Ivanka Trump: Politics, Family, Real Estate, Fashion, Music, and Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #436

Lex Fridman 0:00 The following is a conversation with Ivanka Trump, businesswoman, real estate developer, and former senior advisor to the President of the United States. I've gotten to know Ivanka well over the past two years. We've become good friends, hitting it off right away over our mutual love of reading, especially philosophical writings from Marcus Aurelius, Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts, Viktor Frankl, and so on. She is a truly kind, compassionate, and thoughtful human being. In the past, people have attacked her, in my view, to get indirectly at her dad, Donald Trump, as part of a dirty game of politics and clickbait journalism. These attacks obscured many projects and efforts, often bipartisan, that she helped get done, and they obscured the truth of who she is as a human being. Through all that, she never returned the attacks with anything but kindness, and always walked through the fire of it all with grace. For this and much more, she is an inspiration, and I'm honored to be able to call her a friend. Oh, and, uh, for those living in the United States, happy upcoming Fourth of July. It's both an anniversary of this country's declaration of independence and an anniversary of my immigrating here to the US. I am forever grateful for this amazing country, for this amazing life, for all of you who have given a chance to a silly kid like me. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I love you all. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Ivanka Trump.

Lex Fridman 1:57 You said that ever since you were young, you wanted to be a builder, that you loved the idea of designing beautiful city skylines, especially New York City. I love the New York City skyline. So, uh, describe the origins of that love of building.

Ivanka Trump 2:11 You know, I think there's both an incredible confidence and a total insecurity that comes with youth. So I remember-

Lex Fridman 2:21 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 2:22 ... (laughs) at 15, I would look out over the city skyline from my bedroom window in New York and imagine where I could contribute and, and add value in a way that, you know, I look back on and, and completely laugh at, you know, how confident I was. But I've, I've known since some of my earliest memories, it's something I've wanted to do, and I think I, fundamentally, I love art. I love expressions of, of beauty in so many different forms. Um, with architecture, there's the tangible, and I think that marriage of, of function and something that exists beyond yourself is very compelling. I also grew up in a family where my mother was in the real estate business working alongside my father. My father was in the business, and I saw the joy that it brought to them, so I think I had these natural positive associations. They used to send me as a little girl renderings of projects they were about to embark on with notes asking if I would hurry up and finish school so I could come join them. So, I had these positive associations, but it came from something within myself. I think that as I got older and as I got involved in real estate, I realized that it was so multidisciplinary. You have, of course, the design, but you also have engineering, the brass tacks of construction. There's time management. There's project planning. Just the duration of time to complete one of these iconic structures, it's enormous. You can contribute a decade of your life to one project. So, while you have to think big picture, it means you really have to care deeply about the details because you, you live with them. So, it, um, it allowed me to flex a lot of areas of interest.

Lex Fridman 4:10 I love that confidence of youth.

Ivanka Trump 4:13 It's funny because we're all so insecure, right, in the most basic interactions, but yet our ambitions are so unbridled in a way that kind of, like, makes you blush as an adult. And I think it's fun. It's r- fun to, like, tap into that energy.

Lex Fridman 4:28 Yeah, where everything is possible.

Ivanka Trump 4:30 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 4:30 I think some of the, the greatest builders I've ever met kind of always have that little flame of everything is possible still burning. That is a silly notion from youth, but it's not so silly.

Ivanka Trump 4:41 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 4:42 You know, everybody tells you something is impossible, but if you continue believing that it's possible and have that sort of naïve notion that you can do it even if it's exceptionally difficult, that naïve notion turns into some of the greatest projects ever done.

Ivanka Trump 4:54 100%.

Lex Fridman 4:55 You know, going out to space or, uh, building a new company where, like, everybody said it's impossible, taking on a gigantic company and, uh, uh, disrupting them and revolutionizing how stuff is done, or doing hu- huge building projects where, like you said, so many people are involved in making that happen.

