A Conversation with Thomas Friedman

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Kind: captions
Language: en

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Sal: I thank everyone for coming.

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I think we should turn this speaker series

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into people who really
don't need an introduction

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speaker series, but I will give

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a brief introduction regardless.

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This is Tom Friedman, famous writer,

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3 Pulitzer Prizes, New
York Time columnist.

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Many of you all might
not have realized that

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we know each other and that every morning

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we coordinate our outfits which is now.

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Tom: What are you wearing today Sal?

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Sal: Yeah I know we're
very careful about that.

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Tom: Should we do pink today?

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Sal: Yes, but it's a real
honor to have you here

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and where I like to start is-

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I mean a lot of people know you as like

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the public person and
I do this really for-

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Frankly a lot of people who just might be

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watching Khan Academy,

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young students or whatever
and I'm always curious

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how a Tom Friedman becomes a Tom Friedman.

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I mean what brought you on this path?

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Tom: It's interesting.
I was born in Minnesota.

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I grew up in St. Louis Park

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a small suburb of Minneapolis.

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I've always thought to
be a successful columnist

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and rather I am or not
someone else can judge,

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but it's really important
to be from somewhere Sal.

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It's really important to
be grounded in a worldview

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that you take around the world

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and you measure against
other things you see

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and so the thing that
you have to understand

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about my column is I'm
always looking for Minnesota.

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So what does that mean?

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That means I grew up in Minneosta

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at a particular time when

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politics really sort of worked.

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So I graduated from high school in 1971

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and that was the year that Walt,

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that our ... sorry, our governor-

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I forgot his last name now, Anderson,

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was on the cover of Time Magazine

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holding up a walleye under the headline-

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Sal: A what?

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Tom: A walleye fish.

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Sal: A walleye. I don't know what that is.

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Tom: A walleye fish.
Yeah it's a sort of fish.

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Under the headline

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"Minnesota: The State that Works"

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So I grew up in a totally liberal district

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and my whole life my congressmen were

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2 liberal Republicans not Democrats.

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My senators growing up
were Walter Mondale,

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Eugene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey.

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The companies I grew up with were

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Dayton-Hudson, Target, Honeywell, 3M

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who thought it was part of
their responsibility to do-

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corporate social responsibility
to build the symphony

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to fund education programs so it gave me-

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I now only realize in retrospect

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a very powerful sense that politics

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is something that can work

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that communities can come together

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and so when I later, you know,

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went to the Middle East
or Beirut or whatever

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I carried that with me and
a lot of what I saw was-

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I saw communities falling apart.

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Somebody else may have said something.

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My life changed in 10th grade.

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I had a great teacher.

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Her name was Hattie Steinberg

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and she taught journalism in room 313

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at St. Louis Park High School

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and her class is still
the only journalism course

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I've ever taken not because I'm that good,

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but because she was that good.

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It was the only one I ever needed

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and she really inspired me
to want to be a journalist

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and a writer and in that
same year my parents

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took me to Israel on a
trip to visit my sister

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who was going to school there.

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I had never been out of
the state of Minnesota.

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I was 15, except for a few
brief forays into Wisconsin

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and I had never been on an airplane

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and so that was my first trip.

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I came to the Middle East came to Israel

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and I was just kind of
blown away so I actually

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lived on a kibbutz all 3
summers of high school.

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I got totally fascinated
with the Middle East.

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Dropped everything and
was just totally absorbed

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with journalism and the Middle East.

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I then went to college.

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I started taking Arabic as a freshman.

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I eventually did a semester

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at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

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A semester at the American
University in Cairo

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and I graduated in 1975 from Brandeis

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ultimately in Middle East studies

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and I had a Marshall Scholarship

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to study Arabic and Middle East history

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ultimately in England.

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I did my first year at

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the School of Oriental and African Studies

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and then I went to Oxford and sort of had

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a classic British Arab
education at St Antony's,

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but while I was in London
I met my then girlfriend,

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now wife, Ann Bucksbaum,
who was a Stanford grad

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who had graduated a
year early and kind of-

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She told her dad "You owe
me a year of college."

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So she decided to go to LSC for a year

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and we met through
mutual friends in London

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and my real journalism
career started because-

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This was 1975 and we were walking

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down a street in London and, you know,

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the Evening Standard newstand they always

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have that blaring headline, you know,

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"Brad to Jen we're finished," you know,

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buy the Evening paper.

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And we were walking
down a street in London

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and I saw the headline

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in the Evening Standard and it said

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"Carter to Jews: If elected
I promise to fire Dr. K."

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And I stopped and looked
at that and I said to my

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then girlfriend, now wife,
"Isn't that interesting?"

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This guy is running for
president, Jimmy Carter,

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he's trying to win Jewish votes

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by promising to fire Henry Kissinger

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the first-ever Jewish Secretary of State

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so how could that be?

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And that's sort of how my mind works

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and I have no idea what possessed me,

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but I went back to my dorm

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and I wrote a column about it.

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And my then girlfriend,
now wife, really liked it.

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She is from Des Moines, Iowa.

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She took it home on
spring or winter break,

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I don't remember now,

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and gave it to a family friend

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named Gilbert Cranberg who is

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editorial page editor of
the Des Moines Register,

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a wonderful midwest paper at that time,

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and he liked it and he
printed it under op-ed page,

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half the op-ed page under
an Oust cartoon and they-

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Sal: Alf cartoon?

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Tom: Oust a cartoonist.

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Sal: Oh, oh, yeah, I though Alf.

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It was the wrong timeframe.

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Tom: Under an Oust cartoon
and they paid me $50.

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Sal: Wow.

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Tom: And I thought that
was the coolest thing

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in the whole world.

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I was walking down the
street. I had an opinion.

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I went and wrote it. I gave it to someone

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and they paid me $50.

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Sal: People pay for this.

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Tom: And I just thought ...
I was hooked ever after.

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So during my time at Oxford
I wrote op-ed columns

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about the Middle East for the

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Minneapolis StarTribune my hometown paper

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where I also knew the
editorial page editor

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and from my wife's, then girlfriend,

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wife's hometown paper.

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So I graduated from Oxford in '78

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and I had a wonderful time there.

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I studied with Albert Hourani,

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a great Arab historian and wonderful man.

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So I went to apply for a job

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and I decided I was going to apply-

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because a friend of mine

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applied at AP once in London

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so I applied for a job
at the Associated Press

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and the United Press
International in London

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and the AP said "You've
never covered a fire.

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"You've never covered
a city hall meeting,"

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but I had a dozen op-ed columns

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from the Middle East.

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UPI kind of being Avis
and AP being Hertz said

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"Look the kids never covered a fire,

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"but if he can do this we could probably

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"teach him that and there's just been

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"a revolution in Iran

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"and I think they use
the same kind of letters

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"as they do in the Arab world and a

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"bunch of squiggles and if
he knew the Arabic stuff

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"maybe we could teach him to do that."

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And so they hired me for $200 a week

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on Fleet Street and I worked
there for almost a year

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when the number 2 man in
the Beirut bureau of UPI

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got shot in the ear by a man robbing

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a jewellery store on [Humbler] Street

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and he called the headquarters and said

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"I want to get out of here."

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I do not want to pass go.

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I do not want to collect $200.

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GET ME OUT OF HERE.

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Sal: Where was this? This was in where?

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Tom: In Beirut.
Sal: In Beirut.

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Tom: Right. The Civil War started-

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Sal: He got shot in the ear?

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Tom: In the ear by a man
robbing a jewellery store.

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Sal: At a jewellery store.

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Tom: And so UPI came to me and said

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"Do you want to go to Beirut?"

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Sal: And you are like 20?

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Tom: I'm 25.
Sal: 25 years old.

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Tom: Yeah, and I'd never been to Beirut.

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I'd been to Egypt, but
never been to Beirut.

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So I turned to my then wife and-

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Sal: There's a Civil War going on.

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Tom: Civil War it's the
middle of the Civil War

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just started in '75 so this was now-

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It was well into its
third year this was '79

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fourth year actually and we just said

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"This is our moment and got to go."

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Sal: And your wife went.

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Tom: She signed up and
so we went off to Beirut

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and my first night there
at the Commodore Hotel

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I heard a gunshot fired
and it was the first time

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I had ever heard a gunshot in my life.

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You didn't hear a lot of
those in St. Louis Park.

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We were in Beirut for 2 years.

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The Civil War had a very profound

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searing experience on me because what is-

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And I don't mean this
in a voyeuristic way,

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but when you're in one of those situations

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you see how molecules behave

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at very high temperatures

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so what you see is what
people are capable of

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from both good and evil
in a way you'll never

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see in any normal environment

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so the whole color
spectrum goes out to here

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and you learn an enormous
amount about people

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and about yourself.

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So I did that for 2 years and then

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the New York Times hired me.

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I went back to New York
for about 11 months

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as a business correspondent covering oil

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and then they sent me back
to Beirut in April 1982.

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And I realize that date
doesn't mean anything

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to anyone in this room
they weren't born then,

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but Israel invaded Lebanon 6 weeks later.

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And the Lebanon story became

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the biggest story in the world.

00:09:14.360 --> 00:09:16.920
And so I covered the Israeli invasion,

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the Marines coming, the Marines going,

00:09:18.376 --> 00:09:20.776
the US Embassy bombing, Sabra and Shatila,

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the massacres, all the journalists.

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I covered the Hama massacre in Syria

00:09:25.551 --> 00:09:28.111
which was the precursor
to what's going on now.

00:09:28.111 --> 00:09:30.265
And maybe the most important

00:09:30.265 --> 00:09:33.000
experience of that
because we're just at the

00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:37.600
20th Anniversary, sorry 30th Anniversary

00:09:37.600 --> 00:09:40.471
of the US Embassy bombing
and it's quite important

00:09:40.471 --> 00:09:44.240
and it's doubly important
for what I'll share with you.

00:09:44.240 --> 00:09:46.855
On, I think it was April 18th,

00:09:46.855 --> 00:09:49.589
you can check the date 1983

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I was sitting in my
apartment in West Beirut

00:09:54.261 --> 00:09:58.253
and I had a transistor radio on my desk.

00:09:58.253 --> 00:10:00.015
That was something that was used back then

00:10:00.015 --> 00:10:03.540
in the dark ages to
actually listen to the BBC.

00:10:03.540 --> 00:10:05.710
Sal: Yes-yes.

00:10:06.375 --> 00:10:09.855
Tom: And there was a blast so powerful

00:10:09.855 --> 00:10:13.549
that it actually knocked
the radio off my desk

00:10:13.549 --> 00:10:15.465
like an earthquake almost

00:10:15.465 --> 00:10:17.143
and so I did what journalists do back then

00:10:17.143 --> 00:10:21.879
I just ran down to the
street to do 2 things.

00:10:21.879 --> 00:10:24.519
One is the Israelis set
off a lot of sonic booms

00:10:24.519 --> 00:10:27.429
by supersonic jets over
Beirut so a sonic boom

00:10:27.429 --> 00:10:30.237
sounds a lot like a car bomb or anything.

00:10:30.237 --> 00:10:31.205
You don't know that-

00:10:31.205 --> 00:10:33.336
and so the first thing you
listened for are sirens.

00:10:33.336 --> 00:10:35.826
If it's a sonic boom
you won't hear sirens.

00:10:35.826 --> 00:10:38.410
If you hear sirens it's bad

00:10:38.410 --> 00:10:40.986
and I quickly saw a
mushroom cloud curling up

00:10:40.986 --> 00:10:43.670
in the distance and a big one

00:10:43.670 --> 00:10:47.709
and so I just ran toward
it and that's what you do.

00:10:47.709 --> 00:10:48.732
Sal: That's right, yeah, absolutely.

00:10:48.732 --> 00:10:51.723
Tom: And I got closer and closer and said

00:10:51.723 --> 00:10:55.739
"It couldn't be, no-no, it couldn't"-

00:10:55.739 --> 00:10:58.110
And I sort of rounded the turn at

00:10:58.110 --> 00:10:59.451
the American University in Beirut

00:10:59.451 --> 00:11:01.787
and there was the US Embassy

00:11:01.787 --> 00:11:03.627
which I used to live
across the street from

00:11:03.627 --> 00:11:05.946
cut in half like a doll's house,

00:11:05.946 --> 00:11:09.932
bodies hanging out, you
know, papers, desks,

00:11:09.932 --> 00:11:13.288
a smouldering smoking ruin

00:11:13.288 --> 00:11:16.843
and staggering around was
a young political officer

00:11:16.843 --> 00:11:19.762
named Ryan Crocker who I
actually spoke to today

00:11:19.762 --> 00:11:21.917
because Ryan later became
Ambassador to Beirut,

00:11:21.917 --> 00:11:25.541
to Syria, to Afghanistan and Iraq.

00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:31.448
I don't remember if it
was him or someone else,

00:11:31.448 --> 00:11:35.545
but I said "What happened?" and they said

00:11:35.545 --> 00:11:38.161
"A man drove a truck-

00:11:38.161 --> 00:11:40.687
You remember the US Embassy in those days

00:11:40.687 --> 00:11:42.397
had no parameter.

00:11:42.397 --> 00:11:42.905
Sal: Wow.

00:11:42.905 --> 00:11:44.804
Tom: You just walked up to the front door.

00:11:44.804 --> 00:11:45.368
Sal: Right.

00:11:45.368 --> 00:11:48.768
Tom: "A man drove a truck
through the driveway,

00:11:48.768 --> 00:11:53.105
"up the front stairs into
the lobby and blew it up."

00:11:53.105 --> 00:11:54.936
And I'll never forget what I said.

00:11:54.936 --> 00:11:59.556
"You mean he blew himself up.

00:11:59.556 --> 00:12:03.700
"You mean he committed suicide."

00:12:03.700 --> 00:12:04.422
Sal: Right. That was unheard of.

00:12:04.422 --> 00:12:06.831
Tom: That was un ... I mean I literally

00:12:06.831 --> 00:12:08.711
I could not get my mind around it

00:12:08.711 --> 00:12:11.423
and that was the beginning
that was the first one.

00:12:12.269 --> 00:12:16.704
And that's really the way
the phenomenon started.

00:12:16.704 --> 00:12:18.660
So anyways I did 2 more years in Beirut

00:12:18.660 --> 00:12:19.828
for the New York Times.

00:12:19.828 --> 00:12:23.808
It was remarkable in the sense to just see

00:12:23.808 --> 00:12:25.615
the human drama that played out.

00:12:25.615 --> 00:12:28.423
Sal: I have about 8 million
questions in my brain,

00:12:28.423 --> 00:12:30.626
but I mean especially when you hear about

00:12:30.626 --> 00:12:32.022
war correspondents people who are

00:12:32.022 --> 00:12:33.639
in these war zones I mean did you-

00:12:33.639 --> 00:12:34.958
and your wife is there with you.

00:12:34.958 --> 00:12:35.895
Tom: Yeah.

00:12:35.895 --> 00:12:37.230
Sal: Did you fear for your life?

00:12:37.230 --> 00:12:38.830
I mean you could go back
to wherever, New York,

00:12:38.830 --> 00:12:41.276
Minneapolis, hang out
at the Target, whatever.

00:12:42.614 --> 00:12:44.734
Tom: That's right Mall of
America it wasn't built then.

00:12:46.610 --> 00:12:50.733
So there were times that-

00:12:51.656 --> 00:12:54.367
I came to Beirut in April 1982.

00:12:54.367 --> 00:12:57.548
The war started in June and unfortunately

00:12:57.548 --> 00:12:59.219
in the first week of the war

00:12:59.219 --> 00:13:01.517
a massive number of refugees

00:13:01.517 --> 00:13:03.956
came up from the south mostly Palestinian.

