The Exchanges

Q You were with the Patriots at that point, right?

A No, I was with the Colts. I had the application finished, but I wasn't sure I was going to submit it. Uh, but it was like right before the deadline for the first round. So anyway, so submit it and got in and I still wasn't sure. So I'd signed with the Patriots. I went to new England was hurt again. I think I had three surgeries in like six weeks when I was there. And, uh, Bill Belichick actually was the one who Sarah unceremoniously fired me. He called me in and he said, he said, uh, Said, I like you, but you're hurt and I can't have hurt people. And I was like, that makes sense. So, um, he said, if you get healthy, have your agent call me. Uh, we would like to have you, but, and I was actually smiling when he was saying this. He's like, you're smiling. That doesn't normally happen. I said, well, I think I'm going to retire and go to business school. He said, where are you going? I said, I'm going to go to Stanford. He goes, it's a good school.

AI assessment note: “No, I was with the Colts.”

Q So what do you think the bite-sized early regulation will be sort of on the steps to getting a more complete regulatory framework?

A My view is stable coins are probably the, the most straightforward to figure out. And part of it, you know, comes from the Terra Luna issue, right? And I think what that did was Wanted awakened members of Congress to what can happen when things go wrong. Right. But, and this was a happy surprise. It also forced members to confront, okay, what is this algorithmic stable coin thing? And how is it different from a fiat backed stable coin? And what, if anything, should we do about that distinction? And so I've been really encouraged by how well members have. Articulated that distinction and have grasped that distinction. And so what I think you'll probably see is some sort of law that enshrines a quote payment stable coin. Uh, that language has been used in a couple of different bills. Um, a payment stable coin as essentially a fiat backed stable coin. And then my preference would be that we're silent on Algorithmic stable coins. And, you know, we'll figure out what exactly that is later. Is it a security? Is it something else? Is it a commodity? I don't, you know, I don't think there's actually a clear answer to that. Um, because they're all different, right? Um, and they all have different properties and they, they don't all work the same. I would say let's focus on fiat backed stable coins. Cause I think we all actually agree on that. And intellectually, that's not that difficul…

AI assessment note: “My view is stable coins are probably the, the most straightforward to figure out.”

Q Yeah, well, because you teased it of things that are interesting to you and relevant to your district, let's take that thread and extrapolate on it. So how did those things become interesting to you? And let's start all the way with sort of your family story and dating back to Cuba.

A Yeah, so I'm the son of Cuban immigrants. My father immigrated here from Cuba. My mother was born and raised in Cincinnati in her family. And Our sort of path to Ohio is interesting in a sense. My grandparents, my Cuban grandparents were honeymooning and trying to go from basically New York City to Miami. They were driving. The legend is that they ran out of money in Ohio. And so they had to stop for a little bit, figure out how to get home and finish out their trip. And so they made some friends and made a little money and then came back to Cuba. Never thought they'd come back. My grandfather had always wanted to have some sort of an American experience because he always admired the U S particularly our democracy. You know, even pre Castro, it wasn't a beacon of democracy and freedom. It's known primarily for corruption.

AI assessment note: “I'm the son of Cuban immigrants. My father immigrated here from Cuba.”

Q Has there been legislation that came out of the meme stock mania?

A No, you know, I was actually disappointed in that because we did a ton of hearings on it, and the Democrats proposed some things. I don't say this is a partisan comment, by the way, it's just the reality. Republicans do the same junk. So we could have done some things, maybe, in a bipartisan way that I think would have been smart. The main thing we could have done is passed a bill to shorten the settlement time from two days to one day. That would reduce the risk in the system overall and probably would have prevented what Robin Hood ultimately had to do, which was halt trading. But rather than do that, what they ended up doing was they took a whole bunch of things that they had wanted to do for the last decade and they put them into a bill and it passed the house. It'll never go anywhere in the Senate. And so nothing changed. Again, that sounds like a hit on the Democrats. I'm not trying to hit Democrats. I'm sure if and when we retake the House majority, we'll do the same thing. Um, it's just kind of the frustration of Washington.

AI assessment note: “No, you know, I was actually disappointed in that”

Q Well, Anthony, on a closing note, let's bring it back to you personally a little bit. You're not running in the next election, so what, what do you think the future holds for you as you focus on the next chapter of your life?

A It's a good question. Um, uh, admittedly, my primary focus is, is finishing strong. I have a handful of pieces of legislation that I'm, I'm still pushing, uh, that I'm hopeful we can get across the finish line. That's the primary focus, but I am starting to kind of go through my notes again and reread my, My business school notebooks and I go through experiences. I keep notebooks at all times. So it's kind of fun to go through and relive some of those experiences building businesses, but also in business school. And, you know, I, I think I'm, I'm still trying to work through, do I want to be an investor or do I want to be an operator? I've done operating and I enjoy it. I enjoyed the heck out of building our campaign team, which is sort of like a startup in a way. And I enjoy the investment side. And, you know, like for me, what I'm trying to figure out is like who in my life do I admire and what kind of businesses do I, I want to build. You know, like I think of the IGSB model and I, I just think it's fundamentally An incredible model. The success is outrageous. Uh, for those of you who listened to the Altos acquired episode, it's probably most similar to that.

AI assessment note: “I'm still trying to work through, do I want to be an investor or”

Q Well, there's just no regulation at this point, right? Like back then.

A Well, yeah, it's the whole host of things that don't make sense. That's probably one of them. I kept reading these white papers and coming to a conclusion, which is Man, I can only, I feel like I can only learn so much. Like I need to actually play with this stuff a little bit so I can figure out how these things work. If I'm going to be knowledgeable on the space, like I should at least have some sort of feel for it. I mean, it would almost be like asking somebody to, I don't know, like regulate cell phone companies, but you're not allowed to use a cell phone. You know, so in my head, I thought, okay, well, I don't think I should be investing, but I do want to play around with it. So I took like a little margin, a couple hundred bucks or something, and started playing around in DeFi, and I quickly realized I couldn't do anything with my ETH because the gas fees would destroy it. Did that for like a couple of weeks. And then in my plan, which I ended up doing was I'll just give it all the United way when it's over the United way accepts crypto donations. And so I did that for a couple of weeks. I forget how long it was not too long, but ultimately learned probably more playing around with it than I ever could have just reading. And so from that, not only did I feel like I understood it better, But I also felt like I could, I could legislate in a, in a more thoughtful way. And s…

AI assessment note: “Well, yeah, it's the whole host of things that don't make sense. That's probably one of them.”