mocking of this. They were like, “Yeah, yeah, go use your knockoff Twitter platform, good riddance.”

Seyward Darby:

And I remember talking to a historian who studies the far right, and specifically the late ’70s to early ’90s. We were side messaging and I was like, “I find this terrifying, because literally what they’re saying is, ‘We’re going to go create our own echo chamber over here.'” And the creation of echo chambers is something we should always be scared of. And then lo and behold, a couple of weeks later, January 6 happens, and we find out that Parler was a very important platform from an organizing standpoint. I think that certainly Parler has been put through the wringer since then, and we’ve seen various technologies be put through the wringer when they are found to be useful to white nationalists. But the problem is that they keep creating new ones, it becomes a game of whack-a-mole.

Seyward Darby:

To your question about solutions, I think that it’s a very difficult… It is such a existential problem, not just for technology, but for the United States, frankly, that there’s no, “Oh, here’s how you do it. Here’s how we end the scourge.” It’s an all-hands-on-deck situation where you need people at tech companies putting humanity and the wellbeing of individuals over profit and expansion. You need people who are willing to recognize hate speech for what it actually is, and not kowtow in the way that we’ve seen Facebook do again and again and again. “Oh, conservative commentators say that we’re not being fair to their content. That we’re censoring them, when in fact, no, that’s not happening,” but giving ground where ground should not be given.

Seyward Darby:

I think too there are law enforcement questions. Absolutely. I mean, in the wake of January 6, arresting, prosecuting individuals who literally attempted a coup in the country, but law enforcement and tech regulation internally at companies and whatnot, those are just pieces of the puzzle. The solution also lies in how we think about education and how we think about raising new generations of people to recognize where white supremacy is in their lives, how to combat it, and how to have a more progressive vision of the country. I think it has to do with empowering voices of color and voices of other people in the United States who are not white or do not identify as white, and helping just bring new voices into the various halls and institutions of power.

Seyward Darby:

So, this is a long way of saying I don’t think in my lifetime the scourge of white supremacy is suddenly going to be gone, but I do think, depending on… I’m a writer, and I got interested in this topic and kept going with this topic in part because I felt like this was the way that I could contribute. I could learn as much as I could about something that I had never been taught and share it with the wider world. And people who work at tech companies can do their part inside tech companies, people who work in the government can do their part inside of government, etc, etc. But point being, it’s an all-hands-on-deck situation if we really want to make inroads into white supremacy and make it such that the pendulum doesn’t want to swing back and forth. That instead it does start to settle over a more generous vision of America as opposed to swinging toward one that’s more laced with grievance and a false idea of what the country isn’t and should be.

Chitra Ragavan:

Great. Seyward, thank you so much for joining me and for this fascinating conversation.

Seyward Darby:

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

There’s a global semiconductor chip shortage brought on by the massive supply chain disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And it’s hurting U.S. industries in a big way. President Joe Biden recently signed an executive order to try to help industries ranging from medical supplies to electric vehicles, that have been affected by this shortage. But will it solve the problem? If not, what does the U.S. government need to do to resolve the chip crisis? That’s the focus of our conversation today.

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Chitra Ragavan:

The semiconductor chip shortage, what’s causing it, why it matters, and what we need to do about it. That’s the focus of our conversation today. Hello, everyone. I’m Chitra Ragavan, and this is Techtopia. Joining me is John Neuffer. He’s President and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based Semiconductor Industry Association. Neuffer is responsible for setting and leading the public policy agenda and serves as the primary advocate for maintaining U.S. leadership in semiconductor design, manufacturing, and research. John, welcome to Techtopia.

John Neuffer:

Hi, Chitra. Great to be here.

Chitra Ragavan:

I think we all have this vague understanding that all electronics are getting smaller and more portable, but I don’t think we have a grasp of just how small and portable the underlying semiconductor chips are. For the lay audience, can you explain in simple terms what semiconductor chips are and how they’ve evolved over the decades in their size, and scope and scale of applications and importance?

John Neuffer:

Well, most semiconductors are made from silicon, and silicon comes from sand, and people don’t realize it. Silicon is actually the second most abundant element in the earth’s crust, only after oxygen. Why are they called semiconductors and not just conductors, and that’s because they conduct electricity sometimes, and sometimes they don’t. In that regard, there’s kind of three types of materials. There’s materials that conduct electricity like metal, there’s materials that are insulators, they don’t conduct electricity that’s like glass, and there’s semiconductors, and they can do both.

John Neuffer:

Whether they can conduct or insulate is controlled by the use of electric fields, and that’s how you create your transistors, your on and off switches. That’s essentially what a semiconductor is. There’s actually very little kind of general knowledge of what these things are and really kind of how powerful they are.

Chitra Ragavan:

You’ve been in this industry for a long time. What’s the thing that surprised you the most when you first started learning about chips and what’s the thing that surprises you most now?

John Neuffer:

It’s an awesome technology. In the last 60 years, there’s just been an amazing pace of innovation. It’s probably the most innovative industry in the world. The chips, the transistors on the chips have gotten amazingly small. Chip manufacturers are now manipulating materials at atomic levels to make these transistors so small.

John Neuffer:

The most packed chips now, the highest-end chip has 54 billion transistors on one chip. That’s 54 billion on/off switches on one chip, and that’s basically the size of a quarter. The other thing that’s really happened is that chips have gotten amazingly cheap. If space travel had come down in price, as much as transistors have, the Apollo 11 mission, which cost $350 million in 1969 dollars, and put Neil Armstrong on the moon, well, that would have cost as much as a latte, and so that has driven computing power to just soaring heights, Chitra. Some of the world’s best computers in 1985 would take four and a half hours to process what the best chips now can process in one second, so it’s just been amazing pace of innovation. I think that’s a defining feature of the semiconductor industry.

Chitra Ragavan:

That’s absolutely incredible. Do you have like a favorite chip story that sort of encapsulates where we are today with this evolution?

John Neuffer:

Well, I don’t know if I have a favorite story, but I think it’s kind of amazing what chips have brought to our lives. Because of this innovation, because of the power of the chip and the miniaturization of the chip, we have computers as wristwatches now. We have tiny pacemakers in hearts that can communicate with patients and doctors. We have cellphones with five cameras, so it just … Chips are ubiquitous.

John Neuffer:

They’re in medical imaging devices, they control electric grids, they power navigation systems for our planes, they provide the guts of 5G communications. Semiconductors are really the greatest innovation of the past century. Without chips, you simply don’t have an Information Age. Without chips, we simply don’t have AI, IoT, quantum computing. Everything that’s kind of important for our future is being driven by innovation in the chip sector.

Chitra Ragavan:

Now, everything about the size and what you can pack into a chip has been sort of predicated or even predicted by something called Moore’s law. Can you sort of describe what Moore’s law is and whether it still holds true and why it matters in this context?

John Neuffer:

Yeah. Moore’s law basically postulates that … It was devised by Gordon Moore over 50 years ago, to one of the founders of Intel, and he said, “Listen, we should be able to double the number of transistors on a chip every couple of years.” And for the last 50 years, about every 10 or 15 years, there’s predictions that Moore’s law will reach physical limits and we’re just not going to be able to keep that pace up. Every time there’s these dire warnings that we won’t be able to keep the pace up, keep miniaturizing the transistors, keep driving, which has been the chief driving force for semiconductor innovation, there’s breakthroughs, and Moore’s law has marched forward. I will say though, that we are now, as an industry, really facing some physical limits, and Moore’s law is slowing, and innovation is going to be driven by other things, by architecture, design, and materials.

John Neuffer:

I’m confident that innovation will proceed a pace in the sector. It’s just not going to be as much about what they call scaling, which is miniaturization of the transistors on the chips.

Chitra Ragavan:

The global semiconductor market size was like around 500 billion, I think in 2019 and is projected to reach about 726 billion by 2027. What’s attributing to the growth of this market?

John Neuffer:

You’ve done your homework, Chitra. Those are pretty accurate projections. It’s really all being driven by our digital economy, by our Information Age. AI is a big driving force, autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, IoT, the cellphones that we all have, the Zoom calls that we can do now. These are major driving forces for growth in the semiconductor industry, and it’s a great industry to be in right now.

John Neuffer:

Very exciting industry, tons of innovation, a lot of challenges, but the future is very promising for the semiconductor industry, given all these demands for the chips. I should also point out that 5G, 6G communications, all driving innovation in the semiconductor industry and leading everyone to believe that it’s a very promising future.

Chitra Ragavan:

Then, of course, you had COVID-19 sort of descend on the world, and that’s resulted in this massive disruption, not just of the semiconductor supply chain, but all kinds of supply chain, and the chip industry is obviously no exception. Obviously, you recently had the cold spell in Texas, where there are a couple of chip factories, and that hasn’t helped either, so what has been the impact of all of these crises on the industry and on all of the industries chips support?

John Neuffer:

Yeah. I think the biggest moment for us as an industry has been the pandemic crisis that swept the world really put into bold relief that we need to remedy some of our supply chain vulnerabilities. When I say that, I mean that a lot of our chips, about 75% of our chips are made in Asia. That’s a big change in the last few decades. In 1990, we manufactured about 37% of the world’s chips right here on U.S. shores.

John Neuffer:

That’s now down to 12%. And like with medical equipment in pharmaceuticals, where people started thinking about supply chain security and resilience, people around the world, in Washington are thinking about, “Well, what’s that mean for semiconductors?” I think there’s a real effort now to think about rebalancing our supply chains so that more of our manufacturing is going to happen here in the U.S., but the reality is that we just don’t manufacture enough chips here in the U.S., and we need to remedy that.

Chitra Ragavan:

It’s also a geopolitical consideration, isn’t it, given that so much of the chip manufacturing happens in China and Taiwan, and with our trade tensions with China in particular, and with Taiwan’s trade tensions and other political tensions with China, it seems like there’s a lot more at stake than just the economy.

John Neuffer:

Yeah, an awful lot of chips are produced in Taiwan. That’s for sure. Something like 20% of the global chips, global supply for chips come out of Taiwan, but it’s not actually accurate to say that a lot of chips are produced in China. China is still a fairly nascent market. For our industry, the real importance of China is its market as a consumer.

John Neuffer:

It’s our largest consumer. We actually, as an industry, don’t produce much in China. There’s only a couple of fabs. Those are semiconductor manufacturing facilities that are U.S.-owned in China. We produce a lot of chips here. We produce chips in places like Taiwan, Israel, but not actually much in China.

Chitra Ragavan:

That’s interesting, and so one of the things that I was really interested in reading was the impact this has had on the automotive industry.

John Neuffer:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It’s been a rather jarring year for everybody because of the pandemic. For the auto industry, Q1, Q2 was very rough. Auto sales dropped just precipitously.

John Neuffer:

Not surprising, the auto industry started canceling its chip orders, and so chip orders collapsed for auto grade semiconductors. That all is kind of predictable, but what was not predictable is that the auto industry came roaring back, partly driven by China coming back online much quicker than everyone else, but generally, auto industry came back. Folks sitting at home thinking, “I’ve got a little bit extra money that I’ve not been spending on my commuting. I might as well go out and buy a car,” and so the problem is, is that auto industry is very, very efficient and very focused on this just-in-time delivery of goods from a supply chain. The chip industry is a little different because it takes about …

John Neuffer:

It can take up to 26 weeks to manufacture a chip, so the supply chain is long, and that doesn’t … When the auto industry turned on again, third and fourth quarter last year, and they started ordering chips again, well, they couldn’t get them right away because it takes so long to produce them. The other thing that happened is, it’s not just the auto industry that’s suffering, chip shortage, although the auto industry is suffering the most acute. There’s tightening throughout the whole industry, all across the industry, and that’s been driven by demand for products to address and to help us learn remotely and work remotely, and for respirator machines, so there’s just been an explosion in the demand for chips in the last year, and the auto industry has just been the one that’s kind of taken at the worst.