00:13:03.956 --> 00:13:06.381
My driver in Beirut was a Palestinian

00:13:06.381 --> 00:13:08.629
and he had worked for the
Times since the '50's.

00:13:08.629 --> 00:13:10.758
Actually he was a driver for Kim Philby.

00:13:10.758 --> 00:13:12.951
I mean Mohammed had seen like it all

00:13:12.951 --> 00:13:17.428
and he began to fear for my safety

00:13:17.428 --> 00:13:19.807
because refugees were
taking over apartments

00:13:19.807 --> 00:13:22.540
any vacant apartment and this was summer

00:13:22.540 --> 00:13:25.590
so a lot of Beiruties
had gone to, you know-

00:13:25.590 --> 00:13:27.760
Sal: A lot of people would just break-in.

00:13:27.760 --> 00:13:28.802
Tom: Break-in, empty apartment, move in.

00:13:28.802 --> 00:13:32.656
And so he chose ... he
decided to move his wife

00:13:32.656 --> 00:13:34.544
and 2 daughters into my apartment

00:13:34.544 --> 00:13:36.304
and move me into the hotel.

00:13:36.304 --> 00:13:38.324
He thought it would be much safer for me.

00:13:38.324 --> 00:13:42.452
And tragically 2 groups
of refugees got in a fight

00:13:42.452 --> 00:13:45.604
over my building and the
one that lost blew it up.

00:13:45.604 --> 00:13:46.300
Sal: Wow.

00:13:46.300 --> 00:13:50.380
Tom: And so the building
was completely destroyed

00:13:50.380 --> 00:13:52.508
and unfortunately my
driver's wife and 2 daughters

00:13:52.508 --> 00:13:53.675
were killed in my apartment.

00:13:53.675 --> 00:13:54.419
Sal: Oh my God.

00:13:54.419 --> 00:13:56.116
Tom: And that was in the
first week of the war.

00:13:58.269 --> 00:14:00.631
So, you know, that was obviously

00:14:00.631 --> 00:14:01.338
I could have been there.

00:14:01.338 --> 00:14:03.171
My wife hadn't come over yet.

00:14:03.171 --> 00:14:05.219
You know, people always ask you that

00:14:05.219 --> 00:14:07.619
and I honestly don't think about it.

00:14:07.619 --> 00:14:09.441
I remember once being
out to interview Arafat

00:14:09.441 --> 00:14:11.279
when the Israelis bombed the neighborhood

00:14:11.279 --> 00:14:12.624
and I just remember that when

00:14:12.624 --> 00:14:14.703
a big concussion bomb hits how it sucked

00:14:14.703 --> 00:14:16.695
all the oxygen out of the air.

00:14:16.695 --> 00:14:18.813
I was once walking around Beirut airport

00:14:18.813 --> 00:14:20.887
with the Marines when a ricochet

00:14:20.887 --> 00:14:23.841
came over our heads and when a ricochet-

00:14:23.841 --> 00:14:25.391
Because a ricochet slows down a bullet

00:14:25.391 --> 00:14:26.727
you can actually hear it turning

00:14:26.727 --> 00:14:28.598
when it gets closer to you.

00:14:28.598 --> 00:14:30.511
So I remember those kind of things,

00:14:30.511 --> 00:14:33.111
but most of the time
I tried to be prudent.

00:14:33.111 --> 00:14:34.603
People said "Do you have
a bulletproof vest?"

00:14:34.603 --> 00:14:36.440
My motto is if you need a bulletproof vest

00:14:36.440 --> 00:14:38.840
you're somewhere you shouldn't be.

00:14:38.840 --> 00:14:39.951
Because there's no sense in getting

00:14:39.951 --> 00:14:43.552
yourself killed so I tried
to be as prudent as I could.

00:14:43.552 --> 00:14:45.316
I still did some crazy ass things, but-

00:14:45.316 --> 00:14:48.557
I used to walk home at
night after work at 11

00:14:48.557 --> 00:14:51.444
which I still can't believe
and I wrote about this.

00:14:51.444 --> 00:14:52.836
I wrote a book ultimately called

00:14:52.836 --> 00:14:54.382
"From Beirut to Jerusalem"

00:14:54.382 --> 00:14:56.210
and there was a time
where I was walking home

00:14:56.210 --> 00:14:57.250
at night with my wife-

00:14:57.250 --> 00:14:58.753
Sal: I bought that as a
teenager just so you know.

00:14:58.753 --> 00:15:02.282
Tom: After a movie and
we were walking down

00:15:02.282 --> 00:15:05.600
the streets of Beirut and
a man jumped out a window

00:15:05.600 --> 00:15:07.923
with a pistol in his
hand and literally landed

00:15:07.923 --> 00:15:11.848
like right in front of
us and I used to say

00:15:11.848 --> 00:15:13.251
Beirut was so dangerous at night

00:15:13.251 --> 00:15:14.885
you could walk home
because even the criminals

00:15:14.885 --> 00:15:16.454
were afraid to be out,

00:15:16.454 --> 00:15:18.877
but he looked at us and we looked at him

00:15:18.877 --> 00:15:20.820
and he just went away.

00:15:20.820 --> 00:15:21.948
Sal: Just like that.

00:15:21.948 --> 00:15:22.543
Tom: Just like-

00:15:22.543 --> 00:15:24.369
But it was almost like
Batman, you know, jumped out,

00:15:24.369 --> 00:15:27.634
but basically we tried to be prudent.

00:15:27.634 --> 00:15:30.788
We obviously saw many tragic scenes.

00:15:30.788 --> 00:15:33.703
As that kid from St.
Louis Park who never had

00:15:33.703 --> 00:15:36.223
to help dig his driver's
wife and 2 daughters

00:15:36.223 --> 00:15:37.483
out of the rubble of an apartment

00:15:37.483 --> 00:15:40.830
so it was a searing experience for me.

00:15:40.830 --> 00:15:43.282
You hold a lot of stuff in because

00:15:43.282 --> 00:15:45.040
I was there for the New York Times.

00:15:45.040 --> 00:15:46.872
It's my first assignment for the Times.

00:15:46.872 --> 00:15:48.754
The city was under siege they couldn't get

00:15:48.754 --> 00:15:51.700
more reporters in so
they were stuck with me.

00:15:51.700 --> 00:15:57.539
But at the end of the summer
my deal with the Times

00:15:57.539 --> 00:15:59.587
was that I'm gonna stay here-

00:15:59.587 --> 00:16:01.556
I was in the south when Israel invaded

00:16:01.556 --> 00:16:04.964
and I'm gonna stay here
until the PLO leaves.

00:16:04.964 --> 00:16:06.732
That was the negotiation
the PLO was going to leave,

00:16:06.732 --> 00:16:10.260
you know what-not because
I wanted, you know-

00:16:10.260 --> 00:16:11.913
In your career at the New York Times

00:16:11.913 --> 00:16:14.675
if you write one 6 column headline story

00:16:14.675 --> 00:16:16.842
for the New York Times that's a big deal.

00:16:16.842 --> 00:16:17.602
Sal: Right.

00:16:17.602 --> 00:16:19.202
Tom: I probably had 8
that summer, you know,

00:16:19.202 --> 00:16:20.954
these were ... and I wanted to have

00:16:20.954 --> 00:16:22.906
"Israel Invades" and "The War Ends"

00:16:22.906 --> 00:16:24.381
You know what I mean?

00:16:24.381 --> 00:16:25.689
You know, I was going to stick it out.

00:16:25.689 --> 00:16:29.238
So the day finally came that the PLO left

00:16:29.238 --> 00:16:30.806
and I always give this as a lesson

00:16:30.806 --> 00:16:32.441
to young journalists.

00:16:32.441 --> 00:16:33.986
It was a Saturday. I went down to the port

00:16:33.986 --> 00:16:36.469
to watch them go in
trucks get on these boats

00:16:36.469 --> 00:16:38.303
to Greece and Tunisia and what-not

00:16:38.303 --> 00:16:39.984
and actually I was with Peter Jennings,

00:16:39.984 --> 00:16:41.525
the late Peter Jennings from ABC,

00:16:41.525 --> 00:16:43.149
and I remember because
we were standing there

00:16:43.149 --> 00:16:45.690
the Palestinians were
all shooting in the air

00:16:45.690 --> 00:16:48.141
and we were covered in shell cases.

00:16:48.141 --> 00:16:50.157
That is one of my searing memories,

00:16:50.157 --> 00:16:51.477
but it was an amazing scene

00:16:51.477 --> 00:16:52.709
and I had been there all summer

00:16:52.709 --> 00:16:54.405
and it was just the
combination of the whole thing

00:16:54.405 --> 00:16:57.500
and I went back to the Writers Bureau

00:16:57.500 --> 00:16:59.769
where I worked just one of those noisy,

00:16:59.769 --> 00:17:01.481
old time newsrooms which I love.

00:17:01.481 --> 00:17:04.468
By the way, those days
you worked on something

00:17:04.468 --> 00:17:07.176
it was called a typewriter. Okay.

00:17:07.176 --> 00:17:09.975
And I worked on an Adler. I was so proud.

00:17:09.975 --> 00:17:11.920
I had a German typewriter.

00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:14.208
It actually got blown
up, but I got another one

00:17:14.208 --> 00:17:17.840
and I'm in the Writers Bureau

00:17:17.840 --> 00:17:18.939
working on my typewriter.

00:17:18.939 --> 00:17:20.571
The way you wrote stories back then,

00:17:20.571 --> 00:17:22.369
the way you wrote your news story

00:17:22.369 --> 00:17:24.566
you had to write it 3
paragraphs at a time,

00:17:24.566 --> 00:17:26.337
hand it to a telex operator,

00:17:26.337 --> 00:17:27.921
they punched it into telex tape,

00:17:27.921 --> 00:17:30.541
and then it was telexed
to the New York Times.

00:17:30.541 --> 00:17:31.976
It came out of this telex tape

00:17:31.976 --> 00:17:33.822
and they fed it into a computer

00:17:33.822 --> 00:17:35.318
and then it was edited.

00:17:35.318 --> 00:17:36.617
That's how it all worked.

00:17:36.617 --> 00:17:39.869
Try writing a story 3
paragraphs at a time.

00:17:39.869 --> 00:17:40.439
Sal: Yeah.

00:17:40.439 --> 00:17:42.800
Tom: So you have to write
the whole thing through

00:17:42.800 --> 00:17:43.880
because you got to know where you're going

00:17:43.880 --> 00:17:45.446
then write it through again

00:17:45.446 --> 00:17:47.945
and then you kind of write
it through and hand it in.

00:17:47.945 --> 00:17:50.993
So it's Saturday it's about 3 o'clock

00:17:50.993 --> 00:17:53.225
I'm doing this I'm
writing this is my last-

00:17:53.225 --> 00:17:54.889
this is a combination of the whole summer

00:17:54.889 --> 00:17:56.985
and all the communications from Beirut

00:17:56.985 --> 00:17:58.745
to the rest of the world went down.

00:17:58.745 --> 00:17:59.489
Sal: Wow.

00:17:59.489 --> 00:18:02.153
Tom: Somebody basically either unplugged

00:18:02.153 --> 00:18:04.536
the PTT because they all
went through 1 PTT line.

00:18:04.536 --> 00:18:06.487
Post telephone and telegraph.

00:18:07.963 --> 00:18:10.391
No cell phones then, no nothing,

00:18:10.391 --> 00:18:14.186
so the entire communications
between Beirut

00:18:14.186 --> 00:18:16.266
and the rest of the world were cut down.

00:18:16.266 --> 00:18:19.697
I still today have the
telex tape in a shoebox

00:18:19.697 --> 00:18:22.474
of my last story from Lebanon.

00:18:22.474 --> 00:18:23.978
I stayed by the telex all night

00:18:23.978 --> 00:18:25.546
to see if it would come on.

00:18:25.546 --> 00:18:27.466
It never did and that Sunday morning

00:18:27.466 --> 00:18:29.686
under a 6 column headline said

00:18:29.686 --> 00:18:33.897
"Palestinians Evacuate
Beirut" Associated Press

00:18:33.897 --> 00:18:34.650
Sal: Wow.

00:18:34.650 --> 00:18:36.592
Tom: And why I always
tell young journalists

00:18:36.592 --> 00:18:40.052
about that is that it's
really my view of life

00:18:40.052 --> 00:18:42.662
which is that it's all about the journey

00:18:42.662 --> 00:18:44.398
not about the destination.

00:18:44.398 --> 00:18:47.434
I love the movie "Moneyball" because

00:18:47.434 --> 00:18:49.570
you just got to enjoy the show

00:18:49.570 --> 00:18:52.742
and sometimes you don't
have the headlight,

00:18:52.742 --> 00:18:54.460
you don't have the thing-

00:18:54.460 --> 00:18:55.526
I don't mean enjoy a war,

00:18:55.526 --> 00:18:56.787
but you know what I'm
saying you just got to-

00:18:56.787 --> 00:18:59.180
Sal: Well no, you took a real
experience you're living.

00:18:59.180 --> 00:19:00.767
Tom: You just got to be satisfied by

00:19:00.767 --> 00:19:02.616
the experience because sometimes

00:19:02.616 --> 00:19:05.600
the PTT goes down, you know.

00:19:06.124 --> 00:19:07.557
Sal: And you never had an experience

00:19:07.557 --> 00:19:08.948
like that gentleman who got his ear shot

00:19:08.948 --> 00:19:10.225
where you're just like I've had enough,

00:19:10.225 --> 00:19:10.935
I'm out of here.

00:19:10.935 --> 00:19:13.501
Tom: Fortunately no, you know, I never-

00:19:13.501 --> 00:19:18.276
Yeah you do get and I'm not some super guy

00:19:18.276 --> 00:19:20.254
I mean I just ... you do
get hardened to it though.

00:19:20.254 --> 00:19:21.139
You try to be prudent.

00:19:21.139 --> 00:19:22.617
I mean in "From Beirut to
Jerusalem" I talked about

00:19:22.617 --> 00:19:24.529
a scene where I was with a colleague

00:19:24.529 --> 00:19:28.174
who they did get into Beirut at one point

00:19:28.174 --> 00:19:29.906
and he was very jittery and nervous

00:19:29.906 --> 00:19:31.920
about the whole thing and at one point

00:19:31.920 --> 00:19:33.640
I was working on my story on deadline

00:19:33.640 --> 00:19:35.272
and we were at the Writers Bureau

00:19:35.272 --> 00:19:37.353
and there was a man
shooting at another person

00:19:37.353 --> 00:19:38.875
in the park across the street

00:19:38.875 --> 00:19:40.199
and he came over to me and he said

00:19:40.199 --> 00:19:41.327
"Did you see that guy there?

00:19:41.327 --> 00:19:43.151
"He had the gun in his
gut and he was shooting

00:19:43.151 --> 00:19:44.254
"at him like this."

00:19:44.254 --> 00:19:46.164
I just looked up and I said

00:19:46.164 --> 00:19:50.140
"Bill, was he shooting
at you?" Okay? Right?

00:19:50.140 --> 00:19:51.208
Sal: Mind your own business.

00:19:51.208 --> 00:19:52.391
Tom: Because if he wasn't shooting at you

00:19:52.391 --> 00:19:54.443
I am on deadline. Okay?

00:19:56.919 --> 00:19:59.382
Honestly it was not like something-

00:19:59.413 --> 00:20:02.130
but you're just really
focused about what you do,

00:20:02.130 --> 00:20:04.861
you know, and I tried ... I was not-

00:20:04.861 --> 00:20:06.356
people did much crazier things than me.

