Dec 22, 2021 · 29m · american-optimist
How to Fix Dysfunctional Government with Esper CEO Maleka Momand · Joe Lonsdale
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In this episode of American Optimist, host Joe Lonsdale interviews Esper CEO Maleka Momand on how modern enterprise software, natural language processing, and data transparency can repair the administrative state and drive economic innovation.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Joe holds 31.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Joe as informed peer 4.4 Guest teaching 4.4 Guest disagreement 0.5 Joe pushing back 0.5
speaking balance: gold is Joe, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 28:41 Playful banter on Texas relocation
Momand playfully calls out Lonsdale, teasing that she moved to Texas before it was cool and after he previously warned her it was a bad idea.
Hardest push from Joe ▶ 7:40 Questioning regulatory trade-offs and human welfareLonsdale pushes Momand on whether accumulated regulations might actually be saving lives and providing necessary protections rather than simply imposing deadweight economic loss.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 23:43 Explaining the reality of government tech stacksMomand disillusions the assumption that agencies have sophisticated systems, explaining that massive multi-thousand-page policies are maintained entirely through ad hoc Excel spreadsheets and pen and paper.
Joe holds their own ▶ 9:38 Fast calculation of aggregate GDP impact per citizenLonsdale immediately does the back-of-the-envelope math from the Mercatus paper, framing the 30% lost GDP growth as an exact $4 trillion or $13,000 cost burden per citizen.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Joe as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Joe pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Title Sequence: American Optimist featuring Maleka Momand | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Lonsdale opens the interview exploring Momand's personal background, bassoon background, and work at the Institute for Justice. Momand explains the basics of FOIA requests in an informative, friendly tone. | |
| The Problems of the Unchecked Administrative State | 4 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Momand describes how legislative power shifted to unelected administrative agencies that write, enforce, and judge rules. Lonsdale reinforces her points with constitutional principles and asks clarifying questions about licensing reciprocity. | |
| The Expanding Federal Register and Economic Growth Impacts | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | Lonsdale and Momand discuss the ballooning Federal Register and the Mercatus Center study on compounding regulatory drag. Lonsdale probes whether regulations save lives or have clear trade-offs, which Momand notes agencies fail to measure. | |
| Gamifying Regulation and the Cost Burden per Citizen | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Momand explains how Esper uses NLP and data ontology to compare state regulatory burdens. Lonsdale performs mental math calculating the per-citizen cost of lost GDP and probes the popular perception that regulations primarily stop rich corporations. | |
| Bipartisan Perspectives on Regulatory Reform | 4 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Momand details how red and blue states frame regulatory reform differently (equity/transparency vs. efficiency/accountability). She educates Lonsdale on retrospective reviews and how agencies frequently enforce repealed statutes. | |
| Restoring Balance and Establishing Feedback Loops | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Momand emphasizes the total lack of feedback loops between rulemaking and real-world enforcement. Lonsdale contrasts this bureaucratic inertia with dynamic market feedback loops in the private sector. | |
| Case Study: Georgia Insurance Commission and Insurtech | 4 | 5 | 0 | 1 | Momand shares case studies including the Georgia Insurance Commission and Arizona's FinTech regulatory sandbox. Lonsdale tests potential downsides such as regulatory capture or companies exploiting relaxed sandboxes. | |
| The 8-Stage Policy Lifecycle and Statutory Authority | 5 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Momand walks through the 8-stage policy lifecycle, statutory authority, and the burden of public comments. Lonsdale engages deeply on how vague legislative drafting cedes enormous discretionary power to administrative bureaucrats. | |
| Rule Promulgation, Enforcement Disconnect, and Lack of KPIs | 4 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Momand breaks down the one-year rulemaking promulgation process and explains that agencies lack KPIs and rely on outdated tools like Word and Excel. Lonsdale and Momand align on the need for modern tech-enabled governance. | |
| Esper's Graph Operating System and Automated Governance | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Momand details Esper's graph architecture for statutory tracking and automated checks, noting positive regulatory rollbacks during COVID-19. Momand playfully teases Lonsdale about moving to Texas before him. |
Statements from this episode (23)
Momand: FOIA Is a Powerful Tool That Agencies Generally Comply With
“FOIA is a really powerful tool. It's used a lot by journalists and a lot by law firms. And it's sometimes abused, but agencies generally respond.”