Ivanka Trump 5:14 We get conditioned out of that feeling.

Lex Fridman 5:16 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 5:16 We start to become insecure, and it's, we start to rely on the input or validation of others, and it takes us away from that sort of core drive and, um, and ambition. So it's, it's, it's fun to, to reflect on that and also to smile, right? Because whether you can execute or not, time will tell. (laughs) But, um, but yeah, no, that was, that was very much my childhood.

Lex Fridman 5:42 Yeah, of course it's important to also have the humility of once you get humbled and realize there's actually a lot of work to build. Uh, I still am amazed just looking at big buildings, big bridges, that human beings are able to get together and build those things. That's one of my favorite things about architecture is just, like...Wow. It's, it's a, a manifestation of the fact that humans can collaborate and do something like epic, much bigger than themselves, and it's like a statue that represents that.

Ivanka Trump 6:14 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 6:14 And it could be there for a long time.

Ivanka Trump 6:16 I think in, in some ways, you look out at, at different city skylines and it's, it's almost like, um, a visual depiction of ambition realized, right? Like-

Lex Fridman 6:26 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 6:26 ... it's a testament to somebody's dream to s- not somebody, a whole, um, ensemble of people's dreams and, and visions, um, and triumphs, and in some cases failures, um, if the projects weren't properly executed. So, so you look at these skylines and, and, and it's a testament to that. I actually heard once architecture described as frozen music, that that really resonated with me.

Lex Fridman 6:54 I love thinking about a city skyline as an ensemble of dreams realized.

Ivanka Trump 6:58 Yeah. I remember the first time I, I went to, um, Dubai and I was watching them dredging out and, and creating these manmade islands, and I remember somebody once saying to me there, an architect, um, an architect actually who collaborated with us on, on our tower in Chicago, he said that the only thing that limited what an architect could do in that area was gravity and imagination. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 7:26 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 7:26 So, so it's, it's, you know?

Lex Fridman 7:28 Yeah, but gravity is a tricky one to work against, and that's where civil engineering is one of my favorite things. I used to build, uh, bridges in high school for physics classes. You have to build bridges and you compete on how much weight they can carry relative to their own weight.

Ivanka Trump 7:41 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 7:42 You study how good it is by finding its breaking point, and that was a deep appreciation for me on a miniature scale of, on a large scale what people are able to do with civil engineering.

Ivanka Trump 7:54 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 7:54 'Cause gravity is a tricky one to fight against. (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 7:57 It definitely is, and bridges, I mean, some of the iconic designs in, in our country are incredible bridges.

Lex Fridman 8:04 So if we think of, uh, skylines as ensembles of dreams realized-

Ivanka Trump 8:09 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 8:09 ... you spent quite a bit of time in New York. What, what do you love about and what do you think about the N- New York City skyline? What's a good picture? We're looking here at a few. I mean, looking over the water.

Ivanka Trump 8:22 Well, I think the water is an unbelievable feature of the New York skyline, um, as you see the island on approach, and oftentimes you'll see, like in these images, you'll see these towers reflecting off of the water surface. So, I think there's something very beautiful and, um, and unique about that. When I look at New York, I, I see this unbelievable sort of tapestry of different types of architecture. So you have the gothic form, um, as represented by buildings like the Woolworth Building, or you'll have art deco as represented by buildings like 40 Wall Street or the Chrysler Building or Rockefeller Center. And, uh, and then you'll have these unbelievable super modern examples or modernist examples like Lever House and Seagram's House. So you have all of these different styles, and I think to build in New York, you're really building the best of the best.

Lex Fridman 9:19 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 9:19 So, nobody's giving New York their sort of second rate work, um, and, uh, especially when a lot of those buildings were built, there was this incredible competition happening between New York and Chicago for kind of dominance of the sky-

Lex Fridman 9:36 Mm-hmm.

