The Exchanges

Q Yeah. This is three to each, so this is why I stick to business. Okay, there was one other thing I wanted to talk about. You literally just got on a plane back from D.C., uh, and you were there all week. What's, what's the vibe like there right now? Is everybody freaking out?

A It wasn't as crazy as I thought it would be. Yeah, I mean, I, this trip was planned for a while, and so I kind of expected to be there And they'd still be counting votes. You know, I, I didn't, I didn't expect that, like everybody, didn't really expect this to be resolved the evening of. Um, it just depends on who you talk to. Um, there's a lot of panic among Democrats. There's, um, kind of a, a strange amount of optimism among, uh, people on the political right. Um, yeah, I think probably, when I say surprising, I think it's, it's more people that have been Trump skeptics, Trump wary, and, and even anti-Trump. I think There's a number of them now that's like, well, we've seen the show before with him, and, um, and there's also some real opportunity for maybe some disruption and reform in areas where we need that, and he's got his issues that he's really hyper-focused on, but that means there's opportunity within his administration elsewhere to get all kinds of other things done that are broadly aligned with what he cares about. Um, so it's kind of an interesting, it was, it was an interesting time. I mean, I think everyone's just kind of sitting there Just, um, nervously waiting to see what happens. And, you know, you go from one day where, like, Marco Rubio's name is floated for Secretary of State, everyone's like, well, that's a good decision or whatever. And then the next d…

AI assessment note: “It wasn't as crazy as I thought it would be.”

Q tagline now. Um, do you think that this administration, I mean, we have this department of, of Doge, right? Um, and we have, you know, Elon and Vivek and all this enthusiasm coming in, uh, to, to the government and this idea about cutting efficiency or cutting inefficiency and adding in more efficacy. Do you think, like, we, can we tackle Efficiency in government without tackling Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid?

A Yeah, I mean, you, you can, you can, um, you can tackle efficiency in government by just trying to, um, undo unhelpful regulations that are drag on the economy or that are not necessary, and so you, you have the Social Security, you have the Medicare issue, which need to be dealt with legislatively. They can also be done just by the formula, the formula, it's very, these complex formulas for the way the programs are administered, but they really do need to be overhauled. By law, I think. The, um, uh, but you can do a lot to undo regulations, um, that make it harder to build things, um, that, um, that make it harder to bring a product to market and all those kinds of things that, that Elon Musk is talking about. Um, Al Gore was supposed to be the reinventing government vice president back in the nineties. We've gone through, you know, throughout the past generation, a number of efforts and promises to actually, um, streamline Simplify, deregulate the federal government, and it's hard to point to something that's been all that successful. So, um, they are not gonna be able to wave a wand. Um, I think, um, you know, I'm a, I'm a fan of picking your fights very carefully and saying which parts of the economy do we think are unnecessarily regulated or inhibiting innovation or blocking entrance from the marketplace or favoring incumbents and making it harder for the little guy. There…

AI assessment note: “you can tackle efficiency in government by just trying to, um, undo unhelpful regulations”

Q wondering if Students and teachers are really learning these days. From an outside perspective, the university system kind of appears broken, or at least, um, under attack in some way. And you decided to start the Civitas Institute at University of Texas. Um, why? And what do you think you guys are going to be able to do different from inside one of the world's largest universities, University of Texas?

A Yeah, the, the Civitas Institute is a great new, um, creation. It's, uh, it's, it's created, uh, To essentially be part of a much larger effort to, um, kind of reclaim, um, a place within this large tier one great esteemed public research university, um, to kind of recover the basic principles of the American founding of a free society, of the kind of commercial, uh, and economic life that supports, and it's the, the lifeblood of that, that society, to teach it, um, in, in, in a historically accurate and proper way, and to do research. That kind of advances these ideas and helps us understand what a free society should be looking like in the future and what a growing and dynamic economy should look like in the, in the future and where we can make reforms, um, possible. So, um, Civitas, the best way to think of it is kind of a university-based think tank committed to those principles. So I've come from a think tank in Washington to build this organization into a similar type of, of thing at a university, which gives you access to all the research power of, of an institution like this. And really great Faculty and experts from around the country to be a part of it. We are joined at the hip with this other, a really important new effort called the School of Civic Leadership, and now technically housed within that school since institutes and centers typically have to be housed with…

AI assessment note: “To essentially be part of a much larger effort to, um, kind of reclaim”

Q And how does that work? The engineer keeps a percentage of it, and the school does? It's the best.

A Yeah, they all have, they all have different, different ways, yeah. And I don't think very many universities do this super well. They could all improve in terms of the incentives that they create for faculty to commercialize. Um, I looked at, I did a deep dive on this about 10 years ago, and so my, my knowledge is a little bit Dated. But you have a lot of various versions around the country of the same kind of bad practices where the, um, some universities are very heavy handed, and so there's not as much of an incentive for their, their scholars to, to work there. And so some of, some people, you know, including at Purdue, tried to kind of get, get ahead there. And I, I think at UT would do a good job of this as, as well. Um, there's a, there's a great opportunity actually across the country for large research-based universities to kind of reconfigure. The way that they do their commercialization agreements, their IP agreements with their, with their scholars to, to get more, uh, intellectual property and, um, all that's required to, to take an idea in a lab and turn it into a product that can, can be good for the, be good for the world and also profitable for the, the people that are involved in it.

AI assessment note: “they all have different, different ways... some universities are very heavy handed”

Q for bachelor's degree holders is like 35 to 40% higher than those who don't have it, so it's like you got to go to college to make more, but it's more expensive than it ever is relative to how much you wait, you, you make, and so How do we fix that, or do you think that the point of college is, is not to make us make more money?

A You know, it's a great question. There's a couple questions in there, and I think to step back and look at the, the broader issue, um, And this goes back to your original question too. Just the cost of a university degree right now is way more than it probably should be, um, for the value in a lot of places. Um, there's actually a, there's a study that just came out this past week that shows actually in large state universities over the last year, costs have not risen as much. In some cases they've gone down in net terms. It's a, it's a, there's a certain methodology that they used to do that. So I think at a place like University of Texas, a place like Purdue that we're talking about, I think the value is still really there in the end for the family in terms of what comes out of their pockets or what comes out of their bank accounts. Account. And for the value that they get, um, I think the real problem are these really, really expensive smaller private colleges. The elites, it still remains to be seen because they are still the elites, but, um, but I think the, the bigger story is that when you're in your early twenties, and I have two kids who are, um, you have the cost of school, um, and if you're carrying that debt, you know, fortunately my kids were fortunate enough not to have to be shouldering that, that debt, but a lot of their, Friends are. Um, the cost of housing is,…

AI assessment note: “I think the bigger story is that when you're in your early twenties”