00:20:06.356 --> 00:20:08.124
I just did not, you know,

00:20:08.124 --> 00:20:09.974
I tried to take care of myself,

00:20:09.974 --> 00:20:12.179
but obviously you're in
a dangerous situation.

00:20:12.179 --> 00:20:13.449
Just by being in Beirut

00:20:13.449 --> 00:20:15.436
you're in a dangerous
situation, but you know,

00:20:15.436 --> 00:20:17.736
I'll tell you Sal the people
I went through that with-

00:20:17.736 --> 00:20:20.197
I go back to Lebanon pretty
much once a year still

00:20:20.197 --> 00:20:22.373
because they are among my closest

00:20:22.373 --> 00:20:24.728
and dearest friends because we were all

00:20:24.728 --> 00:20:26.820
on the Titanic together, you know,

00:20:26.820 --> 00:20:30.107
and my friends I have who
I went through Beirut with

00:20:30.107 --> 00:20:32.621
are like no friends I have.

00:20:32.621 --> 00:20:34.519
There's another story
"From Beirut to Jerusalem"

00:20:34.519 --> 00:20:36.403
that I love to tell because we had a-

00:20:36.403 --> 00:20:38.248
our local reporter then
at the New York Times

00:20:38.248 --> 00:20:39.766
was a guy named [unintelligible]

00:20:39.766 --> 00:20:42.376
Brilliant Palestinian reporter

00:20:42.376 --> 00:20:45.470
and a real teacher of mine and he tells

00:20:45.470 --> 00:20:46.740
a story in the book because

00:20:46.740 --> 00:20:48.783
the Israelis were bombing
Beirut all the time then

00:20:48.783 --> 00:20:50.973
and at one point they
were in their living room,

00:20:50.973 --> 00:20:52.587
you know, just waiting
for the bombing to end

00:20:52.587 --> 00:20:54.208
and they had a candle going on

00:20:54.208 --> 00:20:59.377
and a mouse appeared and it was like

00:20:59.377 --> 00:21:01.232
he and his wife were up on the couch.

00:21:01.232 --> 00:21:02.313
You know what I mean?

00:21:02.313 --> 00:21:04.365
Like fear you can be
afraid of funny things.

00:21:04.365 --> 00:21:06.913
Like the bombing is coming they can be

00:21:06.913 --> 00:21:09.470
obliterated at any moment, but that mouse

00:21:09.470 --> 00:21:11.831
scared the daylights
out of them, you know,

00:21:11.831 --> 00:21:15.399
and so you get just
really funny things like-

00:21:15.399 --> 00:21:18.514
You don't have experiences like that

00:21:18.514 --> 00:21:20.793
anywhere else where you learn so much

00:21:20.793 --> 00:21:22.286
about human nature.

00:21:22.286 --> 00:21:25.820
And so I was there for
over the course of 5 years

00:21:25.820 --> 00:21:28.200
I was there for 4 years
because I went back

00:21:28.200 --> 00:21:29.686
for the New York Times and the Times said

00:21:29.686 --> 00:21:31.416
"Hey do you want to go to Jerusalem?"

00:21:31.416 --> 00:21:32.539
So the New York times had never had

00:21:32.539 --> 00:21:34.140
a Jewish reporter in Israel.

00:21:34.140 --> 00:21:35.136
It was a rule of the paper.

00:21:35.136 --> 00:21:35.990
Sal: I see.

00:21:35.990 --> 00:21:37.627
Tom: They tried to change that rule

00:21:37.627 --> 00:21:39.239
with my predecessor [David Schipper]

00:21:39.239 --> 00:21:40.737
but they discovered
after they appointed him

00:21:40.737 --> 00:21:41.967
that he just looked Jewish,

00:21:41.967 --> 00:21:43.589
but he wasn't actually Jewish. Okay?

00:21:43.589 --> 00:21:47.364
And so they didn't make
that mistake with me

00:21:47.364 --> 00:21:49.466
and they said "You've already done Beirut.

00:21:49.466 --> 00:21:50.931
"Now do Jerusalem."

00:21:50.931 --> 00:21:51.934
And no-one had ever done that before

00:21:51.934 --> 00:21:53.406
so I thought that would
be kind of interesting

00:21:53.406 --> 00:21:55.361
so I did that for 5 years and that was

00:21:55.361 --> 00:21:57.516
a very different experience.

00:21:57.516 --> 00:21:59.948
The boundaries were
much narrower, you know,

00:21:59.948 --> 00:22:01.949
the color spectrum you didn't have

00:22:01.949 --> 00:22:04.939
and I did that and then I took a year off.

00:22:04.939 --> 00:22:07.196
I wrote "From Beirut to Jerusalem"

00:22:07.196 --> 00:22:10.283
Then when I got back
to Washington they said

00:22:10.283 --> 00:22:11.731
"Whoever becomes the next president

00:22:11.731 --> 00:22:14.343
"you will be the Chief
Diplomatic Correspondent."

00:22:14.343 --> 00:22:16.949
It turned out to be George Bush the Elder.

00:22:16.949 --> 00:22:18.978
He named Jim Baker, Secretary of State

00:22:18.978 --> 00:22:20.795
and so after my year off writing this book

00:22:20.795 --> 00:22:22.491
I became the Chief
Diplomatic Correspondent

00:22:22.491 --> 00:22:24.243
and travelled with-

00:22:24.243 --> 00:22:25.323
Sal: You could be like
secretary of state yourself

00:22:25.323 --> 00:22:26.332
at this point.

00:22:26.332 --> 00:22:27.807
Tom: No hardly. Actually
not only should I not-

00:22:27.807 --> 00:22:29.182
It's not false modesty in the least

00:22:29.182 --> 00:22:30.622
I didn't know anything about anything

00:22:30.622 --> 00:22:31.722
other than the Middle East.

00:22:31.722 --> 00:22:32.367
Sal: Right.

00:22:32.367 --> 00:22:35.162
Tom: So I got a great education
travelling with Baker.

00:22:35.162 --> 00:22:36.994
The first 9 months was really boring

00:22:36.994 --> 00:22:40.290
and I'm thinking I gave
up covering a drama

00:22:40.290 --> 00:22:41.842
to covering a policy.

00:22:41.842 --> 00:22:42.388
Sal: Right.

00:22:42.388 --> 00:22:43.537
Tom: Than I gave up covering a street

00:22:43.537 --> 00:22:44.507
to covering a hall.

00:22:44.507 --> 00:22:45.343
Sal: Right.

00:22:45.343 --> 00:22:46.379
Tom: Like what did you do?

00:22:46.379 --> 00:22:51.510
And then this wall in Berlin came down.

00:22:51.510 --> 00:22:52.875
Sal: Yeah, I heard about that.

00:22:52.875 --> 00:22:55.425
Tom: And suddenly I
found myself travelling

00:22:55.425 --> 00:22:59.124
750,000 miles with Baker
with a front row seat

00:22:59.124 --> 00:23:00.531
to the end of the Cold War.

00:23:00.531 --> 00:23:01.307
Sal: You're like in the plane?

00:23:01.307 --> 00:23:03.696
Tom: In the plane. He
takes 10 reporters wih him.

00:23:03.696 --> 00:23:04.331
Sal: Wow.

00:23:04.331 --> 00:23:07.708
Tom: And it was just an
amazing front row seat

00:23:07.708 --> 00:23:08.967
to the end of the Cold War.

00:23:08.967 --> 00:23:11.768
So I felt like I was really lucky twice

00:23:11.768 --> 00:23:13.330
because in this business if you're

00:23:13.330 --> 00:23:14.220
at the right place at
the right time one time

00:23:14.220 --> 00:23:17.318
like you're lucky and I
thought this was really lucky

00:23:17.318 --> 00:23:19.603
so I did that for 4
years. Great education.

00:23:19.603 --> 00:23:22.341
Then just very quickly I was

00:23:22.341 --> 00:23:23.334
Chief White House Correspondent for

00:23:23.334 --> 00:23:25.209
the first year of Bill Clinton.

00:23:25.454 --> 00:23:27.502
And that was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

00:23:27.502 --> 00:23:28.519
I have to tell you.

00:23:28.519 --> 00:23:30.240
Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

00:23:31.255 --> 00:23:34.030
That was such a crazy-ass experience

00:23:34.030 --> 00:23:34.969
I got to tell you.

00:23:34.969 --> 00:23:37.200
Sal: What was the craziest
thing that you saw?

00:23:37.200 --> 00:23:38.631
Tom: I don't know just
the Clinton White House

00:23:38.631 --> 00:23:40.583
was just ... they were fun and he was fun.

00:23:41.752 --> 00:23:43.573
Thank God it was the end of the Cold War

00:23:43.573 --> 00:23:44.754
so it wasn't a serious time

00:23:45.769 --> 00:23:48.688
so nobody got hurt, you know.

00:23:48.688 --> 00:23:50.920
Sal: And this is just
the stuff that you saw.

00:23:50.920 --> 00:23:52.103
Tom: That's right that I saw, but it was-

00:23:52.103 --> 00:23:53.980
Sal: I mean like you're
the press it was ... yeah.

00:23:53.980 --> 00:23:55.150
Tom: I did that for a year.

00:23:55.150 --> 00:23:56.361
Covering the White House is an experience

00:23:56.361 --> 00:23:57.412
every journalist should have

00:23:57.412 --> 00:23:59.327
because it's a very
interesting experience,

00:23:59.327 --> 00:24:01.310
but none there call it
journalism, you know,

00:24:01.310 --> 00:24:02.846
it's sort of a cross between babysitting

00:24:02.846 --> 00:24:05.745
and stenography, you know,
because you're there,

00:24:05.745 --> 00:24:07.303
but you know you got to go everywhere

00:24:07.303 --> 00:24:07.970
with the president.

00:24:07.970 --> 00:24:08.697
Sal: Who were you babysitting?

00:24:08.697 --> 00:24:09.671
Tom: You're babysitting the president.

00:24:09.671 --> 00:24:11.631
You go everywhere he goes, you know.

00:24:11.631 --> 00:24:12.863
Sal: Like a ball and chain. Oh wow.

00:24:12.863 --> 00:24:14.640
Tom: But you take turns
flying in Air Force One

00:24:14.640 --> 00:24:15.938
because it's a pool, you know,

00:24:15.938 --> 00:24:17.552
so I was glad I did it for a year,

00:24:17.552 --> 00:24:19.494
but like I got the point
after a year and said

00:24:19.494 --> 00:24:21.120
"I don't really want to do this" because

00:24:21.120 --> 00:24:22.623
one of the things about
covering the White House

00:24:22.623 --> 00:24:24.779
and the State Department
is back in those days,

00:24:24.779 --> 00:24:26.800
again, the prehistoric days,

00:24:26.800 --> 00:24:28.623
the Washington Post and the New York Times

00:24:28.623 --> 00:24:30.956
exchanged front pages
at 10:30 every evening

00:24:30.956 --> 00:24:34.479
so we saw what they had
and they saw what we had.

00:24:34.479 --> 00:24:36.440
Sal: Really? Is this some type of like-

00:24:36.440 --> 00:24:37.762
Tom: It was a little restrictive.

00:24:37.762 --> 00:24:39.255
Sal: Mafia bosses getting
together and yeah.

00:24:39.255 --> 00:24:40.915
Tom: Mafia restrained the
trade people don't realize

00:24:40.915 --> 00:24:42.223
and if you're sitting at home

00:24:42.223 --> 00:24:43.668
when you're covering the White House

00:24:43.668 --> 00:24:45.807
or the State Department
there's just one thing

00:24:45.807 --> 00:24:49.806
you don't want a phone
call at 10:35. Okay.

00:24:49.806 --> 00:24:51.776
Because when the phone rings at 10:35

00:24:51.776 --> 00:24:55.511
only bad things are going to happen.

00:24:55.511 --> 00:24:56.966
Sal: What? The Washington Post is doing

00:24:56.966 --> 00:24:57.719
the same story?

00:24:57.719 --> 00:24:59.671
Tom: No, the editor
says the Washington Post

00:24:59.671 --> 00:25:01.798
has a front page story that Jim Baker

00:25:01.798 --> 00:25:03.215
is about to announce this

00:25:03.215 --> 00:25:07.911
and you have to start to
match it at 10:35 at night.

00:25:07.911 --> 00:25:09.940
You haven't lived until you've called

00:25:09.940 --> 00:25:11.455
a senior administration official

00:25:11.455 --> 00:25:14.311
at home at 10:35 at night. Okay?

00:25:14.311 --> 00:25:16.503
To match a Washington Post story.

00:25:16.503 --> 00:25:18.939
And so not only are you up until midnight

00:25:18.939 --> 00:25:20.367
matching their story, but you know

00:25:20.367 --> 00:25:22.560
when you come into the
office the next morning

00:25:22.560 --> 00:25:24.367
everyone knows they've got the lead story

00:25:24.367 --> 00:25:26.279
that you missed. Okay.

00:25:26.279 --> 00:25:30.215
So anyway that's just part
of the prehistoric age,

00:25:30.215 --> 00:25:33.746
you know, basically. No Twitter then.

00:25:33.746 --> 00:25:34.839
Sal: So you would coordinate

00:25:34.839 --> 00:25:35.655
not to be embarrassed?

00:25:35.655 --> 00:25:36.545
Tom: Exactly.

00:25:36.545 --> 00:25:37.732
Tom: We would give each other a chance

00:25:37.732 --> 00:25:39.338
to match each others story,

00:25:39.338 --> 00:25:42.513
but with the [unintelligible]
that it said as reported

00:25:42.513 --> 00:25:44.405
in the Washington Post first, you know,

00:25:44.405 --> 00:25:46.971
so you had to kind of
eat that crow, you know,

00:25:46.971 --> 00:25:51.107
before you matched it and so then

00:25:51.107 --> 00:25:53.468
they transferred me to be the

00:25:53.468 --> 00:25:54.657
Chief Economics Correspondent

00:25:54.657 --> 00:25:58.738
the Treasury Department
and this was early '90's.

00:25:58.738 --> 00:26:00.801
Netscape had just been invented.

00:26:00.801 --> 00:26:03.865
This thing called the Internet.

00:26:03.865 --> 00:26:05.457
Remember when Bill Clinton was president

00:26:05.457 --> 00:26:07.529
like the president and
no one had email. Okay.

00:26:07.529 --> 00:26:11.522
No one had heard of email
and this thing called

00:26:11.522 --> 00:26:13.796
globalization was aborning

00:26:13.796 --> 00:26:16.160
and so I was at the Treasury Department

00:26:16.160 --> 00:26:18.373
just as we were kind of shifting from

00:26:18.373 --> 00:26:20.225
General Powell to General
Electric, you know,

00:26:20.225 --> 00:26:22.416
in terms of our kind of concerns.

00:26:22.416 --> 00:26:24.665
Sal: You have a knack for words.

00:26:24.665 --> 00:26:26.529
Tom: Yeah, I don't know
where it comes from.

00:26:26.529 --> 00:26:27.663
They tell me that.

00:26:27.663 --> 00:26:29.141
Sal: Yes, you should put
that to work at some point.

00:26:29.141 --> 00:26:33.277
Tom: And so I did that
for 3 years and then

00:26:33.277 --> 00:26:35.757
they made me the Foreign Affairs columnist

00:26:35.757 --> 00:26:37.920
and I've been doing that ever since

00:26:37.920 --> 00:26:38.765
and then I came here yesterday.

00:26:38.765 --> 00:26:40.429
Sal: You came here yesterday and I think

00:26:40.429 --> 00:26:42.401
this is destiny because you talk about

00:26:42.401 --> 00:26:45.380
these life moments, one,
discovering the op-ed,

00:26:45.380 --> 00:26:46.957
how you could communicate and then

00:26:46.957 --> 00:26:48.345
all of these other experiences.