Ivanka Trump 9:36 ... and for who could create the greatest skyline, this sort of race to the sky when skyscrapers were first being built, starting in Chicago and, and then New York surpassing that in terms of height, at least, um, with, with the Empire State Building. So I love sort of contextualizing the skylines as well and thinking back to, um, when different components that are so iconic were, were added and, and the context in which they came into being.

Lex Fridman 10:04 I gotta ask you about this. There's a pretty cool page, uh, that I've been following on X, Architecture & Tradition, and they celebrate sort of traditional, uh, schools of architecture, and you mentioned gothic, the tapestry.

Ivanka Trump 10:17 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 10:17 This is in Chicago, the Tribune Tower in Chicago. So what do you think about that, sort of the, the old and the new mixed together? Do you like gothic?

Ivanka Trump 10:25 I think it's hard to look at something like the Tribune Tower and not be completely in awe. Like this is an unbelievable building. Look at those buttresses and you've got gargoyles hanging off of it. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 10:36 (laughs) Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 10:36 And, you know, this style was reminiscent of the cathedrals of Europe, which was very kind of in vogue in like the 1920s here in, here in America. Actually, I mentioned the Woolworth Tower before. The Woolworth Tower was actually referred to as the Cathedral of Commerce, um, and because it-

Lex Fridman 10:57 Wow.

Ivanka Trump 10:57 ... it also was in that gothic style.

Lex Fridman 11:00 Amazing.

Ivanka Trump 11:00 So this was built maybe a decade before the Tribune Building. But the Tribune Building to me is, is, uh, it's almost not replicable. It personally really resonates with me because one of the first projects I ever worked on was building Trump Chicago, which was this beautiful, elegant, super modern, all-glass skyscraper right across the way. So it was right across the river. So I would look out the windows, um, as it was under construction or, or be standing quite literally on rebar of the building looking out at, at the Tribune and, and incredibly inspired, and now the reflective glass of the building reflects back not only the river but, but also, um, the Tribune Building and other buildings on Michigan Avenue.

Lex Fridman 11:46 Do you like it when the glass, the reflective properties of the, of the glass is part of the architecture?

Ivanka Trump 11:51 I think it depends. Like they have super reflective glass that sometimes doesn't work, it's distracting, and, um, I, I think it, it's, it's one component of...... um, sort of a composition that comes together. I think in this case, the glass on, on Trump Chicago is very beautiful. It was, uh, designed by Adrian Smith of, um, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, a, a major architecture firm, who actually did, um, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which is, I think a, like an awe-inspiring example of, of modern architecture. But glass is tricky. It's, you have to get the shade right. Um, you know, some glass has a lot of iron in it and it gets super green, um, and that's a choice, and, uh, sometimes you have more blue properties, blue silver like you see here. But it's, it's, it's part of the character.

Lex Fridman 12:40 How do you know what, what it's actually going to look like when it's done? Like, is it possible to imagine that? 'Cause it feels like there's so many variables.

Ivanka Trump 12:47 I think so. I think if you have a vivid imagination-

Lex Fridman 12:51 (laughs) Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 12:52 ... if you sit with it, and then if you also go beyond the rendering, right? You have to, you have to live with the materials. So, you don't build a 92-story building glass curtain wall and not deeply examine the actual curtain wall before purchasing it. So you have to spend a lot of time with the actual materials, not just, um, the beautiful sort of artistic renderings, um, which can be incredibly misleading. Um, the goal is actually that the, the end result is much, much more compelling, um, than, than what the architect or artist rendered. But oftentimes, that's very much not the case. You know, sometimes also you mentioned context, you know, sometimes I'll see renderings of buildings and I'm like, "Wait, what about the building right to the left of it that's blocking 80% of its views?" Or the, you know, they'll, the, you know, architects, they'll remove things that are inconvenient. They'll, so you, so you have to, you have to be rooted in-

Lex Fridman 13:51 In reality. (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 13:53 ... in reality, exactly.