Chitra Ragavan:

I was fascinated to read about this kind of caste system in chip manufacturing and consumption that automakers use chips that are older and are lower priority for chip makers, because they are making these new, better, more sophisticated chips for 5G smartphones and video games, and all these other things, and so there’s a bigger profit margin for making these higher-end chips. Is that true, that there is sort of this thing that’s also exacerbating the problem for automakers?

John Neuffer:

Yeah. I wouldn’t characterize it like that, Chitra. It’s definitely not a caste system. The auto industry is very important to the semiconductor industry, that’s for sure. There’s no doubt about it, that the way the auto industry works and the way chips take a long time to be certified for autos, the auto industry tends to use lagging-edge technologies for chip technologies, that’s for sure, and those ones, you’re right, don’t have the same margins as leading edge technologies, chips that go into data banks and things like that, but I can assure you, the industry, auto industry is viewed as very important by the chip industry.

John Neuffer:

I’ll tell you, having talked to a lot of leadership in the chip industry about this, we are working tirelessly to help unkink the supply chains to get this worked out for the auto industry, but the reality is that the big problem is it just takes a long time to get the chips made and out the door to the auto companies, like I said, up to 26 weeks, and that’s the essence of the problem. We’re just playing catch up and we’re doing as much as we can to help the auto companies and get out of this bind.

Chitra Ragavan:

What can we do? What are some of the things you are recommending?

John Neuffer:

Yeah. In the short-term, it’s all of our companies working round the clock to produce as many chips as we can. Right now, we’re at near full capacity, and companies are going very quickly to full capacity, but that process itself even takes time, even more time. In the short run, that’s what we’re going to do and that’s what we’re doing, and we’ll get through this, but I think in the longer run, Chitra, and I mentioned it earlier, there’s, Boston Consulting Group, projected that in the next 10 years, we’re going to have a 56% increase in chip demand. That means we just need, around the world, a lot more capacity to build chips.

John Neuffer:

Right now, about 80% of the chips are being built in Asia, and what we’re trying to do is get the U.S. government focused on helping provide manufacturing incentives to make more chip production here in the U.S., and the question is, “Do we want all these chips to be made here in the U.S., or do we want them to be made overseas?” The reason why there needs to be manufacturing incentives, Chitra, is that semiconductor industry is a market-driven, fiercely competitive industry, but when it comes to building these multi-billion dollar fabs to leading edge fabs, up to $20 billion. That’s like a nuclear aircraft carrier of price tag. Yeah, countries overseas, Chitra, provide massive multi-billion dollars incentives to lure companies to build their fabs there. Our federal government is not in that in business, so as a result, I mentioned this statistic earlier, where 1990, we were building about 37% of the world’s chips, now we’re building about 12%, and that’s because we’re not in a free market when it comes to building manufacturing facilities or fabs, so the U.S. government needs to step in and help incentivize that. Other governments are not going to change their practices, so we’re kind of standing here on the start line, looking down the field, as all of our competitors overseas are kind of halfway down the field, and we’re saying, “Gee, maybe we should get going here,” and so that’s something that we’re focused very heavily on here in Washington.

Chitra Ragavan:

We’ve got a new administration in place. Have you had a chance to speak with the Biden administration, and what are some of the things they’re doing to address this critical shortage?

John Neuffer:

Yeah. We’ve had a lot of conversation with folks, the Biden administration, and I think they are wisely kind of focused on the long game here. President Biden, just last week, when he was rolling out an executive order to review supply chains, including supply chains for semiconductors, he supported a multi-billion dollar effort to incentivize chip manufacturing in the U.S., and we were very happy that he displayed one of these beautiful chips. He held it up and said, “These are important to the American economy and to American national security.” We feel optimistic and encouraged with the direction of the Biden administration and look forward to working with folks on the Biden team to address some of these challenges.

Chitra Ragavan:

Looking at how the chip has changed our society, global societies over the decades, how do you see these changes evolving in the next five, 10, 20 years, and the chip evolving with it, and how is it going to transform our lives?

John Neuffer:

Wow, I’m not much of a futurologist, Chitra, but if you look at the trajectory of change that has been driven by the chip, the sky is the limit. I mentioned this to your earlier, Chitra, but I was talking to my daughter the other day. She said, “Dad, it’s very hard.” She’s in her 20’s. “It’s very hard to be amazed by innovations these days because they come so fast and they come so big.”

John Neuffer:

I mentioned that Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in 1969. That was a big deal for me, but I totally get her point. The age of the Internet started in the ’90s, and here we are 30 years later, so evolved in this, with the social media, and the broadband, and the connectivity. I just think that we’re going to see some amazing things with the electric cars. The sky’s the limit.

Chitra Ragavan:

Do you think the shortage will be addressed over time?

John Neuffer:

In the short term, I’m confident that we’ll get this problem tackled. By the end of last year, our shipments to the auto companies were already above our shipments to the auto companies the previous year, so we’re cycling up, and we’ll get the short-term problem fixed. I’m confident that working with the USG, we’ll get incentives in place, whether they’re grants or whether they’re investment tax credits, tax incentives, that we’ll get this longer-term problem licked as well. I mean, it’s just that kind of failure is not an option. The stakes are very high.

John Neuffer:

I think people in Washington, whether it’s in the Biden administration around The Hill, recognize that there’s a lot of bipartisan support, which is kind of rare these days in Washington, to help incentivize manufacturing in the U.S., so I do feel optimistic both for the short-term issue, which is a difficult one for the car companies. It’s a really tough issue, we get that, but I’m confident we’ll get through this, and then, we’ll go on and tackle the long-term challenge as well, to get more manufacturing here, more manufacturing generally for chips here to address the massive explosion in chip demand coming at us.

Chitra Ragavan:

That’s great. Do you have any closing thoughts, any closing stories on the role of the chip in your life?

John Neuffer:

The thing that really comes to mind for me is that most people just don’t really appreciate how powerful semiconductor innovation has been in their lives, and so I’m glad you had me on today, Chitra. The thing for us is we spend a lot of time kind of educating folks about the power of the chip. The problem with the chip, Chitra, is it’s in everything, but no one can see it, no one can touch it, no one knows what it really is, and so I think we’re just going to have a lot of work to do to beat the drum on educating folks about how important these chips are and how important it is to keep the U.S., which controls about half of the global chip market, to keep it at the tip of the innovation sphere in the semiconductor technology.

Chitra Ragavan:

Yeah, it’s really one of the most powerful, invisible forces in our lives and in society today.

John Neuffer:

It’s, in my view and not being an electrical engineer, Chitra, it’s magic. What happens with silicon and these billions and billions of transistors on these chips? It just boggles the mind.

Chitra Ragavan:

Well, thank you so much for joining me and for this fascinating conversation.

John Neuffer:

Well, thank you, Chitra. This has been great.

Chitra Ragavan:

John Neuffer is the President and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based Semiconductor Industry Association. Prior to joining the association, John served as Senior Vice President for Global Policy at the Information Technology Industry Council, and prior to that, he served for more than seven years at the United States Trade Representatives office, USTR. This is Techtopia. I’m Chitra Ragavan.

Chitra Ragavan:

Techtopia is a podcast from Goodstory, an advisory firm, helping technology startups with brand strategy, positioning, and narrative. Our producer is Jeremy Corr, Founder and CEO of Executive Podcasting Solutions, with production assistance from Kate Kruse. Our creative advisor is Adi Wineland, and our research and logistics lead is Sarah Möller. Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcast or your preferred podcast platform, and if you liked the show, please rate it five stars, leave a review, and do recommend it to your friends, family, and colleagues. For questions, comments, and transcripts, please visit our website at goodstory dot io, or send us an email at podcast at goodstory dot io. Join us next week for another episode of Techtopia. I’ll see you then.

What’s causing Bitcoin mania and massive investments in cryptocurrency by institutional investors? Perianne Boring, Founder and President of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, explains the economic and geo-political forces at play.

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Chitra Ragavan:

Well, Bitcoin mania is sweeping the world. Investors, big and small, have propelled the cryptocurrency to record highs, rallying more than 400% over the past year, with one Bitcoin worth more than $50,000. That’s per coin as of this taping. Although with the volatility of Bitcoin, that price could dramatically plummet in an instant, but that hasn’t deterred either mom-and-pop or institutional investors with some of the titans of finance getting in the game. Here in Washington, the Chamber of Digital Commerce is helping to promote the acceptance and use of digital assets and blockchain-based technologies and serving as a bridge between the industry, investors, policymakers, and regulatory agencies.

Chitra Ragavan:

Joining me now to get us up to speed on all the news and developments in DC and beyond is the Chamber’s founder and president, Perianne Boring. She’s been named America’s Top 50 Women in Tech by Forbes. In 2016, Boring was named 10 Most Influential People in Blockchain by the premier crypto trade publication, CoinDesk. Prior to forming the chamber, Perianne was a television host and anchor of an international finance program that aired in more than 100 countries to more than 650 million viewers. She began her career as a legislative assistant in the US House of Representatives, advising on finance, economics, tax and healthcare policy. Perianne, welcome to Techtopia.

Perianne Boring:

Hey, Chitra. It’s so good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Chitra Ragavan:

$50,000 a coin, did you ever think you would see the day?

Perianne Boring:

It’s quite interesting. I’ve been following Bitcoin since 2010 or 11, really early days. So when I first started becoming interested in this technology and asset class, it was trading at $13, and to now look at $50,000, that is a pretty dramatic change. However, I still think we are just at the very beginning of that S-curve, adoption curve. So I still think it’s undervalued and it’s in the long run going to continue to increase in price.

Chitra Ragavan:

How high do you think it’s going to go?

Perianne Boring:

Well, there’s a lot of different investment advisors who are trying to value Bitcoin and value what its price will be over time. If you look at a stock-to-flow model, PlanB, who’s an anonymous investment analyst on Twitter. In the stock-to-flow model, he has it up to $1 million in Bitcoin. Now that’s in the long run. So we’re looking at eight to 10 years. We represent at the chamber 25 to 30 investment firms who are investing in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. And so we’ve seen a range of valuations. At the lower end, 150,000 this year, all the way at the higher end to 400. So Guggenheim has the highest at about $400,000 a coin. So if you want, I can dig into how they’re getting to those numbers, but there’s a lot of groups and investors who are expecting significant growth over the next several months.

Chitra Ragavan:

Yeah. And tell us a little bit about how they are coming to these numbers. Are they looking at the number of investors getting in the game, the volume of funds that are pouring into it? What’s the secret sauce?

Perianne Boring:

Okay. So there’s a couple major factors that go into Bitcoin’s supply and demand and price. So, Bitcoin is a network. So how do investors value a network? You look at its growth. So what makes a network valuable is the more people that use it. You can apply this to other technologies like the iPhone, to personal computers, to the adoption of the internet. And one way that you can measure the growth of a network is looking at how long it takes to go from 0% adoption to 10% adoption. Then the same amount of time it takes to go from zero to 10% adoption is about the same amount of time it takes to go from 10 to 90% adoption. This model has played true for so many different technologies like the iPhone, like the internet itself, like personal computers. And I also believe you’ll see a very similar adoption curve for cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin in particular.