00:26:48.345 --> 00:26:49.797
You know there's this form-factor called

00:26:49.797 --> 00:26:51.120
the YouTube video.

00:26:51.120 --> 00:26:51.860
Tom: Yes.

00:26:51.860 --> 00:26:52.853
Sal: Which I think some organizations

00:26:52.853 --> 00:26:54.182
could get you making some videos.

00:26:54.182 --> 00:26:56.457
Tom: Absolutely. I know I should do that

00:26:56.457 --> 00:26:57.804
and I thought of doing a movie-

00:26:57.804 --> 00:27:01.100
It's funny my youngest daughter went to

00:27:01.100 --> 00:27:02.127
Williams College and Williams

00:27:02.388 --> 00:27:04.881
is on the 4-1-4 system
and this is relevant

00:27:04.881 --> 00:27:07.331
now for Khan Academy
I think which is that.

00:27:07.331 --> 00:27:09.603
So the 1 is a winter
term which is kind of fun

00:27:09.603 --> 00:27:11.428
so you take wine making, trip to Morocco,

00:27:11.428 --> 00:27:14.443
but as a freshman you
have to stay on campus.

00:27:14.443 --> 00:27:18.314
So in a shameless effort
to be near my daughter

00:27:18.314 --> 00:27:20.907
I agreed ... because I had a friend there

00:27:20.907 --> 00:27:23.205
that was teaching a course
on teaching actually.

00:27:23.205 --> 00:27:25.571
I agreed to teach a course
on how to write a column.

00:27:28.894 --> 00:27:32.995
It was really fun for one reason.

00:27:32.995 --> 00:27:35.632
I realized that ...
like I've learned about

00:27:35.632 --> 00:27:36.962
globalization and written about it.

00:27:36.962 --> 00:27:38.284
I've learned about the Middle East

00:27:38.284 --> 00:27:39.388
and I've written about it,

00:27:39.388 --> 00:27:41.564
but I know how to write a column

00:27:41.564 --> 00:27:44.809
and it was really fun
to write about something

00:27:44.809 --> 00:27:47.988
you know really deeply and to teach it.

00:27:47.988 --> 00:27:50.339
So the way the course was constructed

00:27:50.339 --> 00:27:52.876
I created a little book for the class

00:27:52.876 --> 00:27:55.892
and you had to ...
because I team taught it

00:27:55.892 --> 00:27:57.156
with a friend who is an educator

00:27:57.156 --> 00:27:59.948
so you had to teach a lesson, okay,

00:27:59.948 --> 00:28:02.100
on Tuesday and then you had to write

00:28:02.100 --> 00:28:03.908
a column off that lesson on Thursday

00:28:03.908 --> 00:28:05.666
and I would come to class and they would

00:28:05.666 --> 00:28:07.210
email their columns ahead of time

00:28:07.210 --> 00:28:08.996
and then I would de-construct
them in front of them.

00:28:08.996 --> 00:28:10.846
So your 18th draft is really the lead.

00:28:10.846 --> 00:28:12.290
The lead is really the kicker, you know,

00:28:12.290 --> 00:28:14.486
I showed them, I'd kind
of take it apart for them.

00:28:14.486 --> 00:28:17.154
So what I did though was

00:28:17.154 --> 00:28:19.544
I created a 6, a 7 chapter book

00:28:19.544 --> 00:28:21.391
I guess on how to write a column.

00:28:21.391 --> 00:28:23.198
I just did this mimeographed, you know,

00:28:23.198 --> 00:28:25.400
because my view is that there's actually

00:28:25.400 --> 00:28:27.640
just 6 kind of columns and if you write

00:28:27.640 --> 00:28:30.432
a column that gets any
one of these 6 reactions

00:28:30.432 --> 00:28:31.943
you have a column.

00:28:32.643 --> 00:28:34.444
And then I give examples of all 6

00:28:34.444 --> 00:28:36.109
and the last chapter was Tom Friedman

00:28:36.109 --> 00:28:38.147
is a big fat idiot, right wing pink

00:28:38.147 --> 00:28:40.700
or left wing bottom dwelling slug.

00:28:40.700 --> 00:28:42.909
I took a days or weeks blogs about me

00:28:42.909 --> 00:28:45.317
and I put them all in
one chapter, you know,

00:28:45.317 --> 00:28:47.871
about what a flaming jerk I am

00:28:47.871 --> 00:28:49.989
and just to explain to people

00:28:49.989 --> 00:28:53.207
that being a columnist is
not a friend growth industry

00:28:53.207 --> 00:28:56.373
and that you want my life.

00:28:56.373 --> 00:28:58.791
Are you ready for chapter 7? Okay?

00:28:58.791 --> 00:29:00.297
Because you better be ready for chapter 7

00:29:00.297 --> 00:29:03.380
because I live with that
Greek chorus everyday.

00:29:03.380 --> 00:29:07.463
Okay? So the 6 kind of columns are-

00:29:07.463 --> 00:29:08.920
So if you write a column that gets

00:29:08.920 --> 00:29:10.886
one of these 6 reactions you got a column.

00:29:10.886 --> 00:29:12.991
The first is someone reads it and says

00:29:12.991 --> 00:29:15.543
"I didn't know that." That's a column.

00:29:15.543 --> 00:29:17.286
You tell people something they didn't know

00:29:17.286 --> 00:29:18.880
from reporting, you know,
you reported something.

00:29:18.880 --> 00:29:20.344
"Wow, I didn't know that."

00:29:20.344 --> 00:29:23.319
Second is "I never looked at it that way."

00:29:23.319 --> 00:29:25.182
You give people a new perspective.

00:29:25.182 --> 00:29:27.821
"Yeah, Sal, I never
looked at it that way."

00:29:27.821 --> 00:29:29.625
Third, your favorite, you live for this.

00:29:29.625 --> 00:29:33.193
It happens half a dozen
times a year if you're lucky.

00:29:33.193 --> 00:29:35.176
"You said exactly what I felt,

00:29:35.176 --> 00:29:36.806
"but I didn't know how to say it.

00:29:36.806 --> 00:29:39.591
"God bless you. (kiss-kiss) God bless you.

00:29:39.591 --> 00:29:41.126
"Thank you so much."

00:29:41.126 --> 00:29:43.217
The fourth is "I want to kill you dead

00:29:43.217 --> 00:29:45.174
"you and all your offspring." Okay?

00:29:45.174 --> 00:29:45.565
Sal: Yes.

00:29:45.565 --> 00:29:46.774
Tom: Because your column
is defined as much

00:29:46.774 --> 00:29:48.661
by people who are
against it as are for it.

00:29:48.661 --> 00:29:49.851
Sal: Have you had people
actually write that to you?

00:29:49.851 --> 00:29:50.907
Tom: Oh yeah, that's nothing.

00:29:50.907 --> 00:29:53.626
I mean that's nothing.
That's the nice stuff. Okay.

00:29:53.626 --> 00:29:55.999
"I'd like to dance on
your grave," you know.

00:29:55.999 --> 00:29:57.970
Sal: Really? People have written that?

00:29:57.970 --> 00:30:00.573
Tom: You get everything,
but you really need to-

00:30:00.573 --> 00:30:03.315
If you don't take chances
... if you don't, you know,

00:30:03.315 --> 00:30:05.579
so you got to be able to take people on

00:30:05.579 --> 00:30:07.890
and be taken on, you know.

00:30:07.938 --> 00:30:11.548
The fifth, very hard, do not
try this trick at home kids.

00:30:12.179 --> 00:30:13.881
"You made me laugh, you made me cry."

00:30:13.881 --> 00:30:17.210
Very hard to do. When you do it well

00:30:17.210 --> 00:30:19.257
oh wow, it really works.

00:30:19.257 --> 00:30:22.187
When you do it badly, bad humor

00:30:22.187 --> 00:30:26.471
or bad sort of sentimentality
is cringe-inducing

00:30:26.471 --> 00:30:28.199
so don't try that one unless you're really

00:30:28.199 --> 00:30:30.852
gonna pull it off and last is what

00:30:30.852 --> 00:30:33.743
I simply call "You challenged me."

00:30:33.743 --> 00:30:36.235
And that is when a columnist challenges

00:30:36.235 --> 00:30:38.928
his own readers which I believe in doing.

00:30:38.928 --> 00:30:44.261
I do a lot of that and I
give examples of all 6.

00:30:44.261 --> 00:30:46.821
So if you write one of
those kind of 6 columns

00:30:46.821 --> 00:30:48.617
you got a column.

00:30:48.617 --> 00:30:50.813
Sal: And you target one
or you just go around

00:30:50.813 --> 00:30:51.909
and think about what you want to write.

00:30:51.909 --> 00:30:53.385
You write it and then you say

00:30:53.385 --> 00:30:55.673
"Oh, that's category 3 with
a little bit of 4 in it."

00:30:55.673 --> 00:30:56.667
Tom: No, I'm not thinking about it now

00:30:56.667 --> 00:31:00.440
because I intuitively I know what it is

00:31:00.440 --> 00:31:02.196
so right now I've got actually 3 columns

00:31:02.196 --> 00:31:03.507
wrestling in my head.

00:31:03.507 --> 00:31:06.208
Before I came here I tracked down

00:31:06.208 --> 00:31:09.488
Ambassador Ryan Crocker
in a plane at LaGuardia

00:31:09.488 --> 00:31:11.853
after I talked to you because I had

00:31:11.853 --> 00:31:13.306
a thought about Syria that was triggered

00:31:13.306 --> 00:31:14.915
by something he wrote in the

00:31:14.915 --> 00:31:16.939
Washington Post this morning.

00:31:16.939 --> 00:31:19.280
I'm thinking about some
of the things you said

00:31:19.280 --> 00:31:21.714
because it melds well
with the McKinsey Study

00:31:21.714 --> 00:31:23.576
that somebody sent me yesterday.

00:31:23.576 --> 00:31:26.108
And I did a column with a bunch

00:31:26.108 --> 00:31:28.608
of healthcare innovators last week at HHS

00:31:28.608 --> 00:31:31.257
I did research for it so
I got that in my head.

00:31:31.257 --> 00:31:33.274
Sometime tomorrow I'll make a commitment

00:31:33.274 --> 00:31:35.463
for Sunday, but right
now all 3 are wrestling

00:31:35.463 --> 00:31:38.113
and I'm carrying all 3 around in my head.

00:31:38.113 --> 00:31:40.530
To be a columnist you have to-

00:31:40.530 --> 00:31:42.932
I see columns everywhere
like I do an hour here

00:31:42.932 --> 00:31:44.985
and I could easily get a
column or 2 out of this.

00:31:44.985 --> 00:31:47.261
And if I didn't you'd kind of die

00:31:47.261 --> 00:31:48.861
because I do this twice a week, you know,

00:31:48.861 --> 00:31:50.677
it's like what am I gonna
write for Wednesday.

00:31:50.677 --> 00:31:52.789
It's Sunday. I have no idea what I'm

00:31:52.789 --> 00:31:53.638
gonna write for Sunday.

00:31:53.638 --> 00:31:54.633
I really don't have any idea.

00:31:54.800 --> 00:31:57.464
All I know is I've got a
4-hour plane flight on Friday

00:31:57.464 --> 00:31:59.360
and I will write whatever
I'm going to write

00:31:59.360 --> 00:32:01.547
for Sunday on that
4-hour plane ride. Okay?

00:32:01.547 --> 00:32:03.530
I will make a commitment then.

00:32:03.530 --> 00:32:05.095
So I never worry about the ideas.

00:32:05.095 --> 00:32:07.732
It's more which one to
choose of the ideas I have.

00:32:10.362 --> 00:32:11.573
Sal: So we will try to convince you

00:32:11.573 --> 00:32:13.860
to get your course on Khan Academy.

00:32:13.860 --> 00:32:14.817
Tom: Yeah, I would love to.

00:32:14.817 --> 00:32:16.379
Sal: It will reach millions.

00:32:16.379 --> 00:32:17.496
Tom: No I really have thought about doing

00:32:21.480 --> 00:32:24.284
something for you guys
because it would be fun.

00:32:24.284 --> 00:32:26.381
Sal: Your grandchildren
will learn to write a column

00:32:26.381 --> 00:32:27.385
through you.

00:32:27.662 --> 00:32:30.237
Tom: It would be a great honor.

00:32:30.576 --> 00:32:32.309
Sal: And what ... I mean
to write all of this.

00:32:32.309 --> 00:32:35.324
Once again, a million different things.

00:32:35.324 --> 00:32:37.199
I mean just going from the first question

00:32:37.199 --> 00:32:39.590
of how you got started I mean

00:32:39.590 --> 00:32:40.800
what's interesting about it is

00:32:40.800 --> 00:32:43.130
you just started doing your career

00:32:43.130 --> 00:32:44.581
and that's what led-

00:32:44.581 --> 00:32:46.150
nowhere in that did someone

00:32:46.150 --> 00:32:47.969
look at your resume and say-

00:32:47.969 --> 00:32:49.504
Tom: Well they did they saw that

00:32:49.504 --> 00:32:50.924
I went to Oxford I studied, you know,

00:32:50.924 --> 00:32:51.760
Arabic and all.

00:32:51.760 --> 00:32:52.861
Sal: That's fairly impressive.

00:32:52.876 --> 00:32:54.474
Tom: That was a door opener,

00:32:54.474 --> 00:32:56.180
but what really got me in was I wrote-

00:32:56.180 --> 00:32:57.381
I had a dozen columns to show.

00:32:57.381 --> 00:32:58.153
Sal: Right.

00:32:58.153 --> 00:32:59.370
Tom: So whenever young
journalists come to me

00:32:59.370 --> 00:33:00.859
and say "I want to do
what you do," you know,

00:33:02.259 --> 00:33:05.292
they say "What do I need
to do to do what you do?"

00:33:05.292 --> 00:33:06.783
And I say well the first thing you need

00:33:06.783 --> 00:33:08.360
is be able to type fast.

00:33:08.360 --> 00:33:10.548
I can type really fast. Take good notes.

00:33:10.548 --> 00:33:13.229
You need to know English, obviously,

00:33:13.229 --> 00:33:16.610
good grammar, punctuate,
the comma goes there.

00:33:16.610 --> 00:33:18.252
Good to know some economics,
politics, history,

00:33:18.252 --> 00:33:20.862
all of those things, science, environment,

00:33:20.862 --> 00:33:23.111
but there's actually
just one thing you need

00:33:23.111 --> 00:33:25.137
to be a good journalist I believe

00:33:25.137 --> 00:33:26.864
you have to like people.

00:33:26.864 --> 00:33:27.368
Sal: Right.

00:33:27.368 --> 00:33:30.458
Tom: You have to really
enjoy sitting with them

00:33:30.458 --> 00:33:33.429
and listening to the crazy
things they say and do

00:33:33.429 --> 00:33:35.435
and the incredible music of their lives

00:33:35.435 --> 00:33:37.350
and if you cannot hear the music

00:33:37.350 --> 00:33:38.818
you'll never be able to play the music.

00:33:38.818 --> 00:33:40.722
Now I really do like people.

00:33:40.722 --> 00:33:42.410
I love to interview them.

00:33:42.410 --> 00:33:43.937
I interview them wherever I go.

00:33:47.859 --> 00:33:49.666
I'm struck at how many
journalists hate people

00:33:49.666 --> 00:33:53.865
and I've known several of them,

00:33:53.865 --> 00:33:55.266
but I really do like people

00:33:55.266 --> 00:33:57.783
and I enjoy hearing the
music of their lives.