Lex Fridman 13:54 And I love the notion of living with the, with the materials in contrast to-

Ivanka Trump 13:59 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 13:59 ... living in the imagined world of the drawings.

Ivanka Trump 14:01 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 14:02 So the, the, both, both are probably important, 'cause you have to dream the thing into existence, but you also have to be rooted in, like, what the thing is actually going to look like in the context of everything

Lex Fridman 14:12 else.

Ivanka Trump 14:12 100%.

Lex Fridman 14:13 One of the underlying principles of the page I just mentioned, and I hear folks mention this a lot, is that, uh, modern architecture is kinda boring, that it lacks soul and beauty. And you just spoke with admiration for both modern and for Gothic, for older, uh, architecture. So do you think there's truth that the modern architecture is boring?

Ivanka Trump 14:34 I'm living in Miami currently, so I see a lot of super uninspired glass boxes on, on the waterfront, but, um, but I think exceptional things shouldn't be the norm. You know, they're typically rare, so... And I think in modern architecture, you find an abundance of amazing examples of, of super compelling and, and innovative building designs. I mean, I mentioned the Burj Khalifa. It is awe-inspiring. This is an unbelievably striking example of modern architecture. You look at some older examples, the Sydney Opera House and, you know, so, so I think there's unbelievable... There you go.

Lex Fridman 15:14 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 15:16 I mean, that's like a needle in the sky.

Lex Fridman 15:17 (laughs) Yeah, reaching out to the stars.

Ivanka Trump 15:21 It's, it's huge, and in the context of a city where there's a lot of height.

Lex Fridman 15:25 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 15:25 Um, so it's, it's unbelievable. But I, I think one of the things that's probably exciting me the most about architecture right now is the innovation that's happening within it. W- you know, there's example of robotic fabrication. There's 3D printing. Um, your friend and, and who you introduced me to not too long ago, Neri Oxman, what she's doing at the intersection of biology and technology, and thinking about how to create more sustainable development practices, quite literally trying to create materials that will biodegrade back into the earth. I think there's something really cool happening now with the rediscovery of ancient building techniques, so you have self-healing concrete that was used by the Romans on art and a practice of using volcanic ash and lime that's now being rediscovered and is more critical than ever as we think about how much of our infrastructure relies on concrete and how much of that is failing on the most basic levels. So I think actually, it's a really, really exciting time, um, for innovation in architecture, and I think there are some incredible examples of, of, of modern design that are, are really exciting. But generally, I think Roosevelt said that comparison is the thief of joy.

Lex Fridman 16:50 (laughs) Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 16:50 So, it's hard. You know, you look at the Tribune Building, you look at some of these iconic structures. One of, um, the buildings I'm most proud to have worked on was the historic Old Post Office building in Washington, DC. You look at a building like that and it feels like it has no equal.

Lex Fridman 17:07 Also, there's a, just a psychological element where people tend to want to complain about the new and celebrate the old.

Ivanka Trump 17:14 Always.

Lex Fridman 17:14 Yeah. (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 17:15 (laughs) It's like the history of time, so...

Lex Fridman 17:17 It's just people are always kinda skeptical and concerned about change.

Ivanka Trump 17:21 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 17:22 And it's true that there's a lot of stuff that's new that's not good, that's not gonna last, that's not gonna stand the test of time, but some things will. And there's, uh, just like in modern art, there's, and modern music, there's going to be artists that, uh, stand the test of time and we'll later look back and celebrate them, "Those were the good times."

Ivanka Trump 17:40 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 17:41 When you just step back, what do you love about architecture? Is it the beauty? Is it the function?