Perianne Boring:

So Bitcoin, in 2019 was at about 15% adoption. There was a study that was published by Forbes that about 15% percent of Americans owned some form of cryptocurrencies. So we’re at year 12 of Bitcoin, and if we were at 15%… I think that was published in either 20… I think it was actually 2019, that study was published. So we can expect if we were at 15% adoption around 2019, 2020, we can expect to be at about 90% percent adoption around eight or nine years from now. So that’s what I mean by we’re still at the bottom of that S-curve. We’re still at the very bottom of adoption. We still have a long way to go until this is widely accepted and used by your average consumer.

Chitra Ragavan:

Do you remember when you first became interested in cryptocurrency and when you started to believe in the movement and how it’s shaped your own trajectory in life and career?

Perianne Boring:

Oh yeah. So, just so you can understand my own personal ethos, I was a student of economics at the University of Florida during the 2008 financial crisis. And I grew up in Florida, actually I was born in Texas, but raised in Florida and my entire family, all my community, everybody I’ve ever known, was from Central Florida. And the 2008 financial crisis was essentially the housing bubble bursting. And that was essentially the State of Florida, because Florida was the real estate boom. And that impacted everybody I knew. There were people in my family whose homes were under water, and they lost their homes. One of my brothers lost his job because their company just was completely devastated in the economic crisis. I saw my parents lose a lot of their life savings, and the stock market collapsed. And as someone who was young and in college and there to study economics during this historic economic collapse, I really took it upon myself to try to figure out what was going on.

Perianne Boring:

And I was very frustrated because my professors and my textbooks were not able to explain what was happening. And I just realized that there was something going on that was not right. And that led me to my own personal study of monetary policy and financial systems. And I was not very happy about what I learned on that own personal journey. And that the government has racked up significant amount of debt on behalf of the taxpayers, and really was disenfranchised to learn about the issues between how Washington and Wall Street works and just what money is and how it’s issued and how it’s debased and how governments can inflate it. And there were just a lot of things about the monetary system that I did not agree with.

Perianne Boring:

So, I decided to go to Washington and fight for something better. And it was during that time when I was working on the Hill, that I was introduced to Bitcoin. And as somebody who was working and studying in the area of economic policy, to learn about a currency that was not created or controlled by a government or a corporation or a group of people, that concept was just very interesting, and I immediately was really just fascinated by this idea of Bitcoin and followed it. And after following this space for many years, I just came to the conclusion that this was going to be one of the most important and impactful things I would ever see in my life and I’ve got to be a part of it. And that’s led me to where I am today at the chamber.

Chitra Ragavan:

So you got in touch with your inner economic anarchistic?

Perianne Boring:

I’ve definitely leaned more… I’m kind of libertarian, I guess, in my views, which a lot of people in the crypto space are, but as somebody who’s worked in public policy, today I consider myself a member of the blockchain party. I don’t think this should be a political issue and I think people from all across the aisle should, and they do embrace it. And there are a lot of policy issues that need to be worked out as it pertains to this ecosystem.

Chitra Ragavan:

So what are the trends and factors that are fueling this exponential growth today? I mean, you are right in the heart of all of this stuff, what’s happening?

Perianne Boring:

We’re in such an interesting moment in time, in history, what Paul Tudor Jones calls the Great Monetary Inflation, where the war on COVID has turned into the war on currencies. You have governments around the world who are looking to fight the issues of the pandemic and are debasing their currencies, and that’s leaving investors and asset allocators, corporate treasurers looking at where to store their wealth. And that’s been a big question. And today, for companies like Tesla or Square or MicroStrategies, they’re looking at one of the biggest cost… Corporate treasurers’ biggest cost is debasement. And it’s inflation and it’s the value of fiat currencies decreasing every day. So the demand today in the market for Bitcoin is coming from the fact that the case for Bitcoin as a store of value has been made to institutional and corporate investors, and they are buying Bitcoin as a way to store value over time.

Perianne Boring:

And if you look at the profile of who is buying Bitcoin today, the buyers of Bitcoin today are coming in and they’re buying large amounts of Bitcoin, hundreds of thousands to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin. And then they’re taking that money off the exchanges and they’re putting it in deep cold storage. So that signals a couple of things, that one, you have investors who are looking at turning this into a long-term investment. And that is a very different profile than what we saw from the typical buyer and exchange activity in 2017. So we’re in a pretty significant bull market today. We were in a pretty significant bull market in 2017 as well, but the activity of the buyer and the profile of the buyer is very different today than it was just a couple of years ago. In 2017, your typical buyer was somebody who was trading and speculating. Today, your buyer is an investor who’s putting it in long-term storage. So that signifies a much more sophisticated investor and a big shift in where demand is coming from. And I believe that’s your corporate and your institutional investor.

Chitra Ragavan:

And was there a moment, like when Elon Musk declared he’s putting $1.2 billion of Tesla funds into Bitcoin, are there other moments like that that are, looking back, people would say those were the defining moments?

Perianne Boring:

Yeah, absolutely. So Elon Musk announced two things. One, that Tesla has put Bitcoin on their balance sheet, but also that they’re going to start accepting Bitcoin as payment. I guess, you want one pretty significant announcement from a publicly traded company. There’s been a few other big signals from the market. MicroStrategies was one of the first public companies to put Bitcoin on their balance sheet. And Michael Saylor, who’s the CEO of MicroStrategies, published his corporate playbook. So he went through the whole steps of what are all the questions and things your CFO and your teams need to know and understand in order to do this. And my understanding is he gave that playbook to Elon Musk, and that led to Tesla making this move into Bitcoin.

Perianne Boring:

We also saw a very big announcement from MassMutual, also buying Bitcoin. MassMutual, being a conservative and long-standing insurance company, shows a profile of a new buyer and investor into Bitcoin. It’s one thing to have a very forward-leaning technology-savvy company with a CEO that’s known for innovation, to buy Bitcoin. It’s very different when you see a conservative, regulated financial institution buying Bitcoin, and we’re starting to see that shift.

Chitra Ragavan:

And I imagine that that’s changing your makeup of the Chamber as well. I mean, when you started out, you were a scrappy little outfit, right? Trying to get the attention of members of Congress and policy makers, and try to educate everybody about cryptocurrency. And now the Chamber has grown to become one of the most important trade associations in Washington. What’s your makeup looking like? And what are some of the things that you are now starting to deal with by way of policy?

Perianne Boring:

Yeah, it’s been quite an amazing journey. So we’ve launched the chamber in July of 2014. So, we’ll be turning seven years old this summer, which is… So much has happened in seven years. It seems like it’s been seven decades. And then in some instances it feels like it’s just been one really long day because things happen so fast in this space and they move so quickly. So, the chamber has grown significantly over the past seven years, today we are the largest nonprofit serving the digital asset ecosystem. We have over 220 member companies, and our members represents that digital asset and blockchain technology ecosystem globally.

Perianne Boring:

We represent the most important and prolific investors and innovators in this space. Everything from some of the world’s largest banks and financial institutions are a part of the chamber, groups like JPMorgan and Wells Fargo and Citi and BNY Mellon, who just announced their Bitcoin custody project, and BNP Paribas, to some of the largest and most well-respected technology companies in the world, from IBM and Cisco and Microsoft and Facebook, to traditional exchanges like the, I guess, your incumbents like the NASDAQ and the CME, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and then all the way to all of the startups and the pioneering community in the digital asset industry, from your leading custody providers like Anchorage to your traditional crypto exchanges like Bittrex and Gemini, to analytics providers who’s running forensics, from Chainalysis and CipherTrace to wallet providers and many others.

Perianne Boring:

So, what’s really interesting about the Chamber of Digital Commerce is we’ve been able to bring people in both the financial services community and the technology community together to collaborate on the future of what blockchain technology is going to look like. And it’s been a really just amazing place to get to share ideas and build partnerships and relationships and to educate larger audiences. And it’s a very exciting place to be today. And we are witnessing a huge tectonic shift in our financial and our monetary system, but also in the digital economy overall.

Chitra Ragavan:

So you have all of these believers, new believers, true believers in the financial industries. And then on the other hand, you’ve got some major investors like Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway, even key influencers like Bill Gates, who are repeatedly warning, especially against average people sinking their life savings into these currencies because they’re so volatile. And I imagine that… And Gates also, as you know, he’s written a new book on how to save the environment and he has talked about the environmental costs of mining coins because they require so much energy. So who’s right on this?

Perianne Boring:

Good question. There’s a few things there you could talk about. I think there’s a lot of just general misinformation about what proof of work is, which is the mining process, how you authenticate and verify transactions in the Bitcoin ecosystem. It does use energy. One thing, a lot of people don’t understand is that there’s an economic incentive in the mining process. So whatever miner is the fastest wins and gets the bounty, which is new Bitcoin that is created through the protocol. So there is an incentive to be the fastest and to be the most efficient. And that has driven mining to be mostly done in green energy and clean energy. Over 70% of mining energy comes from clean energy sources, and people don’t don’t know that, people don’t understand that. And again, there’s a lot of misinformation about what mining actually is today, and the community really does need to do a better job at helping people clarify those misconceptions.

Perianne Boring:

The other thing, the real innovation of what Bitcoin is, is for the first time, Bitcoin enabled people to send a digital asset. So, Bitcoin peer-to-peer, so to each other in digital way, without going to a third party, like a bank. And instead of having to drive to a bank or use a traditional payment system, whether that’s a remittance system or your local bank, you can do it through the Bitcoin network, which does expend energy. But I would guess that the amount of energy it takes to verify a transaction in a peer-to-peer way using Bitcoin can be nowhere near the amount of energy it takes for the entire banking system to work. Think about all the infrastructure that goes into these intermediaries, everything from the brick and mortar institutions, to the people that work there, to the cars that it takes to get people to and from these institutions, to the systems that they run on. So I believe if you looked at the true energy cost and usage of using a distributed payment system like Bitcoin to a centralized payment system, like the traditional financial system today, you would not be able to compare them.

Perianne Boring:

And again, I do think the community needs to do a better job of clearing up these misconceptions, because there is a lot of false information about what mining is and the true energy cost it takes to run this network.

Chitra Ragavan:

That’s fascinating. Congress and regulatory and policy-making bodies, and the Biden administration are going to be focusing on a range of issues, from protecting investors as these currencies gain in popularity, to preventing money laundering and protecting the environment. What are you seeing on Capitol Hill and in various agencies on what key priorities are emerging and how well-prepared US leaders are to actually understand and deal with these incredibly complex issues?

Perianne Boring:

Yeah. So what I’ve been telling our members, as it’s a new year, we have a new administration, and with new leadership on the House, in Congress as well, there’s going to be new risks and new opportunities. And we’re seeing many changes in the policy landscape in Washington today. You’re right, that the Biden administration, a huge campaign promise is climate change. So again, I think the big priority needs to be to ensure our policymakers actually understand what proof of work is and understand how decentralized payment systems are a way to achieve some of those clean energy goals that had been outlined by the Biden-Harris administration. But they also do have a big focus on consumer protections and investment protections and also financial inclusion. So, one of the complications of the public policy and regulatory issues for Bitcoin in the US is that we have a very fragmented regulatory structure where you have a whole bunch of agencies and regulators that have jurisdiction over different areas of law.