00:33:57.783 --> 00:33:59.958
Sal: I have an unnamed
friend who is in residency,

00:33:59.958 --> 00:34:03.245
surgical residency, really brilliant guy

00:34:03.245 --> 00:34:05.420
and he got some negative feedback

00:34:05.420 --> 00:34:06.162
from one of the senior residents

00:34:06.162 --> 00:34:08.388
and the feedback was, it really just

00:34:08.388 --> 00:34:09.766
doesn't look like you
care about the patients

00:34:09.766 --> 00:34:11.577
and he was really taking that to heart.

00:34:11.577 --> 00:34:12.318
Tom: Yeah.

00:34:12.318 --> 00:34:13.553
Sal: Then I asked him. Well do you care?

00:34:13.553 --> 00:34:14.329
And he's like no.

00:34:14.329 --> 00:34:17.870
Tom: That's right, that's
right, that's right.

00:34:17.870 --> 00:34:23.586
It shows. I was in San Francisco yesterday

00:34:23.586 --> 00:34:25.358
and I went to Starbucks because I needed

00:34:25.358 --> 00:34:27.440
some free wireless because
my wireless was out

00:34:27.440 --> 00:34:28.912
so I just was going in there

00:34:28.912 --> 00:34:31.505
and a woman and a guy came up and said

00:34:31.505 --> 00:34:32.742
"We have to buy you coffee."

00:34:32.742 --> 00:34:34.723
You know, big fans, yada yada.

00:34:34.723 --> 00:34:36.293
And so of course I immediately said

00:34:36.293 --> 00:34:38.254
well what do you do? Oh,
you're in big data now.

00:34:38.254 --> 00:34:39.911
This is fascinating. Give me your card.

00:34:39.911 --> 00:34:41.627
By 4:30 I met with them again.

00:34:41.627 --> 00:34:43.227
I bought them a drink
and interviewed them,

00:34:43.227 --> 00:34:45.916
so there's one good thing about notoriety

00:34:45.916 --> 00:34:47.214
people throw shit at you.

00:34:47.214 --> 00:34:49.215
Sal: People want to dance on your grave.

00:34:49.215 --> 00:34:51.201
Tom: That's right, they
want to dance on your grave,

00:34:51.201 --> 00:34:52.792
but a lot of other people want to come up

00:34:52.792 --> 00:34:54.801
and tell you about their lives

00:34:54.801 --> 00:34:56.857
and what they do and they are just-

00:34:56.857 --> 00:34:58.106
I cannot tell you Sal

00:34:58.106 --> 00:35:00.527
how many column stories and ideas

00:35:00.527 --> 00:35:02.969
I've gotten from people
who have just come up to me

00:35:02.969 --> 00:35:04.758
on the street, in an
airport, in a Starbucks

00:35:04.758 --> 00:35:08.271
and tell you things about their lives.

00:35:08.271 --> 00:35:11.950
I'm really open to that.

00:35:11.950 --> 00:35:13.870
I'm still tickled when
someone comes up to me

00:35:13.870 --> 00:35:15.336
and says something like that.

00:35:15.336 --> 00:35:16.270
I think that's pretty serious

00:35:16.270 --> 00:35:17.607
that someone stops you and says

00:35:17.607 --> 00:35:18.868
"I want to tell you how I feel

00:35:18.868 --> 00:35:19.831
"about what you're doing."

00:35:19.831 --> 00:35:21.309
You know what I mean?

00:35:21.309 --> 00:35:23.540
Sal: You invite that.
I mean you're out there

00:35:23.540 --> 00:35:25.391
so if you see Tom Friedman in an airport.

00:35:25.391 --> 00:35:26.516
Tom: Yeah, people do it and by the way

00:35:26.516 --> 00:35:27.987
a lot of times people come up and say

00:35:27.987 --> 00:35:30.203
"You know I agree with about
90% of what you write."

00:35:30.203 --> 00:35:32.442
And I say hey, that's like
a perfect number for me

00:35:32.442 --> 00:35:34.146
because it means you're
always going to check.

00:35:34.453 --> 00:35:37.915
Death for a columnist is if people say

00:35:37.915 --> 00:35:39.628
"I now what he or she is going to write.

00:35:39.628 --> 00:35:40.667
Why should I read it?"

00:35:40.667 --> 00:35:42.190
Like I don't know what I'm going to write

00:35:42.190 --> 00:35:44.350
half the time because my column is very

00:35:44.350 --> 00:35:48.751
non-ideological and very reporting centric

00:35:48.751 --> 00:35:49.988
because I'm still a reporter I believe

00:35:49.988 --> 00:35:52.480
the best columnists are always reporters

00:35:52.480 --> 00:35:54.733
and I think it's actually
true in every profession.

00:35:54.733 --> 00:35:57.135
I've had colleagues who say

00:35:57.135 --> 00:35:59.303
"I want to do what you do.
I want to do analysis now."

00:35:59.303 --> 00:36:01.636
To which I say your analysis
must not be very good

00:36:01.636 --> 00:36:04.383
because all my analysis
grows out of my reporting.

00:36:04.430 --> 00:36:05.869
It's only when you're
working with the clay

00:36:05.869 --> 00:36:07.205
that you see the patterns.

00:36:07.205 --> 00:36:09.717
You feel the texture and that's where

00:36:09.717 --> 00:36:10.871
the column comes from.

00:36:10.871 --> 00:36:12.671
Sal: Do you find it difficult to kind

00:36:12.671 --> 00:36:14.375
of maintain ground, you know,

00:36:14.375 --> 00:36:16.571
say you put an op-ed and you get

00:36:16.571 --> 00:36:18.387
a bunch of people on a
message board just saying

00:36:18.387 --> 00:36:19.529
oh you're this that, this that.

00:36:19.529 --> 00:36:20.892
Does that affect you? Does it-

00:36:20.892 --> 00:36:22.437
Maybe I am wrong, maybe I do need

00:36:22.437 --> 00:36:23.611
to move more [unintelligible]

00:36:23.611 --> 00:36:24.952
Tom: It's a really complicated thing.

00:36:24.952 --> 00:36:27.700
I'm not on Twitter. I'm not on Facebook

00:36:28.315 --> 00:36:29.960
because I'd just be overwhelmed.

00:36:29.960 --> 00:36:31.859
The signal-to-noise ratio now

00:36:31.859 --> 00:36:36.238
is the noise is so high that you can't-

00:36:36.238 --> 00:36:39.575
No human being, you know, people tell you

00:36:39.575 --> 00:36:41.141
"I've got a thick skin.
It doesn't bother me."

00:36:41.141 --> 00:36:42.884
I've never met that person.

00:36:42.884 --> 00:36:46.349
Certainly any time people
are in large numbers

00:36:46.349 --> 00:36:48.758
saying bad things about you-

00:36:49.727 --> 00:36:51.890
by the way many people say the opposite.

00:36:51.890 --> 00:36:54.208
You understand so I don't
want to exaggerate it.

00:36:54.776 --> 00:36:56.161
But here's what I find kind of about

00:36:56.161 --> 00:36:57.871
the comments section of the Times

00:36:57.871 --> 00:36:59.974
because we have comments under our columns

00:36:59.974 --> 00:37:01.488
so today there may be 400 comments.

00:37:01.488 --> 00:37:03.884
You always have to be careful because

00:37:03.884 --> 00:37:05.839
the Times Online which
is were people comment

00:37:05.839 --> 00:37:07.359
has a little bit of a left bias

00:37:07.359 --> 00:37:08.648
who reads the New York Times then

00:37:08.648 --> 00:37:09.734
who reads it Online, you know,

00:37:09.734 --> 00:37:10.818
it's going to be a younger,

00:37:10.818 --> 00:37:11.803
more left to center audience,

00:37:11.803 --> 00:37:13.939
so you got to be aware
of that for starters,

00:37:15.415 --> 00:37:18.870
but very often I confess
I go to the closet.

00:37:18.870 --> 00:37:22.231
I put on my wetsuit. I
fix the helmet to my head,

00:37:22.231 --> 00:37:27.330
you know, and I dive into the comments

00:37:27.330 --> 00:37:29.784
because you find a lot
that are predictable.

00:37:29.784 --> 00:37:31.752
You're this, you're that, they're nasty,

00:37:31.752 --> 00:37:33.449
they're personal and whatever,

00:37:33.449 --> 00:37:36.254
but I'll tell you Sal
invariably when I do it

00:37:36.254 --> 00:37:40.200
I come across 1, 2, or
3 that are brilliant.

00:37:40.200 --> 00:37:41.160
Sal: Yeah, yeah.

00:37:41.160 --> 00:37:43.261
Tom: And I literally cut and paste them

00:37:43.261 --> 00:37:45.288
in my notebook and say
I got to remember this.

00:37:45.288 --> 00:37:46.660
This is brilliant and that's the beauty

00:37:46.660 --> 00:37:47.861
of crowdsourcing.

00:37:47.861 --> 00:37:48.758
Sal: Wow.

00:37:48.758 --> 00:37:51.811
Tom: It just comes with the territory.

00:37:51.811 --> 00:37:55.191
By the way you're out
there dishing it out.

00:37:55.191 --> 00:37:56.193
You got to be able to take it

00:37:56.193 --> 00:37:57.377
so I'm a big believer in that.

00:37:57.377 --> 00:37:59.785
I'm not in the Internet wars.

00:37:59.785 --> 00:38:01.577
Like you'll never see me, you know,

00:38:01.577 --> 00:38:04.106
fighting with that because my attitude is

00:38:04.106 --> 00:38:05.801
I got my say, you got your say,

00:38:05.801 --> 00:38:08.831
and I'm not going to prove your right,

00:38:08.831 --> 00:38:09.783
you're not going to-

00:38:09.783 --> 00:38:11.130
10 years ago I wrote "The World Is Flat"

00:38:11.130 --> 00:38:12.584
so since then people have written books,

00:38:12.584 --> 00:38:14.186
you know, the world is not flat.

00:38:14.186 --> 00:38:15.391
Sal: It's slightly curved.

00:38:15.391 --> 00:38:16.682
Tom: The world is curved, the world is

00:38:16.682 --> 00:38:18.253
spiky, lumpy, chunky, you know,

00:38:18.253 --> 00:38:21.925
and people always said what did

00:38:21.925 --> 00:38:24.167
you say about that book and my attitude

00:38:24.167 --> 00:38:25.981
is to everybody and this isn't arrogance.

00:38:25.981 --> 00:38:27.909
Look I'm either gonna be right or wrong,

00:38:27.909 --> 00:38:29.531
but we're not gonna
know for 10 years. Okay?

00:38:29.531 --> 00:38:30.789
So come to me in 10 years

00:38:30.789 --> 00:38:33.100
and I'd say 10 years later

00:38:33.100 --> 00:38:34.665
yeah, I got one big thing wrong.

00:38:34.665 --> 00:38:36.525
It is so much flatter than I thought.

00:38:36.525 --> 00:38:37.483
Sal: Right.

00:38:37.514 --> 00:38:38.916
Tom: And this place is surfing on that.

00:38:38.916 --> 00:38:40.592
What happened, you know.

00:38:42.222 --> 00:38:44.125
Sal: You were just saying right before

00:38:44.125 --> 00:38:45.695
we were chatting about this
I mean your most recent

00:38:45.695 --> 00:38:47.550
op-ed piece. Tell us about it

00:38:47.550 --> 00:38:49.626
because I think that will start to connect

00:38:49.626 --> 00:38:51.180
with what we're trying to do here.

00:38:54.979 --> 00:38:57.995
Tom: I'll start at just one
10,000 foot layer higher,

00:38:57.995 --> 00:39:00.884
you know which is ...
because I really like

00:39:00.884 --> 00:39:02.756
to think of what I do as being a plumber

00:39:02.756 --> 00:39:04.531
that I'm always in
somewhere the plumbing is

00:39:04.531 --> 00:39:05.953
so I spend a lot of time in Silicon Valley

00:39:05.953 --> 00:39:07.305
and I always have because
I'm very interested

00:39:07.305 --> 00:39:08.199
in where the technology is going,

00:39:08.199 --> 00:39:09.767
what it's enabling, what it's empowering

00:39:09.767 --> 00:39:13.015
and what it's not and
so that's really what

00:39:13.600 --> 00:39:15.349
produced "The World Is Flat."

00:39:16.103 --> 00:39:18.487
I mean may I just tell that
story just for a second

00:39:18.487 --> 00:39:20.344
because it's relevant.

00:39:20.344 --> 00:39:25.382
After 9/11 I spent 3 years
in the Arab Muslim world

00:39:25.382 --> 00:39:27.687
trying to understand the roots of 9/11.

00:39:27.687 --> 00:39:29.997
I wrote "From Beirut to Jerusalem"

00:39:29.997 --> 00:39:31.854
and then 10 years later I wrote maybe

00:39:31.854 --> 00:39:33.406
one of the first books
about globalization called

00:39:33.406 --> 00:39:35.641
"The Lexus and the Olive Tree." Okay.

00:39:35.641 --> 00:39:36.964
That came out in the late '90's

00:39:36.964 --> 00:39:39.140
and then I put that
subject down after 9/11

00:39:39.140 --> 00:39:41.236
and really focused on trying to understand

00:39:41.236 --> 00:39:42.521
the roots of 9/11.

00:39:42.521 --> 00:39:44.468
I also started doing documentaries then

00:39:44.468 --> 00:39:45.656
for the Discovery Channel.

00:39:45.656 --> 00:39:47.229
The Discovery Channel and New York Times

00:39:47.229 --> 00:39:48.173
created a partnership.

00:39:48.173 --> 00:39:50.230
I did a documentary after 9/11 called

00:39:50.230 --> 00:39:51.944
the Roots of 9/11 which
I was very proud of

00:39:51.944 --> 00:39:54.776
and I did one then on the Wall

00:39:54.776 --> 00:39:56.251
Israel had built in the West Bank

00:39:56.251 --> 00:39:59.293
and in February 2004
we were sitting around

00:39:59.293 --> 00:40:01.126
with our Discovery team what should we do

00:40:01.126 --> 00:40:03.835
our next documentary on and Kerry

00:40:03.835 --> 00:40:08.602
was running against Bush for president

00:40:08.602 --> 00:40:11.914
and at the time my idea was

00:40:11.914 --> 00:40:13.543
let's do a documentary about

00:40:13.543 --> 00:40:15.209
why everybody hates America.

00:40:15.885 --> 00:40:17.857
I thought that was a hot subject.

00:40:17.857 --> 00:40:19.819
Bush was president
running for re-election.

00:40:19.819 --> 00:40:21.606
Why does everybody hate us?

00:40:22.836 --> 00:40:24.385
And so how should we do that?

00:40:24.385 --> 00:40:26.593
I had this crazy idea we should go

00:40:26.593 --> 00:40:28.408
to outsourcing centers all over the world

00:40:28.408 --> 00:40:30.929
and interview young people
who spend their days

00:40:30.929 --> 00:40:33.934
imitating Americans on
what they think of America.

00:40:33.934 --> 00:40:35.600
I thought it would make a
fascinating double mirror.

00:40:35.600 --> 00:40:38.233
You know, Joel by day, John by night.

00:40:38.233 --> 00:40:40.920
You know Juan by day, Joe by night.

00:40:40.920 --> 00:40:44.471
And so we literally were
budgeting that documentary.

00:40:44.471 --> 00:40:46.450
Where do we go? Guatamala, Mexico City,

00:40:46.450 --> 00:40:49.192
Philippines, Bangalore, and in the middle

00:40:49.192 --> 00:40:51.216
of that budget debate John Kerry came out

00:40:51.216 --> 00:40:54.157
with this blast against
Benedict Arnold's CEO's

00:40:54.157 --> 00:40:56.265
who engage in outsourcing

00:40:56.265 --> 00:40:58.000
because we just had the Y2K thing,

00:40:58.000 --> 00:41:00.201
outsourcing was just becoming a big issue

00:41:00.201 --> 00:41:01.444
so I came to the Times I said

00:41:01.444 --> 00:41:03.776
"Timeout. Why don't we do a documentary

00:41:03.776 --> 00:41:05.923
"just call it the Other
Side of Outsourcing

00:41:05.923 --> 00:41:07.601
"and explain this phenomenon to people.

