I want to get your take on what it means
to have potentially a venture capitalist in the White House.
How much do you think that there will be real changes to policy making for
innovation of small companies? Well, thanks for having me.
You know, first of all, I think the most important thing is whether there is a
change in administration or not. You know, obviously, as you were just
talking about in the previous segment, when it comes to former President Trump,
potentially future President Trump, there's always a degree of volatility,
uncertainty. There's always palace intrigue.
It's not exactly clear that his vice president is going to have all that much
influence over him. Certainly his first vice president did
not. But, you know, I think it'll be broadly
good for much of the tech industry of J.D.
Vance becomes vice president. He's a sort of of that community, or at
least in the past few years in his

career.
And he shares some of their interests, I think, particularly with respect to
deregulating A.I. and cryptocurrency.
I do think it's worth keeping in mind that the tech industry is not
monolithic. There are deep divides within the tech
industry, and, you know, by definition, the Republican Party isn't in lockstep
with them on all of those issues. So, you know, I think when it comes to
deregulation, tax policy, I cryptocurrency, there is, you know, some
degree of consonance between what a J.D. Vance wants and what much of the tech
industry wants. But when it comes to Section two, three,
privacy, even competition, to some degree, they're going to be at odds.
And so, you know, I think this is going to be good for the tech industry in
certain ways and, you know, bad for them in others.
Teddy. Good morning.
It's Ed in San Francisco.

Let's talk a little bit about TikTok. You just heard our analyst Mandeep Singh outline a thesis, and not just as a means of political communication, but a point of policy. How much do you think the American voter cares about TikTok, what may or may not happen in either outcome? 170 million Americans use TikTok. And we always say on this show that many of them that use it quite like it. And so I just find that interesting. It's a world, you know, and I wonder how critical you think it will be in this presidential election cycle. You know, the reality is that, you know, we're a country where you have essentially two options as to who to vote for. And you've got dozens of issues upon which to assess those two options. So it's difficult for any individual issue to change people's minds. Even abortion may not be a decisive voting issue for all that. Many people, as you know, kind of

dominant in the culture as it is.
That being said, elections in this country tend to be won on the margins.
There are certainly a lot of young people who don't want to have their
TikTok taken away from them. It may impact some of their votes.
But again, you know, they're looking at all of these issues and this, you know,
kind of unprecedentedly deep divide between the, you know, between the two
parties. And, you know, I think there probably
aren't all that many for whom this would be the one issue that gets them from
from one side to the other if there is no, you know, I think it's going to
benefit Trump, you know, because, you know, these young people who love their
TikTok don't want to take it away. And he's the one guy saying not to do it
and also using it. And I'm interested as a digital director
and former life and still advising with

precision, how much should you be leaning into various parts of the social media spectrum right now? How much also have you got to be thinking about artificial intelligence muddying the way in which individuals consume that content? Well, I think every candidate for office has got to be on social media. And I think putting to the side, whether you do or don't assess tick tock is a national security risk. And obviously that's a tough thing to put to the side. It's an absolutely critical communications platform, as you were just saying. It's where almost all of America's young people spend their time, you know, a huge amount of time. They're not necessarily there for news, but they're going to get news while they're there. And more broadly than just political news, they're going to get cultural information that's going to shape what they think about, you know, the culture wars writ large. And so, you know, Democrats, Republicans to have to have to play there.

You know, I think, though, the truth of
the matter is that no individual account is going to be able to get that much
traction on TikTok. That's just not how the platform works.
And there's too many creators, too much content, and too many people spending too
much time. So, Teddy, you know, the question I
think is more broadly than just, you know, one account.
How can political movements generate lots and lots of voices that, you know,
that can accrete to lots and lots of, you know, eyeballs upon their, you know,
upon their point of view? Teddy, you advised Obama on social
strategy, his re-election, the weekend's events, the assassination attempt showed
the risk of social media, the spread of misinformation.
Does either campaign have a handle on how to use it safely?
Well, my opinion, of course, is that one of the two campaigns has no interest in
using it safely.

And I don't want to come across as a hyper-partisan, but I just think there's lots of evidence to that effect. You know, I think, you know, the truth of the matter is, I think that disinformation is really, really hard to counter. And there's been lots of academic research into this. Lots of, you know, political experiments done, lots of corporate experiments done. You can try fact checks. You can try, you know, warnings. You can try, you know, all the various sort of disinformation mitigation techniques that are out there. And the fact of the matter is, it's still powerful. And once it's out there, it tends to sink in people's minds. And more broadly, it tends to just make people question what is and isn't true. And I think the consequence of that is they tend to believe that things are true, that they want to believe and disbelieve the things that they don't want to believe.

And there may not be great ways to
counter individual pieces of misinformation.
So what you've got to do as a campaign is just try to get your story out there
as best you can. You know, playing whack-a-mole with
different pieces of disinformation. There again, they're just too hard to
counter. You've just got to have the most
forceful, effective, proactive message you possibly can.
And, you know, obviously hope that that is to, you know, to kind of overcome the
effects of the disinformation that you're can have a very tough time
countering.

Strategist Goff: JD Vance Could Be Good for Tech Space

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