Perianne Boring:

You have FinCEN, who’s looking at the anti-money laundering laws, you have IRS, which oversees tax, you have the SEC, which is looking at all of securitized, and the securities laws, or financial instruments. And then you have the CFTC as separate futures regulator. Well, things within the cryptocurrency community can crossover in all of those regulatory buckets. And so that’s a lot of different regulatory issues to have to coordinate. Very different than if you go to another jurisdiction like the UK, for example, where they have the Financial Conduct Authority, it’s really a one-stop shop and all your regulatory issues can be resolved in one office or agency, or compare that to Singapore, where they have the Monetary Authority of Singapore, which again, has that financial services regulatory one-stop shop. You’re not doing the many different agencies, and the monetary authority is also their central bank. So it also includes that function as well.

Perianne Boring:

So when we talk about what is the Biden-Harris administration’s… And how is that going to impact the cryptocurrency space, you have to look at all of these different bodies of law and how they’re going to look at it from an AML perspective, from a tax perspective, to investor protections, and consumer protections. And I think in some areas it will be very positive for this space because I do believe cryptocurrencies are something that can fulfill some of these interests, like financial inclusion, but there’s also areas where there’s going to be some risks, when we look at things like investor protections and consumer protections. And it is going to be very important that the chamber and the community is very active in working with the new leadership at the SEC and the CFTC, so we can make sure that the regulator’s goals of protecting our financial system and protecting investors and protecting consumers does not conflict with supporting the development and the further innovation that is incredibly important and promising technology of blockchain.

Perianne Boring:

And that’s always a very fine balance. And that’s a big part of what we do at the chamber. And that’s why it’s important that we have dedicated experts in Washington who are making sure that we get public policy right, because they can impact the future of the industry and what our role will be on the global stage. And if you don’t get that right, I think we have everything to lose.

Chitra Ragavan:

I think one thing is clear is that you can’t have financial leaders anymore who don’t have a grounding in digital assets and cryptocurrency. How is the Biden administration doing in terms of some of the people it has named or is going to be naming to key posts?

Perianne Boring:

Yeah. Maybe we can just take it agency by agency. And a lot of these folks, they’re rumored nominated, not confirmed. So all of this is happening in real time. And it’s too early to know some of these for sure. So, maybe we’ll just start with the SEC. So it’s rumored that… Well, I think Gary Gensler has been nominated to be the chair of the SEC. So I’m getting a lot of questions about what’s our take on Gary Gensler as the new SEC chair, he has not been confirmed yet, so he’s not… We have an acting chair. And Mr. Gensler is not serving in that role yet. So he has not made any speeches or statements, or really, he hasn’t given anything to the community for us to truly understand what his leadership is going to be like for the cryptocurrency space at the SEC.

Perianne Boring:

And that’s really a key agency for our industry because the SEC has not provided clarity to the digital assets space on which tokens are securities and which ones are not. And that’s held back business in a very big way in the United States. So we’re all hopeful that we will get additional clarity from the SEC under Gary Gensler’s leadership, but again, regulatory clarity can cut both ways if it’s not done quite right. Gary Gensler previously served as the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The past two chairs, Heath Tarbert and Chris Giancarlo were very big proponents of digital assets and champions for the industry. So, those who have served at the CFTC most recently have been very supportive of the growth of the space. After Gary left the CFTC, he has been serving at MIT in their digital currency lab.

Perianne Boring:

So the interesting thing about Gary Gensler is that he is very well-versed and educated on crypto. That’s a good thing. We want our regulators to be educated, we want them to have a technical understanding of this space so we can have more sophisticated conversations with them. But the thing about Gary Gensler is, he’s serving in a democratic administration that does have a priority of consumer and investor protections, and that could cut in two different ways. So the SEC will be a very important agency to work with very closely through this administration. And it will be in a position to shape what America’s role is going to be in this global technology ecosystem.

Chitra Ragavan:

And who are a couple of the others that we should at least mention quickly in the role they might play?

Perianne Boring:

Yeah. So the next would be the CFTC. It is rumored that Chris Brummer will be at the head of the CFTC.

Perianne Boring:

Chris Brummer is a professor at Georgetown Law School, and he is also very well-educated and versed in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. I believe he will continue to be a champion for this space as the past two CFTC chairs have. One of the reasons why I believe that is because Chris spearheaded Georgetown Law School’s cryptocurrency… I think this is a FinTech forum, and he has invited all the leading innovators in the crypto space to come to Georgetown and share their innovations in Washington. So, I think that’s a very positive signal at the CFTC. And then of course, treasury with Janet Yellen who is serving in that role. Janet Yellen previously served at the Fed. She is now transitioning from her previous role as being the chair of the Fed to being a regulator instead. Well, I guess you’re still a regulator as the chair of the Fed, but you’re a different perspective from treasury than Fed because treasury oversees FinCEN, which is your anti-money laundering regulator, OFAC, which is looking at sanctions and then the IRS.

Perianne Boring:

So Janet Yellen has made a couple of statements about Bitcoins, the illicit uses of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. I do think that’s Treasury’s role, they’re regulating anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance, and it is important that they’re tough on those types of things, but not in a way that’s going to stifle the growth. And there has been a lot of rulemaking coming out of FinCEN in particular that would apply to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. I don’t see that as a particularly large issue, but definitely an area that does require a lot of collaboration with industry, and in the past, they’d been pretty good at that. So between SEC, CFTC and treasury, those are really the main ones that we’re watching. And then maybe just the last one would be the OCC. And the person who is expected to chair the OCC is a former board member of Ripple. So that’s potentially a very interesting development although that person has very few public speeches or statements. So the jury is still out there as well in terms of what their position and tenor and tone towards cryptocurrencies will be.

Chitra Ragavan:

So there are clearly a lot of seasoned hands who understand the issues. It’s just a question of watching and waiting to see how they’re going to come down on some of these key issues. And if you were to sum up the top three most important issues that the Chamber of Digital Commerce is going to take on this year in order to educate and inform leaders and also your new members, but also to protect the interests of your membership, what would they be?

Perianne Boring:

Okay. So when it comes to the SEC and the CFTC’s jurisdiction, one of the main issues that we’re working on there is clarifying the jurisdiction of digital tokens. Again, the industry does not have clarity on which tokens would be in the SEC’s jurisdiction versus what tokens are going to be in the CFTC’s jurisdiction. There’s a little bit of friction through that process. And that also is a pretty big challenge to businesses because if you don’t understand who your regulator is, you can’t build your compliance program. And that’s just a non-starter. So, clarifying the jurisdiction is one. Two, for tokens that are securities, there’s a lot of things to work through in the digital asset securities ecosystem, things like custody. So those are issues that we’re working on with the SEC as well. Two would be anti-money laundering regulations. There has been significant rulemakings at FinCEN on the travel rule and on a separate regulation on certain transactions involving self-managed wallets.

Perianne Boring:

And some of those rules could be quite devastating to innovations in the crypto space. So, working with FinCEN on AML-related regulatory issues is a huge priority and a place we’re spending a lot of resources. And then the third is on tax. So if you are involved in any type of digital asset transaction, the IRS has determined digital assets will we taxed as property. And there’s a lot of compliance issues that need to be worked out. There’s many questions, for example, we don’t have accounting standards for digital assets. So for a public company that wants to hold Bitcoin on their balance sheet, there’s a lot of questions that corporate treasurers and their accountants and their CFOs have to work through. So promoting clarity on tax compliance so people can use this technology and buy it and invest in it responsibly and do things the right way is also an area that requires more investment of our time at the chamber and working with our public policymakers.

Chitra Ragavan:

That’s great. Perianne, this has been such a great [inaudible 00:35:42] getting us up to speed on these crazy number of developments that have been going on. Do you have any closing thoughts on where you see the future of cryptocurrency and how it’s going to shape our future in the next decade or so and beyond?

Perianne Boring:

Yeah, that’s a big existential question. I truly believe our monetary and financial system is going through a huge transformation. I do think there are significant systemic issues in the current financial and monetary system. And those are starting to really… We saw that in 2008, and we’re seeing more of that now with what’s going on in the response to COVID. I truly believe that blockchain technology and digital assets like Bitcoin are going to be a huge driver in this technological shift, and will be a part of the backbone of our financial system in the future. So I do think there’s not a person or company or an organization or an institution that won’t be using, touching or relying on blockchain technology in the future. But that is a long-term thing. I think this technology is going to play a critical role in the digital economy for many generations to come.

Perianne Boring:

And that is why I am such a passionate advocate, because I want the United States to get this right, I want companies to be able to navigate this space responsibly. And I want all of us to be able to share those benefits, to ensure our technological leadership globally, but also, so we can have a more sturdy and transparent financial system that we can all use and benefit from.

Chitra Ragavan:

Well, thank you so much for joining me today.

Perianne Boring:

Thank you, Chitra, absolutely. It was great to be here. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts as well.

Chitra Ragavan:

Perianne Boring is founder and president of the Digital Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC. She was named America’s Top 50 Women in Tech by Forbes and in 2016, Boring was named 10 Most Influential People in Blockchain by CoinDesk. This is Techtopia, I’m Chitra Ragavan.

Chitra Ragavan:

Techtopia is a podcast from Goodstory, an advisory firm helping technology startups with brand strategy, positioning and narrative. Our producer is Jeremy Corr, Founder and CEO of Executive Podcasting Solutions, with production assistance from Kate Kruse. Our creative advisor is Adi Wineland, and our research and logistics lead is Sarah Möller. Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or your preferred podcast platform. And if you liked the show, please rate it five stars, leave a review, and do recommend it to your friends, family, and colleagues. For questions, comments, and transcripts, please visit our website at goodstory dot io, or send us an email at podcast at goodstory dot io. Join us next week for another episode of Techtopia. I’ll see you then.

How did technology fuel the explosive birth and growth of the nationalistic extremist movements fueled by former President Donald Trump? How does it compare to the proliferation of foreign terrorist threats? And how can the U.S. government wield technology to combat domestic radicalization? Anne Speckhard, Director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism has interviewed hundreds of terrorists all over the world and offers her expert perspectives.

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Chitra Ragavan:

The January 6th attacks on the US Capitol by violent supporters of former president, Donald Trump, were a shocking coming out party of sorts for technology enabled and deeply radicalized domestic terrorist groups in the United States. And they sent an unmistakable message to American democracy.

Chitra Ragavan:

Hello everyone, I’m Chitra Ragavan. And this is Techtopia. On this podcast, we take a look at the addictive and inexorable forces of technology that are transforming people, society and humanity. I’m joined now by Anne Speckhard. She’s director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism. Speckhard has interviewed hundreds of terrorists around the world and has provided expert consultation to the US, European and other governments, as well as the US Department of Defense regarding programs for prevention and rehabilitation of individuals that are committed to political violence and militant jihad. Speckhard has worked extensively with social media platforms, such as Facebook, to create and disseminate counter radicalization messaging against ISIS and other foreign terrorist groups. Anne, welcome to Techtopia.

Anne Speckhard:

Oh, thank you, Chitra. I’m so glad to be here with you.

Chitra Ragavan:

As an expert on radicalization, when you saw what was happening on January 6th, both outside and inside the US Capitol, what were your first thoughts?

Anne Speckhard:

My thoughts were what had been predicted was happening because I’m part of a number of groups that were monitoring and trying to diffuse violence from groups, such as this, before it happened. And, to me, it had been predicted and I was watching it play out.

Chitra Ragavan:

And over the past months and years, what were some of the things that you are seeing? I know your focus has been predominantly of radicalization of foreign terrorist groups, such as ISIS. But I’m assuming you probably were seeing similar things unfold here in the United States.