00:41:07.601 --> 00:41:09.951
"And I know Nandan Nilekani at Infosys

00:41:09.951 --> 00:41:11.283
"and I could go to Bangalore."

00:41:11.283 --> 00:41:12.690
They liked that and said "Just go ahead."

00:41:12.690 --> 00:41:14.344
That was the days when people had money.

00:41:14.344 --> 00:41:18.312
And so we went to Bangalore

00:41:18.312 --> 00:41:19.807
and we spent 2 weeks there

00:41:19.807 --> 00:41:21.534
and I had just come up really 3 years

00:41:21.534 --> 00:41:23.367
covering 9/11 and I had written this book

00:41:23.367 --> 00:41:25.780
on globalization in the late 1990's.

00:41:25.780 --> 00:41:27.229
And I spent 2 weeks in Bangalore

00:41:27.229 --> 00:41:29.734
and I realized-

00:41:29.734 --> 00:41:31.875
I just kept walking around Sal saying

00:41:31.875 --> 00:41:34.318
I don't understand the platform

00:41:34.318 --> 00:41:35.566
that's allowing this.

00:41:35.566 --> 00:41:39.785
I met people ready to
trace my lost luggage

00:41:39.785 --> 00:41:41.167
on Delta Airlines from Bangalore.

00:41:41.167 --> 00:41:42.811
Read my x-rays from Bangalore.

00:41:42.811 --> 00:41:44.982
Do my taxes from Bangalore.

00:41:44.982 --> 00:41:46.629
Now this all seems now normal,

00:41:46.629 --> 00:41:49.380
but back then it was like mind blowing

00:41:49.380 --> 00:41:51.699
so the last interview was with

00:41:51.699 --> 00:41:53.457
Nandan Nilekani, the C.E.O. of Infosys,

00:41:53.457 --> 00:41:56.112
the sort of Microsoft of India

00:41:56.112 --> 00:41:57.576
and he had been out of the country

00:41:57.576 --> 00:41:59.363
those 2 weeks and he had just come back.

00:41:59.363 --> 00:42:01.836
I went to his office at
Electronics City in Infosys

00:42:01.836 --> 00:42:03.688
to see him we sat on the
couch outside his office.

00:42:03.688 --> 00:42:05.770
I had my laptop on my lap

00:42:05.770 --> 00:42:07.221
and at one point he said

00:42:07.221 --> 00:42:10.198
"Tom I got to tell you the global economic

00:42:10.198 --> 00:42:11.865
"playing field is being levelled

00:42:11.865 --> 00:42:15.385
"and you Americans are not ready."

00:42:15.385 --> 00:42:17.609
Oh, I wrote that down in my little laptop.

00:42:17.609 --> 00:42:18.837
The global economic playing field

00:42:18.837 --> 00:42:19.714
being levelled-

00:42:19.714 --> 00:42:20.988
Sal: You have to be
careful when you're typing.

00:42:20.988 --> 00:42:22.473
Tom: You Americans are not ready.

00:42:22.473 --> 00:42:25.190
It just really blew my mind.

00:42:25.190 --> 00:42:27.563
I mean it connected a lot of things.

00:42:27.563 --> 00:42:29.382
I got done with the interview.

00:42:29.382 --> 00:42:32.394
I got back in my Jeep
to go back to my hotel

00:42:32.394 --> 00:42:34.138
and it's about an hour drive from

00:42:34.138 --> 00:42:35.527
Electronics City back to Bangalore

00:42:35.527 --> 00:42:37.132
and I'm thinking now the whole time

00:42:37.132 --> 00:42:38.314
about what Nandan said

00:42:38.314 --> 00:42:39.347
"The global economic playing field

00:42:39.347 --> 00:42:40.627
is being levelled."

00:42:40.627 --> 00:42:42.143
Wow, he's really saying
the global economic

00:42:42.143 --> 00:42:44.909
playing field is being flattened. Wow.

00:42:44.909 --> 00:42:47.651
I think he just told me the world is flat.

00:42:47.651 --> 00:42:49.541
And so I wrote that in my notebook.

00:42:49.541 --> 00:42:50.901
The world is flat.

00:42:50.901 --> 00:42:52.407
I got back to my hotel room.

00:42:52.407 --> 00:42:53.952
I literally ran up to my room

00:42:53.952 --> 00:42:56.301
and I called my wife in Bethesda and said

00:42:56.301 --> 00:42:57.720
"Honey, I'm gonna write a book called

00:42:57.720 --> 00:42:59.160
"The World is Flat."

00:42:59.160 --> 00:43:02.828
She now says she thought
that was a brilliant idea.

00:43:02.828 --> 00:43:06.953
That is not exactly how I
recall the conversation.

00:43:06.953 --> 00:43:09.403
Sal: I'm looking at [unintelligible]

00:43:11.265 --> 00:43:14.489
Tom: I got so excited about it.

00:43:14.489 --> 00:43:16.340
It was Nandan's 50th birthday party.

00:43:16.340 --> 00:43:17.870
I'll never forget this
and I was going back

00:43:17.870 --> 00:43:18.922
to his house for dinner.

00:43:18.922 --> 00:43:21.730
He had a Simon and
Garfunkel imitation duo.

00:43:21.730 --> 00:43:23.217
He was so excited about the idea

00:43:23.217 --> 00:43:24.848
he had all his Bangalore tech pals.

00:43:24.848 --> 00:43:25.757
Sal: Was he Simon or Garfunkel?

00:43:25.757 --> 00:43:27.567
He was singing?

00:43:27.567 --> 00:43:29.925
Tom: No, no, no, he had
just an imitation duo.

00:43:29.925 --> 00:43:31.545
Sal: I'll let that one pass.
I'll let that pass, yeah.

00:43:31.545 --> 00:43:33.243
Tom: Nandan was so excited about it

00:43:33.243 --> 00:43:34.382
he wanted me to-

00:43:34.382 --> 00:43:36.832
I literally had sketched out

00:43:36.832 --> 00:43:39.147
on the back of an envelope kind of the

00:43:39.147 --> 00:43:42.177
just rough crude outline of a book

00:43:42.177 --> 00:43:44.297
and he wanted me to present
it at his birthday party

00:43:44.297 --> 00:43:46.938
to his Bangalore ... he
was so excited about it,

00:43:46.938 --> 00:43:48.300
but I got home, I called the Times.

00:43:48.300 --> 00:43:49.849
I said "I have to go
and leave immediately.

00:43:49.849 --> 00:43:51.401
"My software is out of date.

00:43:51.401 --> 00:43:53.832
"I'm a basic engineer
and it's a JavaWorld.

00:43:53.832 --> 00:43:56.164
"And if you don't give
me a leave immediately

00:43:56.164 --> 00:43:57.786
"I'm gonna write something really stupid

00:43:57.786 --> 00:44:00.168
"in the New York Times
because my software."

00:44:00.168 --> 00:44:01.254
Is a great way to get a leave.

00:44:01.254 --> 00:44:02.617
So my software was out of date

00:44:02.617 --> 00:44:04.919
and so they basically did. They said

00:44:04.919 --> 00:44:06.121
"Go as soon as you can."

00:44:06.121 --> 00:44:08.443
So I went out on leave in July

00:44:08.443 --> 00:44:14.678
and that July I was invited to the

00:44:14.678 --> 00:44:16.530
Allen Conference in Sun Valley.

00:44:16.530 --> 00:44:17.702
They had invited me a bunch and

00:44:17.702 --> 00:44:19.879
I just never could work it out to go.

00:44:20.663 --> 00:44:23.548
So then I had it really on
the back of an envelope,

00:44:23.548 --> 00:44:25.140
but it was more flushed
out and they asked me

00:44:25.140 --> 00:44:26.134
to make a presentation.

00:44:26.134 --> 00:44:28.324
Bill Gates was in the
audience and he heard it

00:44:28.324 --> 00:44:29.755
and he came up afterwards.

00:44:29.755 --> 00:44:32.359
He had taken all these notes and he said

00:44:32.359 --> 00:44:34.347
"That was really interesting."

00:44:34.347 --> 00:44:36.665
And I said

00:44:36.665 --> 00:44:37.651
Sal: Yeah. No.

00:44:37.651 --> 00:44:39.624
Tom: "You're talking to
me? I told you something

00:44:39.624 --> 00:44:41.644
"about this and you didn't know."

00:44:41.644 --> 00:44:46.358
And he said "Oh no, I knew all of that.

00:44:46.358 --> 00:44:48.100
"I just never put it together."

00:44:48.100 --> 00:44:49.472
Sal: Oh, it was like a
class [unintelligible]

00:44:49.472 --> 00:44:53.318
Tom: He said "I never
connected all those things."

00:44:53.318 --> 00:44:55.175
He said "You're 90% there
and I'm gonna help you

00:44:55.175 --> 00:44:56.271
"with the last 10%."

00:44:56.271 --> 00:44:57.598
Sal: Wow. That is interesting

00:44:57.598 --> 00:44:59.702
because at that point [unintelligible]

00:44:59.702 --> 00:45:00.615
Tom: Mentor you mean to say.

00:45:00.615 --> 00:45:01.468
Sal: Oh yeah absolutely.

00:45:01.468 --> 00:45:03.757
He's obviously played a
huge role here as well.

00:45:03.757 --> 00:45:05.599
I mean that was the outsourcing craze.

00:45:05.599 --> 00:45:07.280
People were scared.
Everything is going to go

00:45:07.280 --> 00:45:09.710
to India and China and it seems like we're

00:45:09.710 --> 00:45:11.666
kind of that post fear phase right now

00:45:11.666 --> 00:45:13.428
and it's true a lot of
stuff is still going

00:45:13.428 --> 00:45:14.519
to that part of the world,

00:45:14.519 --> 00:45:15.913
but if you look at the US

00:45:15.913 --> 00:45:18.243
the software engineer salaries continue

00:45:18.243 --> 00:45:20.800
to go through the roofs.

00:45:20.800 --> 00:45:21.159
Tom: That's right. Yeah.

00:45:21.159 --> 00:45:23.330
In here? Is everyone's salary
going through the roof?

00:45:23.330 --> 00:45:24.738
Sal: In here yeah.

00:45:24.738 --> 00:45:26.000
Your salaries are going through the roof.

00:45:26.000 --> 00:45:28.840
They are. They legitimately are.

00:45:28.840 --> 00:45:32.412
You have more and more innovation

00:45:32.412 --> 00:45:33.593
that is actually being focused

00:45:33.593 --> 00:45:34.942
in 20 miles around here.

00:45:34.942 --> 00:45:37.122
We have a great American
car, you know, the Tesla.

00:45:37.122 --> 00:45:39.363
I mean how do we compare these 2 things.

00:45:39.363 --> 00:45:43.450
This notion between the
US is losing its edge.

00:45:43.450 --> 00:45:44.337
Everything is being outsourced

00:45:44.337 --> 00:45:45.490
and it looks like more innovation

00:45:45.490 --> 00:45:46.956
is being focused in the US now.

00:45:46.956 --> 00:45:48.976
Tom: So let's go to what happened

00:45:48.976 --> 00:45:52.704
between 2004 and today
because I think that

00:45:52.704 --> 00:45:53.621
that's the story.

00:45:53.621 --> 00:45:57.844
Between 2004 and today
something big happened

00:45:57.844 --> 00:45:59.837
called Flat World 2.0.

00:45:59.837 --> 00:46:01.552
I call it The Great Inflection,

00:46:01.552 --> 00:46:04.280
but there was a merger of globalization

00:46:04.280 --> 00:46:05.776
and the IT revolution.

00:46:05.776 --> 00:46:08.000
They kind of merged in a way that more IT

00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:09.232
drove more globalization.

00:46:09.232 --> 00:46:11.141
More globalization drove
the expansion to more IT

00:46:11.141 --> 00:46:13.173
and they merged and so something

00:46:13.173 --> 00:46:15.201
really big happened, Sal, in my view.

00:46:15.201 --> 00:46:16.789
We went from a connected world

00:46:16.789 --> 00:46:18.893
to a hyper-connected world.

00:46:18.893 --> 00:46:21.144
And I believe it's changing everything

00:46:21.144 --> 00:46:24.232
and Khan Academy is now on that platform.

00:46:24.232 --> 00:46:27.713
So, you know, the story I tell on my

00:46:27.713 --> 00:46:30.520
sound byte is that when I
wrote "The World is Flat"-

00:46:30.520 --> 00:46:34.150
so when I wrote my last
book which is about America

00:46:34.150 --> 00:46:36.393
which in 2011 the first thing I did

00:46:36.393 --> 00:46:38.119
was go back and get the first edition of

00:46:38.119 --> 00:46:39.525
"The World Is Flat" off my bookshelf

00:46:39.525 --> 00:46:41.472
just to remind myself what I had written.

00:46:41.472 --> 00:46:43.594
I took it off the shelf.

00:46:43.594 --> 00:46:44.827
I opened up to the index

00:46:44.827 --> 00:46:47.793
looked under A, B, C, D, E, F, F, A,

00:46:47.793 --> 00:46:49.657
Facebook wasn't in it.

00:46:49.657 --> 00:46:50.894
So when I was running around the world

00:46:50.894 --> 00:46:52.947
saying "the world is
flat, we're all connected"

00:46:52.947 --> 00:46:55.690
Facebook didn't exist,
Twitter was still a sound,

00:46:55.690 --> 00:46:57.563
the Cloud was still in the sky,

00:46:57.563 --> 00:47:00.863
4G was a parking place,
LinkedIn was a prison,

00:47:00.863 --> 00:47:02.875
applications were what
you sent to college,

00:47:02.875 --> 00:47:06.364
Big data was a rap star
and Skype was a typo.

00:47:06.364 --> 00:47:11.211
Okay. I mean all of that happened after

00:47:11.211 --> 00:47:12.786
I wrote "The World Is Flat," you know,

00:47:12.786 --> 00:47:14.479
so what does that tell you?

00:47:14.479 --> 00:47:16.396
It tells you we've gone
from a connected world

00:47:16.396 --> 00:47:18.208
to a hyper-connected world.

00:47:18.208 --> 00:47:21.578
So what are the features of that?

00:47:21.578 --> 00:47:23.633
Well the features of that is that

00:47:23.633 --> 00:47:25.929
more people now can compete, connect,

00:47:25.929 --> 00:47:28.220
collaborate and invent
with more other people

00:47:28.220 --> 00:47:32.306
in more different ways
from more different places

00:47:32.306 --> 00:47:34.159
for less money than ever before.

00:47:34.159 --> 00:47:34.808
Sal: Right.

00:47:34.808 --> 00:47:36.410
Tom: And it reached a difference of degree

00:47:36.410 --> 00:47:37.939
that's a difference of kind

00:47:37.939 --> 00:47:40.914
that allows for Khan Academy.

00:47:40.914 --> 00:47:43.353
That for basically zero marginal cost

00:47:43.353 --> 00:47:44.922
you can now offer the greatest

00:47:44.922 --> 00:47:48.150
educational lessons to anyone, you know,

00:47:48.150 --> 00:47:50.215
in the world with a web enabled cell phone

00:47:50.215 --> 00:47:53.406
or an Internet enabled computer.