Momand: Legislative Shift to Regulatory State Occurred in the 1980s and 1990s
“The shift in power to the regulatory state really happened in like the later 1900, like eighties, nineties where the legislature kind of gave away some of their power to these agencies and the agencies are now creating and enforcing regulations.”
Momand: Big Companies Have Regulatory Capture Advantage Over Startups
“Big companies can, and they definitely have an advantage. But smaller companies, innovative startups, things like that don't really have as much say there.”
Momand: US state regulations total hundreds of thousands, federal exceeds one million
“In the state level, there are usually several 100,000. At the federal level, there are like over a million.”
Lonsdale: Federal Register grew from 10,000–20,000 pages to 185,000 pages
“So there's a book where they write all the regulations in it, and it used to be like 10 or 20,000 pages long. And now it's, I guess, a 185,000 pages.”
Momand: Regulatory reforms increase regulations by adding paperwork without process change
“The federal government has introduced a lot of regulatory reform during that time period, aimed at, like, keeping the number of regulations low, but because they haven't really changed process, they've just, like, added more paperwork and more people to it the…”
Momand: Mercatus Center estimated regulations slow annual economic growth by 0.8%
“So this is a cool paper that came out a few years ago from the Mercatus Center. And basically it looked at the level of regulation, the cumulative cost of regulation from the 19 eighties to present day. And they estimated that, you know, the economy has slowed…”
Momand: Regulatory agencies do not know net trade-offs of stacked rules
“I don't know, and the agencies don't know. That's the issue. So right now regulatory agencies, they'll pass, you know, an occupational licensing regulation in 2000, and then they'll pass a new one in 2015, and a new one in 2020, and they begin to stack on top …”
Momand: Esper built an NLP database of US and Canadian regulations
“So basically when we started us where we invested a ton of time into building up this like database and ontology of regulations across the federal state and Canada, and we've applied some cool NLP and other, you know, tech things to analyze the data and find s…”
Momand: Wealthy Entities Have the Resources to Game the Regulatory System
“I think actually like the rich people have the resources to gain the regulatory system and get ahead. Whereas the small people are the smaller businesses.”
Momand: Both Parties Want Regulatory Reform but Frame It Differently
“I wouldn't say that people push back on it per se. I think that, especially in the past two years, even after we started Archive, there's definitely a recognition across both sides of the aisle that, you know, we need to improve regulation, but the language in…”
Momand: Retrospective regulatory reviews exist in 10 to 15 states
“And this is introduced in probably like 10 to 15 states right now with various levels of success.”
Momand: Government agencies collect zero data on real-world regulatory enforcement outcomes
“So what I think is actually probably the biggest issue right now in the regulatory state, we're working on the process, but agencies, you know, write these regulations and then they put them into administration and enforcement. You know, they've written their …”
Momand: Bureaucracies Expand Because They Lack Dynamic Feedback
“Whereas the government is not getting dynamic feedback and it just continues to grow because they don't have any reason not to.”
Momand: Arizona created a regulatory sandbox for FinTech
“Another example would be like in Arizona, they did a regulatory sandbox for FinTech a couple of years ago.”
Momand: Regulatory sandboxes provide the closest model to a healthy feedback loop
“I think the, it's actually way more collaborative and probably the closest We've seen to a healthy feedback loop because the agency is actually talking to the company and they're chatting with them and they're kind of giving them free reign, but watching them …”
Momand: Regulators exploit loosely defined laws to add substantial new requirements
“It's really loosely defined in law and the regulators go in, you know, with scissors and pencil. Like they like really like edit it down and like add more to.”
Momand: Government rulemaking takes at least one year end-to-end
“Each rulemaking takes about a year end to end at least to, you know, be promulgated.”
Momand: Agencies only revise rules for statutory changes or special interest outcry
“And the only reason they'll change the regulation is if the law changes their statutory authority or a really massive special interest, like throws a fit.”
Momand: Government agencies make policy using Excel and Word without centralized records
“Typically when Esper like starts, you know, working with an agency, they are making policy like on the fly using Excel spreadsheets, word, like they don't have a single place of like record for all of their data.”
Momand: Manually fact-checking 3,000 environmental regulations takes five people one year
“If I'm a regulator at the Texas commission for environmental quality I need to like read through my like 3000 regulations and go back and like Fact check every single law that I cite. That's like a year long process for like a team of five people.”