Anne Speckhard:

Definitely. We were seeing groups forming on the internet or forming in real life as well. And what I would say we were really seeing is that online behavior and online threats were moving into real life, which is exactly what we saw with ISIS. That there was a huge amount of propaganda, and incitement. And that we watched people get wrapped up in it. And some of them, oftentimes, they went dark because they would transfer over to telegram. And then, you would see them do something. So, what was happening and being observed on their Facebook or Twitter profile would later translate into real life behavior.

Anne Speckhard:

But we should say that there were huge groups of people who were responding to this ISIS’ online propaganda that never did anything.

Chitra Ragavan:

Interesting. So, what do you think was the trigger? What happened?

Anne Speckhard:

Well, I would definitely say that President Trump incited this mob and he had been inciting them all along with what pundits are now referring to as the “big lie” of telling them that the election was stolen, and that they must stand up for democracy. And these are people, I mean, there are a whole array of people, they’re not a monolith. But these are people that already believe that white rights are being stolen, they’re disenfranchised, they’re upset. And if they’re a conspiracy theorist and QAnon, they believe that Trump is going to stand up to evil powers of the world.

Chitra Ragavan:

And having interviewed hundreds of foreign terrorists around the world, often in some very hostile countries and conditions, you’ve seen the evolution of these young people, especially getting radicalized, but others as well. What have been some of the things you’ve seen in that pattern of evolution that may apply in this case? Well, we’re definitely seeing similarities in that as a person begins to align themselves, and find their identity with a group that they start to fuse their identity with the group and they narrow their focus. So, they only consume materials from that group. So, with the far right or white supremacists, QAnon, we’re seeing that they no longer believe real news. And that they’re in their own reality that is fed to them I’m sorry to say, in some cases, by the president himself. And also, from news sources that are in agreement with this type of thinking, that the election was stolen, that it was justifiable to move to violence. Or that, in the case of QAnon, that there’s this horrible conspiracy and that only Trump can save the people.

Chitra Ragavan:

And I saw an interesting quote today in The Washington Post from representative Jim Heinz, a Democrat from Connecticut. And he said in the interview that, “The threats are real, but will not stop the transfer of power.” And then he said, “We’re not talking about a 90 person ISIS cell. We’re talking mainly about a bunch of yahoos who yes, are very dangerous, people could wind up dead, but there’s no danger that they’re going to overthrow the United States government.” The comparison that these are not like the 90-person ISIS cell, and they’re a bunch of yahoos, given what you’ve seen with the radicalization of ISIS and what you saw the other day, would you agree with that? Or would you parse it in some way?

Anne Speckhard:

I would definitely parse that. And, first of all, I would say ISIS doesn’t have any hope of overthrowing the US government either. And one of the reasons that they use suicide terrorism is that they’re no match for our military and our might. And so, these people are no different. I mean, there were pipe bombs, they brought a gallows, they brought the plastic strips to tie people’s wrists. And there’s a policeman today. That’s being reported out in the media that said they were grabbing at his guns saying, “Let’s kill him with his own gun.” These were people that… not all of them, there are some that were swept up in a mob mentality, but these are people that thoughtfully considered what they wanted to do and what they thought they needed to do. I mean, some of them refer to themselves as three percenters, meaning that only 3% fought in the revolution against the British, and that now they are these glorious people that are going to create a revolution and make sure that democracy actually happens.

Anne Speckhard:

And I talked to one yesterday, I’ve been interviewing people in the far right. I talked to Jason Kessler who ran Unite the Right. And Jason was telling me these people are really tired because they feel that they don’t have representation. That the people that have been elected are beholden to special interest groups. And that they need to go and fight for what the founding fathers actually wrote on paper and tried to make the foundation of this country, that it’s been lost. And then, to some degree, there is some reality in that. That a lot of our congressmen are more beholden to special interests than to the people that elected them to get there.

Chitra Ragavan:

The other interesting thing is how some members of these groups were perceiving themselves. I saw a really interesting moment on CNN where the reporter was doing a live interview and saying, “These rioters were doing this,” and there was a gentleman who was not rioting, who interrupted the live interview and said, “We are not rioters, we’re not rioting.” And so, it just seemed really an odd moment where someone who is part of this violent incursion on the Capitol says, “Look, we’re not rioting,” and that may go to some of what you’re saying of how they perceive themselves.

Anne Speckhard:

Well, that’s what I keep finding in all the far right interviews that I’ve made up to this point, talking to white supremacists and so on is that they believe that they’re heroic. That they’re doing something good and right. That they’re standing up for their people. And the difference that I find between them and a group like ISIS, and I’m not justifying ISIS in any way, but at least people that join a group like ISIS, most of them have become convinced that ISIS is carrying out Islam in the correct way, and that they must do the same, and that anybody can join Islam. It doesn’t matter what color you are, or what country you came from. But these people, if they’re white supremacists, believe that they have to fight for their rights, for their group, and everybody else be damned. And that’s frightening. But they definitely have self-reference as idealistic, heroic, in the right, righteous. And I, of course, think that they’re totally wrong, but that’s not how they feel about themselves.

Chitra Ragavan:

You delve deeply into the role of social media and technology in the recruiting efforts of ISIS and other radical foreign terrorist threats. What are some of the things you’ve seen in their evolution of the use of technology to promote all of their own propaganda? And how does it compare to what you’re seeing with right-wing conspiracy groups?

Anne Speckhard:

Well, it’s really interesting Chitra because all the main social media platforms came into agreement to kick ISIS and other inciters of violence and terrorist groups off of their platforms. And they haven’t been completely successful in doing it. They have something called hashing where a picture from ISIS, or a film from ISIS will be recognized by machines, and just immediately kicked off. But still they managed to get on these main line platforms where most of the people are, and attract them into encrypted platforms, mainly telegram, in the case of ISIS. And now we’re seeing the same thing with the QAnon and white supremacists, that they’re being de-platformed, and even Trump, himself, being kicked off of Twitter and Facebook. And we saw a mass Exodus to Parlor, and then Parlor getting kicked off of Amazon.

Anne Speckhard:

And we’re seeing the same thing that happened with ISIS, that all of these people still want to talk to each other, and they want a safe place to gather and to make their plans. So, many of them have gone to Signal and to Telegram. So, we’re seeing the exact same thing happening again, where this is a nightmare for law enforcement, because when they were on Facebook they could be watching them. And, of course, they’re not going to discuss everything on Facebook, but it’s much easier. And you can pretty much track the identity in an easier way than if they’re on Telegram or Signal.

Anne Speckhard:

But the troubling thing, now, is that half our country voted for Trump, half our country is offended by this huge de-platforming, and what does that mean? Are we pushing people that wouldn’t be extremists to more extreme positions? I don’t know. And that worries me. And it worries me that now we’re making it so difficult to follow these people. Law enforcement we’ll figure it out, but it’s difficult for them.

Chitra Ragavan:

And how would you describe the efforts and success of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to-date to track these groups and to prevent attacks given what happened on January 6th? The absolute stunning failure, maybe not of intelligence since they seem to know a lot of these groups and individuals, but failure to convert that into execution. Where’s the gap?

Anne Speckhard:

Well, I think more and more FBI and other analysts, but when you think about a small police force in a small community, they just don’t have the capacity to do what the FBI does, but there’s data analysts that are scraping data now, and following social media platforms. I remember when ISIS was in its heyday, FBI, and others would come up to me at conferences and say, “I really can’t tell you about my work ’cause it’s classified, but I’m following this one particular person. And at what point do you think that I can make a judgment that they’re really dangerous?” And what a difficult question to answer because people flip from endorsing violence, and following these groups, and being very strong adherence of them to suddenly moving into violence. And when they do decide to be violent, in our country, if they go buy a gun they can be violent the next day, the same day. And that’s a nightmare for law enforcement.

Anne Speckhard:

But I also have to say they really missed it on this one because I was part of groups where we were all discussing, that the groups themselves, the Proud Boys, other groups had been discussing violence and discussing that they were going to come to the Capitol. So, there was a failure of law enforcement to be ready. And I worry that part of that might not be a tech failure. It might be a bias failure. That even though our DC police force is Black, I mean, not totally Black, but a lot of Black people, I think all of us have a bias that because of TV shows and movies that we watch, that Black people are more likely to be criminals. Arabs are more likely to be terrorists. But white men should be safe according to pop culture. And I think that bias crept in, and they didn’t prepare themselves for that these people too can be horribly violent and act exactly like ISIS. I mean, there was a gallow and there were people talking about hanging our elected legislators.

Chitra Ragavan:

Going back to this question of technology there seems to be this growing sophistication from, as one reporter put it, using the phone for selfies to actually generating live stream events of these attacks. You saw a lot of these leaders walking around live streaming, as they were moving around the Capitol, and doing the crazy things that they were doing, and violent things that they were doing. Do you have some sort of comparison to how that evolved with ISIS? Sort of that growing sophistication and were you surprised by what you saw?

Anne Speckhard:

One of the things that we learned with ISIS is that journalists were no longer necessary. So, it used to be that a terrorist group… I mean, I remember when they took over Nord-Ost in Moscow, the theater, and held all those hostages they had prepared a tape and they had to get it to Al-Jazeera, so it can be aired. And then, after Al-Jazeera aired it, it was replayed on all the networks what was happening inside the theater and what the demands of the hostage takers were. And that’s old time, the way it used to be. Osama Bin Laden used to have to get his, whatever he wanted out through a journalist. Basayev, the same thing. But not anymore. Now, with social media, ISIS, and all of the terrorist groups learned that they can create their own content and put it out on the Internet. Same as Trump learned that he doesn’t have to deal with journalists. He can just tweet until this week. And so, that’s a real change that came with tech.

Anne Speckhard:

And then the live streaming, for me, I asked myself, I read up on mob psychology this weekend because I was so interested in what social psychology has to say about mobs. And I know that there’s this whole theory that people de-individuate, they fuse with the collective consciousness of the group. And especially if they cover their faces and they’re anonymous they may be much more likely to engage in violence. And I wondered was this a phenomena where they got swept away? But there’s a competing theory that like-minded people come together in crowds and mobs, and that they have the intention of doing the things that they do. And I think it’s a bit of both that happened in this crowd. But the fact that they did take pictures, that they did brag to journalists, that they did post their videos, even on YouTube shows me that they had a temporary criminal insanity in a way that they thought that they were so right, and that they acted with impunity that they could do criminal things that they knew were wrong, and show them to the world.

Chitra Ragavan:

Yes. And publicize them, even though in a weird way technology, then helped because people could identify them either directly from friends and family, and neighbors, or through facial recognition technology.

Anne Speckhard:

Right. And that’s the other side of this. I was reading today about how, when citizens decide to try to track and figure out who these people are, if you’re handing it into law enforcement, good. But if you’re putting it up on social media, there are really good examples of where that’s gone wrong. And innocent people have been identified as criminals by other citizens, and it takes on a whole life of its own.

Anne Speckhard:

So, when the Boston bombing happened, there was a young man with mental illness issues that was wrongly identified as the Boston bomber. And, of course, he suffered even more then. He was probably in a fugue state and had disappeared temporarily. And so, he was suspected by someone that put it on social media. And there’s all kinds of examples of that. So, we have to be very careful on how we hunt people down too, and that we let law enforcement do their job. And if we’re engaging in that hunting that then, we give it to someone that can actually verify it before posting it yourself.

Chitra Ragavan:

One of the things I really wanted to talk to you about was the role of women in this Capitol Hill riots. There seemed to be a large number of women who are not only taking part but, in some cases, directing where some of these people that were breaking in should go, as you know. And they were also breaking in and one of them actually got shot and killed by a police officer. Did that sort of resonate with you in any way to see these very angry women leading the charge in some ways?