00:47:53.406 --> 00:47:54.763
Sal: What's you sense of why-

00:47:54.763 --> 00:47:57.954
I mean like the talent, you
know, the offshoring fear

00:47:57.954 --> 00:47:59.263
was that all the software engineering jobs

00:47:59.263 --> 00:48:00.659
were going to go to India.

00:48:00.659 --> 00:48:02.238
What's your sense of why we see-

00:48:02.238 --> 00:48:03.359
We actually saw the opposite.

00:48:03.359 --> 00:48:06.055
Actually now we're seeing finally

00:48:06.055 --> 00:48:07.621
an inflection point
where software engineers

00:48:07.621 --> 00:48:09.262
are starting to become
competitive with bankers

00:48:09.262 --> 00:48:11.912
and consultants and other types of people

00:48:11.912 --> 00:48:14.260
in terms of income and
I mean what do you think

00:48:14.260 --> 00:48:15.454
is allowing for that despite

00:48:15.454 --> 00:48:16.557
the globalization phenomenon?

00:48:16.557 --> 00:48:18.120
Tom: Well you know the way I always like

00:48:18.120 --> 00:48:20.570
to explain it is that
there isn't something

00:48:20.570 --> 00:48:21.936
called a lump of labor.

00:48:21.936 --> 00:48:22.579
Sal: Right.

00:48:22.579 --> 00:48:25.493
Tom: We've got it and now
India is going to get it.

00:48:25.493 --> 00:48:27.283
Bring the lump back.

00:48:27.283 --> 00:48:28.651
That's not how it works. Okay.

00:48:28.651 --> 00:48:31.281
So the best way I used to explain it

00:48:31.281 --> 00:48:32.944
when I talk about "The World Is Flat"

00:48:32.944 --> 00:48:36.855
is guess what? Not everything that needs

00:48:36.855 --> 00:48:38.425
to be invented has been invented.

00:48:38.425 --> 00:48:39.274
Sal: Right.

00:48:39.290 --> 00:48:40.488
Tom: And the example I always give is

00:48:40.488 --> 00:48:42.414
your daughter goes off to college.

00:48:42.414 --> 00:48:43.801
My daughter goes off to college.

00:48:45.507 --> 00:48:46.941
Your kid goes off to college

00:48:46.941 --> 00:48:48.197
and comes back after the first semester

00:48:48.197 --> 00:48:50.309
and you say "So honey what do you think

00:48:50.309 --> 00:48:51.175
"you're majoring in or

00:48:51.175 --> 00:48:52.208
"what do you think you're gonna do?"

00:48:52.208 --> 00:48:54.500
She says "Dad I want to be
a search engine optimizer

00:48:54.500 --> 00:48:55.318
"when I grow up."

00:48:55.318 --> 00:48:56.725
I said "What? I sent you to college.

00:48:56.725 --> 00:48:57.958
"You couldn't be an ophthalmologist

00:48:57.958 --> 00:48:58.713
"or an accountant?

00:48:58.713 --> 00:49:00.750
"What the hell is a
search engine optimizer?"

00:49:00.750 --> 00:49:03.289
So here's an industry that came from zero

00:49:03.289 --> 00:49:05.845
to multi-billion dollars.

00:49:05.845 --> 00:49:08.239
How do we optimize my website

00:49:08.239 --> 00:49:10.115
so if Sal is in the tennis shoe business

00:49:10.115 --> 00:49:11.709
and Tom is in the tennis shoe business

00:49:11.709 --> 00:49:13.125
when I put tennis shoes into Google

00:49:13.125 --> 00:49:14.751
Tom's tennis shoes comes up

00:49:14.751 --> 00:49:16.390
before Sal's tennis shoes.

00:49:16.390 --> 00:49:18.678
It is now a multi-billion dollar industry

00:49:18.678 --> 00:49:20.501
that's a mash-up by the way between

00:49:20.501 --> 00:49:22.880
math and Madison Avenue.

00:49:22.880 --> 00:49:24.127
So it brings together advertising people

00:49:24.127 --> 00:49:26.360
with mathematicians.

00:49:26.360 --> 00:49:28.521
A whole new field for people with software

00:49:28.521 --> 00:49:31.454
or math degrees never existed before

00:49:31.454 --> 00:49:35.479
and so Kahn Academy the software around

00:49:35.479 --> 00:49:39.374
distributed Online courses
didn't exist 10 years ago.

00:49:39.374 --> 00:49:43.840
And so all these things
keep getting invented,

00:49:43.840 --> 00:49:46.660
but there's one constant
it seems to me Sal

00:49:46.660 --> 00:49:48.772
and that's every good
job is either going out,

00:49:48.772 --> 00:49:52.214
up, or down faster than ever.

00:49:52.214 --> 00:49:54.503
That is, every good job either requires

00:49:54.503 --> 00:49:57.659
more education to do or it can be done

00:49:57.659 --> 00:50:00.399
by more people, computers, or software,

00:50:00.399 --> 00:50:04.427
or it's being outsourced
to the past faster.

00:50:04.427 --> 00:50:07.218
So every job is going in all 3 directions.

00:50:07.218 --> 00:50:08.470
Sal: Maybe not more education
in the formal sense.

00:50:08.470 --> 00:50:09.487
It could be more-

00:50:09.487 --> 00:50:10.694
Tom: Exactly. More competency.

00:50:10.694 --> 00:50:12.591
Sal: Competency. Whatever
you might want to-

00:50:12.591 --> 00:50:14.314
Tom: Exactly. One thing we know about

00:50:14.314 --> 00:50:16.663
search engine optimizer
you needed to know more

00:50:16.663 --> 00:50:18.810
than you did, you know, to be

00:50:18.810 --> 00:50:20.369
a computer repair person, you know,

00:50:20.369 --> 00:50:23.986
but what I think is
exciting about this moment

00:50:23.986 --> 00:50:25.417
and again this is all being-

00:50:25.417 --> 00:50:27.969
I would argue enabled
by the hyper-connected

00:50:27.969 --> 00:50:32.814
platform is that once it
becomes a competency game

00:50:32.814 --> 00:50:35.699
I can acquire those
competencies in any way

00:50:35.699 --> 00:50:37.336
and that's what people

00:50:37.336 --> 00:50:38.933
don't appreciate about globalization.

00:50:38.933 --> 00:50:40.938
I always say globalization giveth

00:50:40.938 --> 00:50:42.440
and globalization taketh.

00:50:42.440 --> 00:50:45.485
Globalization just made the qualifications

00:50:45.485 --> 00:50:47.712
for this job higher
and it just brought you

00:50:47.712 --> 00:50:50.566
Kahn Academy where my daughter who is

00:50:50.566 --> 00:50:52.683
applying for graduate school can go to

00:50:52.683 --> 00:50:54.924
to get prepped for her GRE's for free.

00:50:54.924 --> 00:50:55.825
Sal: Well she did.

00:50:55.825 --> 00:50:56.632
Tom: She did.

00:50:56.632 --> 00:50:57.661
Sal: You told me. I hope
she got her money's worth.

00:50:57.661 --> 00:50:59.168
Tom: She did. She got in.

00:50:59.168 --> 00:51:00.244
Sal: She got in.

00:51:00.244 --> 00:51:01.198
Tom: She's there right now

00:51:01.198 --> 00:51:02.586
and she visited here 2 weeks ago.

00:51:02.586 --> 00:51:06.876
So it's doing both at the same time

00:51:06.876 --> 00:51:09.133
and if you miss that if you think

00:51:09.133 --> 00:51:11.869
it's all bad or all good you don't get it.

00:51:11.869 --> 00:51:14.547
So the debate around
globalization tends to be that.

00:51:14.547 --> 00:51:17.247
Oh my God, it's terrible,
it's gonna kill us,

00:51:17.247 --> 00:51:18.346
it's gonna overwhelm us

00:51:18.346 --> 00:51:20.305
or it's wonderful, it's great.

00:51:20.305 --> 00:51:21.520
No, it's disruptive.

00:51:21.520 --> 00:51:23.823
It's creative destruction on steroids,

00:51:23.823 --> 00:51:25.910
but the opportunities it's unleashing

00:51:25.910 --> 00:51:27.568
for all different kinds of people

00:51:27.568 --> 00:51:31.693
and so my sort of overall summary of it

00:51:31.693 --> 00:51:36.404
is that we're moving into a 401k world

00:51:36.404 --> 00:51:39.297
where everyone will have
to pass the bar exam

00:51:39.297 --> 00:51:41.366
and no one will be able to escape

00:51:41.366 --> 00:51:42.594
the most emailed list.

00:51:42.594 --> 00:51:44.690
Sal: So versus the pension world?

00:51:44.690 --> 00:51:46.462
Tom: Exactly so basically we're going from

00:51:46.462 --> 00:51:47.940
a world of defined benefits.

00:51:47.940 --> 00:51:49.134
Sal: Yes the pension world.

00:51:49.134 --> 00:51:50.629
Tom: To defined contributions.

00:51:50.629 --> 00:51:52.348
For 30 years I worked
for the New York Times

00:51:52.348 --> 00:51:53.875
I had a defined benefit.

00:51:53.875 --> 00:51:55.532
Every year it didn't matter-

00:51:55.532 --> 00:51:58.779
it was obviously tied to
my performance in general,

00:51:58.779 --> 00:52:00.907
but basically I got a defined benefit

00:52:00.907 --> 00:52:02.127
from the New York Times.

00:52:02.127 --> 00:52:03.711
Now I get a defined contribution.

00:52:03.711 --> 00:52:05.996
They'll give me x amount of money

00:52:05.996 --> 00:52:07.789
and I have to take responsibility

00:52:07.789 --> 00:52:09.455
for investing it wisely.

00:52:09.455 --> 00:52:12.615
So I think that's happening
to the whole labor market.

00:52:12.615 --> 00:52:14.628
We're going from a world
of defined benefits

00:52:14.628 --> 00:52:16.945
where you're kind of
protected by walls and floors.

00:52:16.945 --> 00:52:18.210
Sal: You go to college you're fine,

00:52:18.210 --> 00:52:19.433
you're gonna get a job.

00:52:19.433 --> 00:52:20.886
Tom: Exactly. That
4-year degree is a proxy

00:52:20.886 --> 00:52:22.573
for a key in the door of a job.

00:52:22.573 --> 00:52:23.394
Sal: That's right.

00:52:23.394 --> 00:52:25.609
Tom: Okay. No, now we're in a world

00:52:25.609 --> 00:52:26.848
of defined contributions.

00:52:26.848 --> 00:52:28.777
The great thing for all the people

00:52:28.777 --> 00:52:31.371
in Kahn Academy is there's
no ceiling anymore.

00:52:31.371 --> 00:52:33.390
It ain't gonna matter in 5 years

00:52:33.390 --> 00:52:34.633
whether you went to Stanford

00:52:34.633 --> 00:52:36.820
or you got those competencies on Kahn.

00:52:36.820 --> 00:52:39.350
The ceiling is gone,
but what's really scary

00:52:39.350 --> 00:52:40.853
so are the floors and walls.

00:52:40.853 --> 00:52:41.398
Sal: Right.

00:52:41.398 --> 00:52:44.202
Tom: So we're going from
a defined benefit world

00:52:44.202 --> 00:52:45.496
to a defined contribution world.

00:52:45.496 --> 00:52:47.850
That's what the hyper-connectivity does.

00:52:47.850 --> 00:52:48.817
Sal: Real global meritocracy.

00:52:48.817 --> 00:52:49.710
Tom: Absolutely.

00:52:49.710 --> 00:52:51.156
Sal: Because anyone
will be able to compete.

00:52:51.156 --> 00:52:52.513
Tom: Anyone will be
able to compete. Right.

00:52:52.513 --> 00:52:53.532
Second it's a world-

00:52:53.532 --> 00:52:56.315
and what will enable that is we're moving

00:52:56.315 --> 00:52:58.127
to a world where everyone
will have to pass the bar.

00:52:58.127 --> 00:53:00.585
That is in the old days we said

00:53:00.585 --> 00:53:02.957
your 3 years at Stanford Law School-

00:53:02.957 --> 00:53:05.411
maybe 100 years we said

00:53:05.411 --> 00:53:08.321
going to law school was a
proxy for knowing the law.

00:53:08.321 --> 00:53:10.239
At some point the legal
profession said no-no

00:53:10.239 --> 00:53:12.219
you're going to go to law school,

00:53:12.219 --> 00:53:13.503
but then you have to take the bar

00:53:13.503 --> 00:53:15.220
that says you actually know what you know.

00:53:15.220 --> 00:53:17.257
That is coming I think to every industry.

00:53:17.257 --> 00:53:19.200
You want to get a job
across the street at Google.

00:53:19.200 --> 00:53:20.313
I don't think [unintelligible]

00:53:20.313 --> 00:53:21.291
I have a BA in engineering,

00:53:21.291 --> 00:53:24.163
but they test so you
actually know what you know.

00:53:24.163 --> 00:53:26.769
Because Tony Wagner always
says the world doesn't

00:53:26.769 --> 00:53:27.661
really care what you know

00:53:27.661 --> 00:53:29.384
because the Google
machine knows everything.

00:53:29.384 --> 00:53:32.014
Okay, the world only pays
off on what you can do

00:53:32.030 --> 00:53:33.555
with what you know and we are now

00:53:33.555 --> 00:53:34.924
going to test that.

00:53:34.924 --> 00:53:35.548
Sal: Right.

00:53:35.548 --> 00:53:36.824
Tom: So my motto is everyone is going

00:53:36.824 --> 00:53:37.683
to have to pass the bar.

00:53:37.683 --> 00:53:40.428
Third, we all are gonna have our own

00:53:40.428 --> 00:53:41.762
most emailed machine.

00:53:41.762 --> 00:53:43.975
So the New York Times,
go to NewYorkTimes.com

00:53:43.975 --> 00:53:46.272
any day you have the most emailed columns.

00:53:46.272 --> 00:53:47.968
It changes every 15 minutes.

00:53:47.968 --> 00:53:49.078
Any journalist who says

00:53:49.078 --> 00:53:51.470
they don't look at it is lying. Okay.

00:53:51.470 --> 00:53:53.479
You always want to see whether your story,

00:53:53.479 --> 00:53:54.917
your column, whatever, did it go up to

00:53:54.933 --> 00:53:56.874
the most emailed list? Human nature.

00:53:56.874 --> 00:53:59.876
I think what's coming
is a most emailed list

00:53:59.876 --> 00:54:01.369
is coming to a job near you

00:54:01.369 --> 00:54:02.389
because with big data.

00:54:02.389 --> 00:54:03.916
So we had a story in the New York Times

00:54:03.916 --> 00:54:06.210
that Jamba Juice has technology-

00:54:06.210 --> 00:54:07.474
it's installed, it's in place

00:54:07.474 --> 00:54:09.930
where they can measure which employees

00:54:09.930 --> 00:54:14.279
sell the most juice on
5th Avenue and 63rd Street

00:54:14.279 --> 00:54:17.188
at 80 degrees between 8
and 10 in the morning.

00:54:17.188 --> 00:54:19.440
And because they also divide their workday

00:54:19.440 --> 00:54:22.129
in 15 minute increments
the employees who do that

00:54:22.129 --> 00:54:23.500
get the most overtime.

00:54:23.500 --> 00:54:25.462
They've got their most emailed list now.

00:54:25.462 --> 00:54:27.989
If you go to SchoolLoop.com in your world

00:54:27.989 --> 00:54:30.459
you can track your kids school assignment,

00:54:30.459 --> 00:54:34.498
whether she turned it in on time.