Ivanka Trump 17:48 I'm most emotionally drawn, obviously, to the beauty, but I think as somebody who's built things, I really believe that the form has to follow the function. Like, there's nothing uglier than a space that...... is ill-conceived, that, that, you know, otherwise it's, it's, it's decoration. And I think that after sort of that initial reaction to seeing something that's aesthetically really pleasing to me when I, when I look at a, um, when I look at a building or, or a project, I love sort of thinking about how it's being used. So having been able to build so many things in, um, in my career and, and worked on so many incredible projects, I mean, it's really, really rewarding after the fact to have somebody come up to you and, and tell you that they got engaged in-

Lex Fridman 18:46 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 18:46 ... the lobby of your building, or they got married in the ballroom, and, um, and share with you some of those experiences. So, so to me, that's equally as beautiful, um, the, the use cases for, for these unbelievable projects. But, but I think, I think it's all of it. I, I love, I love that you've got the construction, and you've got the design, and you've got then the interior design, and you've got the financing elements, the marketing elements, and it's all wrapped up in, um, in this one effort. So, so to me, it's exciting to sort of flex in all of those different ways.

Lex Fridman 19:25 Yeah, like you said, it's dreams realized, hard work realized, um, s- I mean, probably on the bridge side is why I love the function, in terms of function being primary. You just think of, like, the millions-

Ivanka Trump 19:39 Oh my gosh, look at that.

Lex Fridman 19:40 ... of, of br- bridges, uh ...

Ivanka Trump 19:43 Go, go down. You had ... Look at that. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 19:48 Yeah, this is Devil's Bridge in Germany.

Ivanka Trump 19:50 Yeah. I wouldn't say it's, like, the most practical design. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 19:54 (laughs) Well, this-

Ivanka Trump 19:54 But look how beautiful that is.

Lex Fridman 19:55 Yeah, so this is probably ... well, we don't know. We need to interview some people whether the function holds up, but in terms of beauty, and then the, like what we're talking about, using the water for the reflection-

Ivanka Trump 20:05 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 20:05 ... and the shape that creates ... I mean, there's an elegance to the shape of a, of a bridge.

Ivanka Trump 20:09 See, it's interesting that they call it Devil's Bridge because, to me, this is very ethereal. You know, I think about the ring, the circle-

Lex Fridman 20:17 (laughs) Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 20:17 ... um, life ...

Lex Fridman 20:19 There's nothing about this that makes me feel ... maybe they're just being ironic (laughs) in the name.

Ivanka Trump 20:25 Unless that function's really flawed. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 20:26 Yeah, exactly. Maybe b- be-

Ivanka Trump 20:28 Nobody's ever successfully crossed it.

Lex Fridman 20:30 ... c- crossed the bridge, yeah. But I mean, t- to me, there's just iconic ... I love looking at bridges because-

Ivanka Trump 20:35 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 20:35 ... because of the function. It's the Brooklyn Bridge or the Golden Gate Bridge, I mean, those are probably my favorites in the United States. Just in a city, to be able to look out and see the skyline combined with the suspension bridge, and thinking of all the millions of cars that pass, like the busyness, like us humans get- getting together and going to work, building cool stuff, and just the bridge kind of represents the turmoil and the busyness of a city as it creates.

Ivanka Trump 21:04 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 21:04 It's cool.

Ivanka Trump 21:05 And the connectivity as well.

Lex Fridman 21:07 Yeah. The network of roads all come together. So the, there, the bridge is the ultimate combination of function and, and beauty.

Ivanka Trump 21:15 Yeah. I remember when I was first learning about bridges, studying the cable stay-

Lex Fridman 21:21 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 21:21 ... um, versus the suspension bridge, and I mean, you actually built many replicas.

Lex Fridman 21:26 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 21:26 So I'm sure you'll have a point of view on this, but they're, they really are, um, so beautiful. And you mentioned the Brooklyn Bridge, but growing up in New York, that was as much a part of the architectural story and tapestry of that skyline as any building that's, that's seen in it,

Ivanka Trump 21:45 so.

Lex Fridman 21:45 What, in general, is your philosophy, philosophy of design and building and architecture?