Anne Speckhard:

That brings up a number of issues. One is that there’s this very famous book on terrorism that is called Shoot the Women First. And it was written about anarchists and leftist terrorists in Europe saying that the women are the most dangerous. And we haven’t found that as true with ISIS and Al-Qaeda because they tended to only use women when they had to, when they couldn’t get them across checkpoints, or when they were really hemmed in. But women playing a role in this is interesting, of course, because women sometimes have the exact same motivations as men. And other times they have very different motivations.

Anne Speckhard:

And I’ve been trying to wrap my head around why someone would respond to the QAnon conspiracy? And one of the answers that comes to me is that if you really look at the statistics of how many people are sexually abused in this country, and how many women are raped, I mean, a conservative estimate is 1 out of 10, 1 out of 5 might be more likely. And in the case of child sexual abuse, usually, the abuser tells you, “If you tell anybody,” and sometimes in the case of rape as well, “If you tell anybody they’ll die, or I’ll kill your mother,” or something. So, there’s this whole hidden layer inside of many people that they’re walking around with big pain, but they can never tell anybody.

Anne Speckhard:

And then, suddenly we have this conspiracy of children are being sexually abused, and the authority figures are involved. And doesn’t that sound like uncle molester? So, I’m thinking men and women probably respond to QAnon possibly because they themselves were hurt. And they want to make sure that there’s not more victims like themselves. And if you relate to the victim-hood of someone else, particularly a child, you can be quite lethal. I mean, I think that is probably the only circumstances where you could see me kill, if you tried to hurt my children.

Chitra Ragavan:

How would you summarize the role of tech companies in trying to combat the stuff that’s on their platforms?

Anne Speckhard:

That’s a great question. Well, we’ve been working for a long time, and we’ve been in partnership with Facebook and Instagram as well on making counter narratives. And we’re a big believer that if you get insiders from a group to talk about why they went into the group, so that there’s this instant rapport of other people that are thinking about going in, are already in. And then, how the group actually was for them, and how they left, and denouncing the group that that’s very, very powerful because we learn by story. So, if we put a story that a person that’s thinking about joining, or in the group can relate to, and can help them to get out, that’s fantastic. And that can be done on social media. And we’ve proven that with our breaking in the ISIS Brand Counter Narrative project, and now we’re replicating it for the far right.

Anne Speckhard:

So, we’ve got a couple of videos, we’ve got 225 ISIS videos, but we only have two or three far right at this point. But we’re working on getting more made. And social media companies need to help get a narrative that’s strong out there, both the counter narrative to denounce the groups, and an alternative narrative to empower people to do something, so they don’t feel powerless. And that means creating a parallel network. And here I’m quoting Jesse Morton, who’s a big advocate of parallel networks, so that, “You can leave the network that you think was going to serve you and doesn’t serve you, and is in fact violent. And go into an alternative parallel network that actually does serve you.” And social media companies can be really instrumental in that.

Anne Speckhard:

The other side of that is while we do need to take down policies, and we do need to stop people from inciting violence on social media, we also can be really strict about what is taken down. And all terrorist content for sure should be taken down. But when you get into these gray areas, maybe consider doing interventions with the people. Having actual interventionists that reach out to the person and say, “You’re getting in this gray area where we’re going to kick you off the platform. But could we talk to you?” And you might see great results. We’re talking to doing something exactly like that with minds.com. And it would be a little bit different approach than just totally de-platforming people.

Chitra Ragavan:

It’s kind of interesting when you talked about parallel networks, because one of the things I want to explore in Techtopia and why I called it Techtopia is this idea that technology has created a parallel universe almost with different rules of engagement, different measures of success, different ways of governing. And you’re kind of seeing that emerge even with these groups that rioted on January 6th, them living in a parallel universe almost. And that’s why they were able to go out there and do live streaming of their violence thinking it wasn’t going to amount to anything.

Anne Speckhard:

Well, I think they were thinking that it would amount to something, but not to their arrest.

Chitra Ragavan:

I meant in terms of retaliation.

Anne Speckhard:

Yeah, not to their arrest. And exactly. I mean, we have now probably two generations that have grown up really tech savvy, and they know how to switch from platform to platform. They know how to get their messages out. They’re influencers. And it is a parallel universe. And we need to get good at creating networks for good. And networks that believe in our… or that promote our democratic values in a way that people can resonate to because ISIS and white supremacist groups have learned how to message in a way that resonates to people’s grievances, and then engages them, and takes them down a trajectory that, for some, ultimately ends in enacting violence. And that’s not good.

Chitra Ragavan:

President Trump will be gone from office by the time this show airs, this episode airs. But, obviously, that movement that he created with his rhetoric and hate speech will remain. What do you think law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and other interested groups need to do in coming weeks and years? It seems like a very dark period ahead. And seeing what you saw with ISIS, where will these groups go from here after Trump is gone?

Anne Speckhard:

Well, first of all, I don’t think that Trump is going to be gone. I’ve heard talk that he’s fundraising to create the Trump News Network. And I think that’s a misnomer, it won’t be news. It will be propaganda.

Chitra Ragavan:

I meant when he’s gone from office.

Anne Speckhard:

Right. But I think that’s something that we need to face. That this man is still going to be a force. And he’s been very good at turning people against each other. And ignoring the real issue of elites maybe have too much. And that there are these whole groups of disenfranchised people that we somehow need to consider their needs for healthcare, for housing, for basic rights and needs. And so that’s, to me, a real issue that I think he’s still going to be fomenting for strong social divisions, and possibly even violence.

Chitra Ragavan:

And so, how do you see that evolving? And when you see how other US government and other governments are dealing with foreign terrorists threats, what are the things we need to do here?

Anne Speckhard:

Well, it always comes down to, if there’s no grievances, then there’s not people that can be so easily manipulated. So, we really need to look at what are the grievances, and what are the legitimate ones, and what should we do about them? And how can we build our society, so that people want to be invested in it and believe in it? Because I think there really is some truth in the idea that a lot of the people came to the Capitol thinking, “Democracy is not functioning for me.” And that is the most important thing that we can address in this country.

Chitra Ragavan:

And going back to what you said about Trump may be gone from office but, obviously, he’s going to be a force in politics, and in sort of continuing efforts to foment unrest, I saw the political cover of this Magazine that said he might even be even more powerful because people will see him as somebody who’s been attacked unfairly. And so, that is another thing that will have to be dealt with.

Anne Speckhard:

That’s probably true. I mean, if we see QAnon possibly tapping into people’s sense of victimhood, and then Trump will be able to do the same, “Look, I was unfairly victimized.”

Chitra Ragavan:

And he’s done that very effectively in the past.

Anne Speckhard:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Chitra Ragavan:

One quick question, which is you’re seeing these comments by law enforcement, and the videos that show that at least some in the military and in the police may have been involved in this. What are your thoughts on that?

Anne Speckhard:

It’s very worrisome. And white supremacist groups forever have tried to recruit people from the military because they’re disciplined, and because they already have weapons training. And they’ve also encouraged their members to take weapons training or go into the military. And same with police. So, it’s very worrisome that we’ve seen there were two officers from a small town in Virginia that were taken off of duty because they were in the Capitol. And we’ve seen other examples where police and military have been involved in these types of things. And we need to develop good policies, and good prevention, and intervention strategies, so that that doesn’t happen.

Anne Speckhard:

Police, generally, vet before they hire. They look what’s your record? Are you a member of any of these extremist groups? But they really need to be looking ongoing because people aren’t always the same as the day you hired them.

Chitra Ragavan:

And one of the markers of the evolution of Al Qaeda and then subsequently other groups like ISIS was that they were putting that effort and money into military training for their soldiers, as they called them.

Anne Speckhard:

Definitely. But I think in this case, it’s turned around. But white supremacist groups like to attract military because they are already arms trained. So, they go after vets.

Anne Speckhard:

We’ve got on our ICSVE YouTube channel, a wonderful video of Ryan Lo’Ree. And Ryan tells about getting home from Iraq. And that it was a pretty tough tour. And he couldn’t get a job. Left the military, couldn’t get a job. He’s in, I think Flint, Michigan. And his uncle took him to a white supremacist group meeting. And the leader immediately recognized here’s a talented guy, I can use him. And flattered him, and played up to him, and pulled him into the group. And Ryan’s talking about his time in the group, and how he realized how wrong it was, and warning other people not to join. But there’s a perfect example. A disillusioned vet, definitely capable of doing some real harm because he has been trained, and he’s been on the battleground, sucked into a group that’s both criminal and violent.

Chitra Ragavan:

Anne, thank you so much. Do you have any other closing thoughts?

Anne Speckhard:

No. Thank you. It’s really nice talking with you.

Chitra Ragavan:

Yeah, great having you here on the podcast.

Chitra Ragavan:

Anne Speckhard is Director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism. She has interviewed hundreds of terrorists all over the world, and has provided expert consultation to the US, European and other governments, as well as the US Department of Defense, regarding programs for prevention and rehabilitation of individuals committed to political violence, and militant jihad. Speckhard has worked extensively with social media platforms, such as Facebook, to create and disseminate counter radicalization messaging against ISIS and other foreign terrorist groups.

Chitra Ragavan:

This is Techtopia. I’m Chitra Ragavan.

Chitra Ragavan:

Techtopia is a podcast from Goodstory, an advisory firm helping technology startups with brand strategy, positioning and narrative. Our producer is Jeremy Corr, founder and CEO of Executive Podcasting Solutions, with production assistance from Kate Kruse. Our creative advisor is Adi Wineland. And our research and logistics lead is Sarah Möller. Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, or your preferred podcast platform. And if you liked the show, please rate it five stars, leave a review, and do recommend it to your friends, family, and colleagues. For questions, comments, and transcripts, please visit our website at goodstory.io or send us an email at podcast at goodstory.io. Join us next week for another episode of Techtopia. I’ll see you then.

How did technology fuel the conspiracy theories that resulted in the unprecedented sacking of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th by violent Donald Trump supporters? Joseph Coohill, professor of modern world history and host of the popular Professor Buzzkill History Podcast offers perspectives on how this event compares to others in history and its implications for American democracy. 

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Chitra Ragavan:

How did technology help fuel the spread and reach of conspiracies that resulted in the unprecedented sacking of the US Capitol on January 6th, by violent supporters of President Donald Trump? And how does this event compare to others in history?

Chitra Ragavan:

Hello everyone. I’m Chitra Ragavan and this is Techtopia. On this podcast, we take a look at the addictive and inexorable forces of technology that are transforming people, society and humanity. Joining me now is the historian, Joseph Coohill. He’s the producer and host of the popular Professor Buzzkill History Podcast, which addresses misconceptions and misunderstandings in history. Professor Coohill earned his doctorate in history from the University of Oxford in 1998 and has taught at universities in Britain and the United States. Joe, welcome to Techtopia.

Joseph Coohill:

Well thank you for having me on the show and I love the idea of Techtopia. It’s a great podcast.

Chitra Ragavan:

Thank you. When you watched that riotous mob sacking the US Capitol last week, with your knowledge of modern world history, what were the first thoughts that came to your mind?