00:54:34.498 --> 00:54:36.335
By the way whether he or she is tardy,

00:54:36.335 --> 00:54:38.555
you know, and the kids now have

00:54:38.555 --> 00:54:40.210
their most emailed list

00:54:40.210 --> 00:54:42.150
so these are all most emailed lists

00:54:42.150 --> 00:54:45.475
that will connect to your performance

00:54:45.475 --> 00:54:47.286
and display it in real time.

00:54:47.286 --> 00:54:50.574
Look it's all scary. It's
scary to me, you know.

00:54:50.574 --> 00:54:52.290
Sal: I'm just wondering,
some people would fear

00:54:52.290 --> 00:54:53.295
that, okay, this is going to become very

00:54:53.295 --> 00:54:55.570
automatic, okay, these things matter,

00:54:55.570 --> 00:54:57.398
how productive were
you at the Jamba Juice?

00:54:57.398 --> 00:55:00.745
But what about the soft
skills, the arts even,

00:55:00.745 --> 00:55:03.700
and the arts impact on society as a whole,

00:55:03.700 --> 00:55:04.500
participation and democracy.

00:55:04.500 --> 00:55:05.955
Some of these things that don't translate

00:55:05.955 --> 00:55:07.890
into dollars at Jumba Juice.

00:55:07.890 --> 00:55:10.303
Tom: So I think those are, again,

00:55:10.303 --> 00:55:11.385
more important than ever because

00:55:11.385 --> 00:55:13.254
what this world really enables

00:55:13.254 --> 00:55:15.671
if you are a self-motivated person

00:55:15.671 --> 00:55:17.956
and you're living in a
world of Khan Academy

00:55:17.956 --> 00:55:20.870
if you're a self-motivated kid

00:55:20.870 --> 00:55:25.567
in Kaian, Afghanistan
and there's Khan Academy

00:55:25.567 --> 00:55:27.575
and I've got an Internet connection

00:55:27.575 --> 00:55:30.634
you can suddenly ...
you can go to the moon.

00:55:30.634 --> 00:55:34.606
You think of the walls and ceilings

00:55:34.606 --> 00:55:38.820
that person lived within and so that is

00:55:38.820 --> 00:55:41.139
just really exciting if
you are self-motivated.

00:55:41.139 --> 00:55:45.263
If you are not self-motivated
the walls and floors

00:55:45.263 --> 00:55:47.236
that protected you are gone

00:55:47.236 --> 00:55:50.216
and so I think the most
important kind of leadership

00:55:50.216 --> 00:55:54.106
for a company and leadership for teachers

00:55:54.106 --> 00:55:56.810
and for parents and for coaches

00:55:56.810 --> 00:55:58.558
is education that inspires.

00:55:58.558 --> 00:56:01.380
Those soft skills, love of learning,

00:56:01.380 --> 00:56:05.502
motivation they are going to matter hugely

00:56:05.502 --> 00:56:07.803
in a world more than ever Sal

00:56:07.803 --> 00:56:09.962
because when everything is out there now

00:56:09.962 --> 00:56:13.930
for you for free if you
access it, you know,

00:56:13.930 --> 00:56:17.608
and that's sort of one
side of the soft skills,

00:56:17.608 --> 00:56:20.233
but also it's great to
know math and physics

00:56:20.233 --> 00:56:21.816
and calculus and programming

00:56:21.816 --> 00:56:23.849
and you can be creative without them,

00:56:23.849 --> 00:56:30.153
but poetry, music, jazz,
sports, collaboration

00:56:30.153 --> 00:56:34.726
all those things that inspire people

00:56:34.726 --> 00:56:38.518
to take the math and turn
it into something of beauty,

00:56:38.518 --> 00:56:41.201
something that will make people's lives

00:56:41.201 --> 00:56:43.722
more productive, more
healthy, more entertained,

00:56:43.722 --> 00:56:46.462
more caring, that all
comes from the other stuff

00:56:46.462 --> 00:56:48.954
so I think the pendulum swung pretty far

00:56:48.954 --> 00:56:53.764
to this way in terms of
rigorous, hard skills.

00:56:53.764 --> 00:56:56.011
I think we need to make sure we come back

00:56:56.011 --> 00:56:58.868
to the middle here and
that we're blending-

00:56:58.868 --> 00:57:00.698
when we say blended
model we don't just mean

00:57:00.698 --> 00:57:03.515
teacher as a tutor more and a coach

00:57:03.515 --> 00:57:06.135
and all the Online stuff
taking care of the rest,

00:57:06.135 --> 00:57:08.429
but blending also all these other things.

00:57:08.429 --> 00:57:09.372
Sal: And if I read between the lines

00:57:09.372 --> 00:57:10.719
when you talked about these new industries

00:57:10.719 --> 00:57:12.422
the difference between
the engineering jobs

00:57:12.422 --> 00:57:14.470
that are going to India
and the ones that are

00:57:14.470 --> 00:57:15.523
the salaries are increasing here

00:57:15.523 --> 00:57:17.523
is that it's fundamentally right brained.

00:57:17.523 --> 00:57:19.693
It's totally creative. Madison Avenue.

00:57:19.693 --> 00:57:22.910
Tom: Absolutely. India got into this game

00:57:22.910 --> 00:57:24.741
by re-mediating Y2K computers.

00:57:24.741 --> 00:57:25.800
Sal: Right.

00:57:25.800 --> 00:57:27.120
Tom: Now what's cool to me about what's

00:57:27.120 --> 00:57:29.291
going on in India a decade
later is we're seeing-

00:57:29.291 --> 00:57:33.638
so when I wrote about "The
World Is Flat" in 2004

00:57:33.638 --> 00:57:36.509
that was really based on
India solving our problems.

00:57:36.509 --> 00:57:37.651
Sal: Yeah.

00:57:37.651 --> 00:57:40.669
Tom: Y2K. Now what's so
exciting with this platform

00:57:40.669 --> 00:57:43.176
they're using these incredibly cheap tools

00:57:43.176 --> 00:57:45.539
of Khan activity and
collaboration and the Cloud

00:57:45.539 --> 00:57:47.104
to solve their problems

00:57:47.104 --> 00:57:49.319
so if you look at what innovators

00:57:49.319 --> 00:57:51.785
in Mexico or India are doing it's

00:57:51.785 --> 00:57:53.971
an explosion of innovation.

00:57:53.971 --> 00:57:56.635
We've got a billion more brains

00:57:56.635 --> 00:57:58.944
that potentially can be applied against

00:57:58.944 --> 00:58:00.267
the biggest problems of humanity

00:58:00.267 --> 00:58:02.528
and if that doesn't float your boat

00:58:02.528 --> 00:58:04.202
then there's something wrong with you.

00:58:04.202 --> 00:58:07.148
Now at the same time I
understand the challenge.

00:58:08.394 --> 00:58:10.433
Sal: We should get them to figure out

00:58:10.433 --> 00:58:12.329
how we can solve the outsourcing problem.

00:58:13.405 --> 00:58:16.390
Tom: They might do that in a certain way.

00:58:16.390 --> 00:58:17.809
Don't put it past them.

00:58:17.809 --> 00:58:20.846
I understand for a lot
of people it's scary.

00:58:20.846 --> 00:58:22.544
If you're a 50-year-old guy or gal

00:58:22.544 --> 00:58:25.635
in a declining industry and somebody comes

00:58:25.635 --> 00:58:27.519
and says "No problem, you can thrive,

00:58:27.519 --> 00:58:30.320
"just go to Khan Academy
and take their lessons."

00:58:30.320 --> 00:58:32.197
I have huge sympathy for that.

00:58:32.197 --> 00:58:33.921
That's just so out of their-

00:58:33.921 --> 00:58:36.154
they've been protected
by a wall and a floor.

00:58:36.154 --> 00:58:37.653
They didn't do this, you know,

00:58:37.653 --> 00:58:40.641
you can use all my
[unintelligible] you want

00:58:40.641 --> 00:58:44.580
to help those people
and make a transition,

00:58:44.580 --> 00:58:47.802
but what we shouldn't
do is block the change.

00:58:47.802 --> 00:58:48.737
You know if horses could vote there never

00:58:48.737 --> 00:58:50.415
would have been cars. All right.

00:58:50.415 --> 00:58:51.901
It's always important to remember that

00:58:51.901 --> 00:58:55.348
and so if you try to stand
in the way of the change.

00:58:55.348 --> 00:58:56.561
Sal: That would be a fun party game.

00:58:56.561 --> 00:58:57.640
If horses could vote?

00:58:57.640 --> 00:58:59.139
Tom: What would there be?

00:58:59.139 --> 00:59:01.669
What would there not
and what would there be?

00:59:01.669 --> 00:59:02.404
Sal: Interesting.

00:59:02.404 --> 00:59:03.438
Tom: I love the way your mind works.

00:59:03.438 --> 00:59:07.342
Because then you won't have the resources

00:59:07.342 --> 00:59:08.437
to take care of people,

00:59:08.437 --> 00:59:11.250
but I have a huge sympathy for people

00:59:11.250 --> 00:59:14.247
caught in that transition and no one

00:59:14.247 --> 00:59:15.469
should ever mistake-

00:59:15.469 --> 00:59:17.992
I get very excited talking
about the things I discover.

00:59:17.992 --> 00:59:19.262
Just connections I make,

00:59:19.262 --> 00:59:21.937
but do not mistake my excitement for-

00:59:21.937 --> 00:59:24.580
I love the puzzle. You know what I mean?

00:59:24.580 --> 00:59:26.533
Wow, that explains that
and this explains that

00:59:26.533 --> 00:59:29.444
and people should know
that this is happening,

00:59:29.444 --> 00:59:32.185
but don't confuse it for un-sympathy

00:59:32.185 --> 00:59:36.468
or even that I'm not even
worried about all of this.

00:59:36.468 --> 00:59:38.172
I see the up side and the down side,

00:59:38.172 --> 00:59:41.660
but it leaves me Net worried in many ways.

00:59:41.660 --> 00:59:43.181
Sal: Wow. I'm going to
ask you one last question.

00:59:43.181 --> 00:59:43.935
Tom: Go ahead.

00:59:43.935 --> 00:59:45.160
Sal: Where are you going next?

00:59:45.160 --> 00:59:46.680
You hinted on it a little bit

00:59:46.680 --> 00:59:48.864
and I found that
fascinating because you're

00:59:48.864 --> 00:59:50.577
doing 2 documentaries
almost at the same time.

00:59:50.577 --> 00:59:52.225
Tom: It's the same documentary.

00:59:52.225 --> 00:59:54.760
It's called Climate
Change In The Arab Spring.

00:59:54.760 --> 00:59:57.571
It's for the Showtime Channel.

00:59:57.571 --> 00:59:59.250
It's part of a 6-part climate series

00:59:59.250 --> 01:00:01.219
they're going to run next year.

01:00:01.219 --> 01:00:04.623
I'm going to Yemen on
Sunday to look at Yemen

01:00:04.623 --> 01:00:05.972
the first country in the world that will

01:00:05.972 --> 01:00:07.390
probably run out of water.

01:00:07.390 --> 01:00:09.338
You could go around Sana'a you see

01:00:09.338 --> 01:00:10.768
water trucks all over the place.

01:00:10.768 --> 01:00:12.150
Unfortunately, the country

01:00:12.150 --> 01:00:15.140
has a big addiction to qat, this plant.

01:00:15.140 --> 01:00:15.713
Sal: To what?

01:00:15.713 --> 01:00:16.824
Tom: Qat, q-a-t, it's a drug.

01:00:16.824 --> 01:00:19.405
I mean it's a plant
that is a mild narcotic,

01:00:19.405 --> 01:00:21.181
but it consumes a lot of water

01:00:21.181 --> 01:00:26.220
and somebody told me they
were on a high level,

01:00:26.220 --> 01:00:28.193
you know, presidential visit

01:00:28.193 --> 01:00:30.480
or either the president of their country,

01:00:30.480 --> 01:00:32.572
the secretary of state of their country

01:00:32.572 --> 01:00:33.948
and they went with the president of Yemen

01:00:33.948 --> 01:00:35.382
somewhere and the pilot of the helicopter

01:00:35.382 --> 01:00:36.489
was chewing qat.

01:00:36.489 --> 01:00:39.320
Kind of leave me a little worried.

01:00:39.320 --> 01:00:41.412
Get on American Airlines and the pilot

01:00:41.412 --> 01:00:44.122
spits out a pile of qat on the floor.

01:00:46.352 --> 01:00:48.133
And then we're going to Syria because

01:00:48.133 --> 01:00:50.730
people don't realize Syria
had a 10-year drought.

01:00:50.730 --> 01:00:52.176
The worst drought in their history

01:00:52.176 --> 01:00:54.906
on recorded history as
the lead up to this.

01:00:54.906 --> 01:00:57.256
A million farmers and grazers had

01:00:57.256 --> 01:00:58.900
to leave the countryside
and move to the cities

01:00:58.900 --> 01:01:00.888
put huge pressure on the infrastructure

01:01:00.888 --> 01:01:02.867
and it didn't cause the revolution there,

01:01:02.867 --> 01:01:04.157
but it was one of the stresses

01:01:04.157 --> 01:01:06.149
that really helped contribute to it.

01:01:06.149 --> 01:01:10.156
And we'll be going to
Egypt because in 2010,

01:01:10.156 --> 01:01:13.687
in December 2010, there was a huge spike

01:01:13.687 --> 01:01:17.120
in global wheat prices because there was

01:01:17.120 --> 01:01:19.271
a drought in Australia,
there was a drought in Russia

01:01:19.271 --> 01:01:22.335
and there was a drought in China or flood.

01:01:22.335 --> 01:01:24.396
Flooding in Australia, drought in China,

01:01:24.396 --> 01:01:26.943
drought in Russia and as a result

01:01:26.943 --> 01:01:28.425
global wheat prices spiked.

01:01:28.425 --> 01:01:30.942
In December 2010 the exact same time

01:01:30.942 --> 01:01:32.750
of the revolution.

01:01:32.750 --> 01:01:33.239
Sal: Arab spring.

01:01:33.239 --> 01:01:34.765
Tom: Arab spring exactly.

01:01:34.765 --> 01:01:38.100
Tunisia and Egypt then food prices hit

01:01:38.100 --> 01:01:41.293
a record high the month of
the Tunisian revolution.

01:01:41.293 --> 01:01:41.917
Sal: Wow.

01:01:41.917 --> 01:01:44.234
Tom: And remember the guy who started

01:01:44.234 --> 01:01:46.146
the revolution in Tunisia
was a fruit seller.

01:01:46.146 --> 01:01:48.321
He was a vegetable seller, excuse me,

01:01:48.321 --> 01:01:51.362
and so these didn't cause the Arab Spring,

01:01:51.362 --> 01:01:54.328
but they were huge stresses on the system.

01:01:54.328 --> 01:01:55.424
Sal: It accelerated Cadillacs.

01:01:55.424 --> 01:01:59.380
Tom: And it shows you why you should take

01:01:59.380 --> 01:02:00.924
climate change very seriously.

01:02:00.924 --> 01:02:04.828
Sal: Wow. Well on that
note, fairly epic note,

01:02:04.828 --> 01:02:07.748
not quite positive, but this has been

01:02:07.748 --> 01:02:10.145
a huge honor I think for
all of us at the team.

01:02:10.145 --> 01:02:10.986
Tom: Great fun for me.

01:02:10.986 --> 01:02:11.882
Sal: Thank you so much for coming.

01:02:11.882 --> 01:02:13.228
Tom: Real treat Sal. Thank you very much.

01:02:13.228 --> 01:02:14.343
I really appreciate it. Thank you.

01:02:14.343 --> 01:02:15.483
(applause)

01:02:15.483 --> 01:02:17.414
Tom: Thank you. Thank you.

01:02:17.455 --> 01:02:18.953
(applause)