Joseph Coohill:

Well, it followed very similar patterns to other sorts of mobs that flock together and act together based on essentially very, very shallow and already discredited information. It was mob mentality. Most of the people who were there didn’t know much beyond the idea that, “Oh, I believe Trump and Trump believes this.” They weren’t necessarily deep QAnon encyclopedic people, but, and that’s very, very common. It’s much easier to stir up emotions and have people rush to physically attack some place than it is to say, “Oh, okay, let’s sit down and have a discussion about this.” So it looked to me an awful lot, like as the media has portrayed it, as the Reichstag and various other things. And a lot of people stormed the Berlin Wall in 1989, for instance, who weren’t necessarily anti-East Germany. They were just, it was a big mob and they wanted to get their sledgehammers out and did so. So it’s a very, very common thing in history, unfortunately, but it’s one of these things we constantly have to contend with.

Chitra Ragavan:

Were you surprised that it actually happened here in America?

Joseph Coohill:

Well, yes and no. Yes, because I would have thought, given that there had been so many protests in 2020 and that the police presence and the military presence around the BLM protests in 2020 had been so strong and there had been some rings around Lincoln Monument and rings of national guards being around the Capitol, that that would have been taken care of beforehand. So I’m not surprised that it happened here. I am surprised that it was that there was a kind of incompetent response by the security forces, if you will, not to be ready for it.

Chitra Ragavan:

There were people there from many different groups, many different beliefs, many different, who believed in a lot of different conspiracies. And before we kind of delve into that, I know you like to make this clarification between conspiracies, conspiracy theories, conspiracy mongering. What’s that clarification?

Joseph Coohill:

Well, yeah, I think this is a real problem because after all, a conspiracy is just a group of two or more people who get together and decide to do something and not tell anyone else about it. They do it in secret. In fact, the word conspiracy comes from two Latin words, con and spire, which means to breathe together. So they are literally very much in sync, right? And there have been conspiracies in the past. Julius Caesar’s assassins were obviously conspired. There were conspiracy to murder Lincoln and there’ve been other conspiracies.

Joseph Coohill:

But what we mean when we talk about conspiracy theories and the fact that most of these conspiracy theories are untrue and causes all these problems is the tendency of lots of people to, what I call, conspiracy monger. They want to understand something that they can understand, and it becomes much easier to apply a template of, “Oh, it’s all the Jews” or “It’s all the deep state,” or “It’s the Russians,” back in the Cold War, that are doing all these things and planning all these things. That’s a much simpler explanation than trying to figure out what’s going on. And then it only spins out from there. So people to jump to conclusions about all kinds of things without even thinking about the evidence at all. So there are conspiracies, Watergate was a conspiracy, right? But not every government action is a conspiracy, even though conspiracy theorists and conspiracy mongers jump to that conclusion.

Chitra Ragavan:

When you look at some of these beliefs, from QAnon and other groups, some of it is so extreme and yet President Trump was able to tap into that extreme views. What helped him do it so successfully, would you say?

Joseph Coohill:

It seems to me, just by watching it in the news, one, he does tend to believe, does have a sort of paranoid streak to him. But two, it’s very obvious and it’s became more obvious to him over the 2016 Republican primary and the election that whipping up all these things like the War on Christmas, which has never existed, was extremely popular, and people flock to that sort of stuff. So he definitely realized and realizes that this is a way to gain supporters.

Joseph Coohill:

And unfortunately, this is one of the things that turns conspiracy theories from the back room of a pizza joint, with a couple of people talking about something, to actually having impact. When a major individual takes up these conspiracy theories and then promotes them, that’s when they become really popular and really dangerous because it’s a lot easier to believe in Trump, again that’s a very simple one word sort of explanation, than it is to sit down and think about all the different things he’s saying, right? The War on Christmas is a fast and easy one. But he’s talking about all sorts of deep state things. Well, most people don’t want to think about the deep state. They won’t put that much work into it. But “I believe in Trump” means you that more easily follow everything else. And we see this with Hitler and Stalin and Mao and lots of other people.

Chitra Ragavan:

And a lot of people were warning each other and the government leaders, even his own opponents in the primary, about his tendency for these deep state theories and willingness to use them. But he didn’t seem to have as much success as later in his presidency. What was the catalyst, that shift? When did you see that happen when he started to really resonate with the public?

Joseph Coohill:

Well, remember his first major conspiracy theory was the Obama birth certificate stuff. We should remember that that hooked in an awful lot of people who were otherwise sane, people who pay their taxes, raise their kids, go to work, do these things. But they believe that. And I think that it was the sort of paranoia and the resentment at being impeached and among his supporters by seeing him impeached, again, the first time, and then losing the election. That’s when we saw the intensification of what happened on January 6th. Trump gave this speech about come to Washington, let’s get together, let’s stop the steal and all that sort of stuff. And there’s something to hang your hat on that. There’s like, “Oh right, Trump has been robbed, therefore I have been robbed and I’m going to go protest.”

Joseph Coohill:

And so I think that was the difference that made that happen, on the 6th. And perhaps most importantly and what people should really think about is that a lot of the people interviewed or shouting during the event were saying things like “I’ve been robbed. I’ve had my rights taken away from me. We want our government back.” And these are people for whom, I don’t want to make too many assumptions here, but people for whom they have everything going for them. First of all, in the United States, they’re are white. Second of all, they’re wealthy enough or well off enough to afford plane tickets to get there. The government, by any stretch of the imagination, the government is working for them, right? Democrats are working for them, Republicans are working for them. Yet, it’s the sense of resentment, it’s the sense of having your rights taken away that’s stronger than the actual reality. So I think that the election result was enough to push people over the edge.

Chitra Ragavan:

Yeah. But Charlottesville also had a big impact, correct?

Joseph Coohill:

Yes.

Chitra Ragavan:

In building that audience for him and his brand in that regard.

Joseph Coohill:

Yeah. We can’t forget, there are people who, I just said on the one hand, there are these people who are kind of normal who pay their taxes and raise their kids and otherwise fine. But then there are the real extremists, the real violent bigots and terrible people. And of course, obviously the Proud Boys are those people, and the KKK are those people. And unfortunately, it appears that those people will always be with us. But they can be marginalized by governments and by societies. And I think it’s more important to have the marginalized by society than have them marginalized by governments, until some messianic leader comes along and then is elected president. And it sort of legitimizes what they say and what they want to do. And that’s the scary part, and that’s exactly how the Hitler thing happened.

Chitra Ragavan:

And not just messianic, but someone with a grasp of technology as Trump did with Twitter. Right? How do you see technology being used to communicate these messages to people and how it led to January 6th?

Joseph Coohill:

Well, I don’t think Trump has a great conception of technology. What I think Trump has, is Twitter is a way to express his impulsiveness. He hates something, so he’s able to say it right away and it gets out there immediately. And then it just feeds on that. I don’t think Trump could handle 4Chan or 8Chan or anything beyond Twitter. But what technology seems to do is the spread of conspiracy theories, the spread of conspiracy mongering, the spread of fear and the spread of resentment goes at the pace of whatever the current technology is. So don’t forget, in 1920s, late 1920s, 1930s Germany, hate spread very, very rapidly because there was a telegraph and there was the radio, and there were newspapers and all those sort of things.

Joseph Coohill:

So it’s not a new thing. It’s just whatever stage technology happens to be at a certain point, then any information can flow that quickly. And it becomes very, very easy to read Twitter. And just based on Twitter alone, you can believe enough in Trump to go to Washington. But don’t forget, John Wilkes Booth and his conspirators conspired through meeting and through the mail and even through coded telegraph messages. So it’s not purely a modern as in 21st century thing. It just is more accelerated.

Chitra Ragavan:

Those who want to debunk these conspiracies have the access to the same technology. But why is it that one is more powerful than the other?

Joseph Coohill:

Well, I’m reminded by the famous quote that a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth is putting its shoes on. This is attributed to Mark Twain. It’s not a Mark Twain quote. We’ve done a show about that, which people can look up. But the reason is because these conspiracy mongers and the people who produce these things, again, it’s like this Trump impulsiveness. It’s jumping at one, either one word or a very, very short explanation of something, right? And it’s usually hate or some group they want to persecute. That travels a lot faster.

Joseph Coohill:

Again, I hate constantly keeping up the Hitler analogy, but this is what happened. “It’s all the Jews,” flies around the world or flew around Germany so much faster than a complicated analysis of whether Jewish bankers were in control of the world’s monetary situation and on and on and on. And I remember even as a child, people would say things like, “Well, inflation is because of all the Jewish bankers in New York.” I mean, this is just crazy. Things are very, very complex, but the simple answer can literally fly around almost at the speed of, well it’s the speed of Twitter anyway. And the simple answer is always much more believable. People don’t want to put in the work to try to figure out what happens.

Chitra Ragavan:

And he had a knack for distilling it down, like you said, to keywords like “Fight,” which he repeated over and over again on January 6th, “Hate,” key words. He had a knack or has a knack for simplifying and distilling the message and then sending it out on Twitter. So is there any particular piece of propaganda in history, Nazi propaganda, or anything else that you think sort of has some similarities to some of the messaging now?

Joseph Coohill:

Well, I think a very good parallel example is what was known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which was a false document, a book written in Czarist Russia in the very first few years of the 20th century, in which it claimed to be a sort of guide book for Jewish elites on how to take over the world. We start with a merchant class and we go to banking and then we do this, then we do that. But it was completely fabricated by anti-Jewish people. Well, this was believed, very quickly. First of all, Russia had recently conquered enough land and it expanded enough that a lot of Jews in Eastern Europe came under their sort of control. And czars didn’t know what to do with these groups of people that seemed to be on the one hand, very clannish, right? But on the other hand, also very involved in things like banking. So they seemed to be a danger in both ways.

Joseph Coohill:

And so they create this thing about these Elders of Zion who are out there as a cabal, as a conspiracy, to rule the world. Now, relatively quickly, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is proved to be a fake. But again, it’s just like the lie traveling around the world before the truth gets its shoes on, it was too late by then. And Hitler had picked it up in the 1920s. Hitler relatively quickly stopped believing that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was true, but since it fit his otherwise anti-Semitic narrative, he just kept pushing it. And Henry Ford, the American industrialist, even published and promoted it in the United States. And these things, according to Henry Ford, were supposed to be taught in schools, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And it just kept spreading and spreading and spreading.

Joseph Coohill:

And again, like I say, well into the 1970s, you would hear grumbles at parties or sometimes family gatherings or other places where people would say, as I say, all the Jewish bankers in New York are controlling everything, when in reality, most bankers in New York are not Jewish. But again, it doesn’t matter. And so The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a way in which Hitler could add to his growing antisemitism and add to the growing antisemitism craze in Germany and just make everything worse.

Joseph Coohill:

And that’s exactly what’s happening with QAnon and the deep state. You can explain everything in the world that goes wrong with the deep state. 9/11 happened because the deep state wanted to be able to fight a war against so-and-so, so they let the planes come in and then they were able to whip up public opinion. The deep state is responsible for eventually a new world order and all these kinds of things. If there’s some sort of big group that’s secret that you can blame everything on, then that’s what you do. And it seems again, to make sense, because it fits in with this template.

Chitra Ragavan:

And with the age of the Internet, with everything being available, even something as old as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, probably you can still find on the Internet, right? So it’s harder and harder to get rid of this stuff.

Joseph Coohill:

Oh yes. And in fact, I’m reliably informed by historians in Middle Eastern studies and political science and Middle Eastern studies, that there are a great number of groups in the Middle East who still believe The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was true and is true. Now the Internet can also, and has also, worked the other way. It can debunk a lot of these things. And I’ve been hearing on the news lately, and had interviews with various people who have come out of these, if you will, conspiracy cults and said, “Well, you know what? I started to look at other things on the Internet and I started to talk to other people.” And they started to realize that these things weren’t true or that they were so farfetched that they couldn’t be true. So yes, it spreads everything faster, but it can also spread the truth faster.

Joseph Coohill:

It just gets back to this, conspiracy mongering is always a very simple explanation for a bad thing. Whereas the truth is much more complicated. So that’s the central problem. I don’t necessarily think it’s technology. Technology has accelerated it, right? But then it also has accelerated the truth. I read a lot more about conspiracy theories and the research on conspiracy theories because it’s a lot easier to do than when I was in college in the 1980s. I can look stuff up, a lot of stuff is available that you had to get through inner library loan before, which sounds like ancient times. But it’s easy to get books now on Kindle and everything else that makes it more possible to try to understand the broad nature. But I’m willing, and in fact, it’s my job to put in the work and the time to read all these things. Whereas for most people, that’s not the case.

Chitra Ragavan:

Having read all this stuff, what do you think is the level of challenge that the US government and other governments around the world are confronting in debunking these conspiracies, and can we get back to the way it was before January 6th, I guess, is the question?

Joseph Coohill:

Well, I would argue, be careful about that “back to the way” it was thing, because these things have always been with us. In the sixties and seventies, the John Birch Society had a tremendously strong network of information flow based on these newsletters that they would literally mail out to people which were crazy. But they worked on the technology of the mimeograph machine and the postal service. The reason they were never successful or any more successful than they were in just reaching a certain number of people was because they didn’t have a champion, that great individual who stood up and said, “This is what explains everything.” So I think what we have to try to stress is the continuation and the expansion of what we call an open society, right? The more information is out there, the more good information will eventually get out there.

Joseph Coohill:

But I also think that in order to help people sharpen their critical thinking skills, we should introduce into schools, what you don’t really get to until you start college, which is called introduction to logic. It was a philosophy course everyone had to take. And in logic, there’s something called informal logic, which deals with argumentative fallacies, and conspiracy theories are ripe with argumentative fallacies. I loved studying that in college because it explained an awful lot. And if you learn about argumentative fallacies and the way information is taught to you, earlier on, I think you’re much less likely to buy it later on. But also as so many people have been saying, one of the things that for instance, the incoming administration should concentrate on, is fixing society. So fixing our infrastructure, fixing a lot of other things that will then sort of draw the poison away from the conspiracy mongers, because society won’t be failing the way it has been.

Joseph Coohill:

So for instance, the way Germany after the war was able to not only capture, but to defang what were called the Werewolves, a very, very small group of Nazi holdouts, once they fixed German society and it became just a ridiculous and counterproductive to try to fight it anymore. So I think creating a good and better society, and one where logic is taught at an earlier age is the key. But I don’t envy the new administration at all because in the short term, it’s going to be very, very difficult and I hope not bloody, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is. If Trump keeps talking, I think that’ll continue.

Chitra Ragavan:

Now, you make this really important point that the stuff is always under the surface. And then when that messianic, charismatic leader, who’s willing to say those things comes to the forefront, it can trigger these movements to come above the surface. So what does that mean for the Republican Party and for future elections in terms of how we can keep these forces at bay in the future?

Joseph Coohill:

Well, I actually think it’s not the fault of the establishment, for instance, the establishment within the Republican Party, but it’s the fault of the people. I think one of the things, in a sort of backwards way, that proved the fact that American democracy in terms of elections really works, is that Trump did get the Republican nomination. Despite everybody in the Republican Party, all the elites, Lindsey Graham saying he’s a bigot, Ted Cruz saying that this is madness, well, they couldn’t stop the votes. So I think what Republicans should concentrate on is going out to their base, going out to the Republican Party voters and talking in more common sense terms. Everyone sort of thought, it’d be crazy to vote for Trump. We don’t have to worry about that, this is just a flare up. It’s not going to happen. But in fact, because he was able to pick up on these certain traits, he was able to get the nomination.

Joseph Coohill:

So I think flooding the zone, if you will, with normal Republican presidential candidates will help a lot. And I hope that again, we don’t have a nominee or a person running for the nomination who’s like that. But again, it’s very worrying because you can see the Ted Cruz on the one hand in 2016 was very anti-Trump and saying, “This is madness,” and “This can’t happen.” But now, he’s right not only on the Trump train, he’s whipping up supporters because he sees that as a way to get more support for him. So we all constantly have to deal with the, I don’t know, the perfidity of politicians. Ted Cruz is willing to go over to the dark side because it’s more likely to get them the nomination than if he remained pure.

Chitra Ragavan:

Yeah. And we’re talking about the Republican Party now because of what happened, but one could say these principles apply to both parties. There’s crazy people on both sides of the spectrum. We’re dealing with a crisis right now that’s sort of putting the Republican Party in the spotlight, but I’m sure there are many other examples that you can point to on the other side.

Joseph Coohill:

Well, except that what I don’t understand is, and I mean that, I genuinely don’t understand this, the analog for Trump on the democratic side would have been Marianne Williamson, this sort of new age guru or whatever she was, and that didn’t work. And if you look at the history of the Republican Party since the 1950s, the forties and fifties, they seem to continually nominate extremists. So for instance, Eisenhower jumps into the 1952 Republican nomination. By the way, he was also recruited by the Democrats to join, and he was a pretty much a 50/50, whether he was going to be Republican or Democrat. But he jumped into the 1952 nomination because he saw Senator Taft, Robert Taft, who was, if not directly in league with, Joseph McCarthy and the extremists, the Republican Party, was certainly leaning that way and saw the power that that sort of hate mongering could bring to a political campaign.

Joseph Coohill:

Eisenhower jumped in as the, “No, I’m going to be the moderate here, and I’m going to make sure the Republican Party doesn’t go down the crazy train.” But for instance, he had an order to not to alienate all the Republicans, he had to pick a relative extreme vice presidential nominee, Richard Nixon, right, who was not McCarthy, but he certainly was on the far right of the Republican Party. And then, Eisenhower is able to govern. But then boom, lo and behold, in 1964, the Republicans nominate Barry Goldwater, which is just crazy. And even later on, they nominate Ronald Reagan in. People forget, because he’s now depicted as this great healer, but Reagan was considered, by other Republicans, to be a right wing extremist.

Joseph Coohill:

We were going to have the collapse of society because he was going to take all of the governing infrastructure down because he wanted to have complete tax cuts, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So the party seems to keep doing this. We only occasionally get a McCain or a Romney or a, if you will, a moderate. I don’t know why there’s this tendency in one party or the other, of one party to nominate the people on the extreme. The Democrats haven’t nominated an extremist since forever. Carter was very, very moderate. Carter was considered a right wing Democrat. McGovern was kind of a left wing Democrat, but a peacenik. But nobody else was, Hubert Humphrey was an establishment figure. John Kerry was certainly an establishment figure. Barack Obama was very, very moderate and on and on and on. So I don’t know. Again, when I said a minute ago, I literally don’t understand this. I literally don’t understand why the Republican Party has been doing this for so long, and I am very, very worried about it.

Chitra Ragavan:

And there have been news reports recently that Donald Trump has been very upset by comparisons to Richard Nixon. What comparisons, if any, are there in terms of this preponderance to spread conspiracy theories or to believe in them, et cetera?

Joseph Coohill:

I think the biggest one is the paranoia and “Everyone is against me.” And Nixon had that since his very early days as a Congressman. And I think what that manifested itself by lashing out at other groups. So Nixon comes to prominence in the forties and the early fifties by lashing out at people who are pink, who are proto-communist or pseudocommunist. And he’s not Joe McCarthy, but he almost is. He goes around saying all these people are communists, and we need to rid them from the government. And then of course, he becomes vice president and then loses the election and thinks, although this is historically incorrect, thinks that election was stolen from him in 1960. That adds to his paranoia. Then he immediately loses the 1962 gubernatorial election in California, which should have been a cakewalk. So he thinks the entire establishment is against him.

Joseph Coohill:

And that’s the sort of paranoia that’s being fed to Trump. He didn’t win the popular vote in 2016. He lost this election. He has certain Republicans like Romney and others actively opposing him. So it just feeds this everyone’s against me. And the same sorts of reports you’re hearing coming out of the White House that he’s raving and that he’s ranting, and that he’s doing all this, are exactly what happened with Nixon in the very last days. Nixon was literally on the floor in the Oval Office in a fetal position, crying uncontrollably. But in Nixon’s case, he knew he had done it to himself. Trump still believes it’s being done to him by other people.

Chitra Ragavan:

And it could take a while before he, if ever, that he’s able to accept that.

Joseph Coohill:

Yes. And I think we have to accept the fact that Richard Nixon was miles ahead of Donald Trump in the intelligence department. Even as paranoid and as problematic as Richard Nixon psyche was, he’s definitely infinitely smarter than Donald Trump.

Chitra Ragavan:

And just going back to this theme of technology, and you were talking about Richard Nixon lashing out at people. With Donald Trump, that lashing out was what has caused so much fear in the Republican Party, his ability to lash out on Twitter, the bullying and the name calling. He has this knack for tearing people down on Twitter that oppose him, and that seems to be another way that technology has enabled him to carry out his agenda.

Joseph Coohill:

It’s because it works completely well. A number of those writers were going through the Congress looking for pens to quote, “Hang Mike Pence.” Now Mike Pence is as right-wing as you can get in the Republican Party in the 21st century. It’s not like they were running through the Congress looking for Romney. But Trump had just recently said how disappointed he was in Pence because Pence wasn’t going to contest the election. And so, again, it comes back to this idea that the messianic figure says, “Ah, Pence is the problem.” Therefore, now we believe Pence is the problem and Romney is forgotten. So it really is a combination of this paranoid tendency, this tendency to believe the simplest answer. And when those two things are championed by a popular individual figure, then it’s almost impossible to stop it without direct intervention by the military.

Chitra Ragavan:

Do you have any other closing thoughts on where we are and where we need to be?

Joseph Coohill:

No, it’s just a please, please, please, people, well, first of all, listen to my show. But also, read a book on argumentative logic and argumentative fallacies. It really makes a huge difference in how you can understand the world. For instance, if you get your history, I do deal a lot in Irish history, if you get your history from folk songs, you’re going to have a very skewed and incorrect and factually dodgy version of Irish history. The same thing happens in the American left. If you walk around singing Pete Seeger songs and Joan Baez songs, as much as I might personally agree with them, that’s not what happened. So you really have to read more and think more and react, maybe not react less, but react much less impulsively.

Chitra Ragavan:

Joe, thank you so much for joining me on Techtopia.

Joseph Coohill:

Well, thanks for having me. It’s been great.

Chitra Ragavan:

Joseph Coohill is the producer and host of the very popular Professor Buzzkill History Podcast, which addresses misconceptions and misunderstandings in history. Professor Coohill earned his doctorate in history from the University of Oxford in 1998 and has taught at universities in Britain and the United States. This is Techtopia, I’m Chitra Ragavan.

Chitra Ragavan:

Techtopia is a podcast from Goodstory, an advisory firm helping technology startups with brand strategy, positioning and narrative. Our producer is Jeremy Corr, founder and CEO of Executive Podcasting Solutions. Our creative advisor is Adi Wineland. Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or your preferred podcast platform. And if you like the show, please rate it five stars, leave a review and do recommend it to your friends, families, and colleagues. For questions, comments, and transcripts, please visit our website at goodstory.io, or send us an email at [email protected]. Join us next week for another episode of Techtopia. I’ll see you then.