Ivanka Trump 21:51 Well, some of the most recent projects I, I worked on prior to government service were the Old Post Office Building-

Lex Fridman 21:59 Mm-hmm.

Ivanka Trump 21:59 ... and almost simultaneously Trump Doral in Miami. So these were both two just massive undertakings, both redevelopments, which, in a lot of cases, having worked on ground-up construction, redevelopment projects are, in a lot of ways, much more complicated because you have existing attributes, but also a lot of limitations you have to work within, especially when you're repurposing a use. So, so this, um, the Old Post Office Building on Pennsylvania Avenue was-

Lex Fridman 22:31 So beautiful.

Ivanka Trump 22:32 It's unbelievable. So this was Romanesque Revival building, um, built in the 1890s on America's Main Street to symbolize American grandeur, and, um, at the time, there were post office being built in, in the style across the country, but this being really the defining one. Still, to this day, the tallest habitable structure in Washington, um, the tallest structure being the monument, the nation's only vertical park, which is that clock tower, but you've got these thick granite walls, those carved granite turrets, um, just, just an unbelievable building. You've got this massive, um, atrium that, that runs through the whole, um, center of it that is, is topped with glass, so, so having the opportunity to, to spearhead a project like that was, was so exciting, and actually, it was my first renovation project. (laughs) So I, I came to it with a tremendous amount of energy, uh, vigor, and, and humility, um, about how to do it properly, ensuring I had all the right people. We had countless federal and local government agencies that would oversee every single decision we made, but in advance of even having the opportunity to do it, there was a close to two-year request for proposal, like, a process that was put out by, um, the General Services Administration. So it was this really arduous government procurement process that we were competing against so many different people for the opportunity, um, which a lot of people said it was a gigantic waste of time, but I looked at that and I think so did a lot of the other bidders and say, "It's worth trying to put the best vision forward." And-

Lex Fridman 24:18 So you fell in love with this project, right, 'cause-

Ivanka Trump 24:20 I fell in love. Yeah.

Lex Fridman 24:21 So what ... is there some-... interesting details about what it takes to do renovation. Is there... About some, some of the challenges or opportunities 'cause you, you wanna maintain the beauty of the old.

Ivanka Trump 24:34 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 24:35 And now, like, upgrade the functionality, I guess, and maybe modernize some aspects of it without destroying what made the, the building magical in the first place.

Ivanka Trump 24:48 So I think the greatest asset was already there.

Lex Fridman 24:51 Mm-hmm.

Ivanka Trump 24:53 The exterior of the building, which we meticulously restored and any addition to it had to be done sort of very gently, um, in terms of any signage additions, and, um, the interior spaces were completely dilapidated. It had been a post office and we u- was used for a really run-down food court and government office spaces. It was actually losing six million dollars a year, um, when, when we got, um, the concession to, to build it and, and when we won and, and became one of, I think, a great example of public-private partnerships working together. But the, I think the biggest challenge in having such a radical use conversion is just how you lay it out. So the amount of time I would get on that Acela twice a week, um, three times a week to spend day trips down in Washington and we would walk every single inch of the building, laying out the floor plans, debating over the configuration of a room. There are almost 300 rooms and there were almost 300 layouts. So nothing could be repeated. Uh...

Lex Fridman 26:06 Wow.

Ivanka Trump 26:06 ... whereas when you have, when you're building from scratch, you tend, you know, you have a box and you decide where you wanna add, you know, potential elements and, um, and you kind of can stack the floor plan all the way up. But when you're working within a building like this, every single room was different. You see the setbacks, so the setback then required you to move the plumbing. So th- there was no, um... It was really a labor of love and to do something like this and th- and that's why I think renovation, we had it with Doral as well. It was 700 rooms over, um, over 650 acres of, of property. And so every single unit was, was very different and complicated. Not, not as complicated in some ways. It... The scale of it was so massive, but not as complicated as the old post office, but it required a level of, of precision. And I think in real estate, you have a lot of people who design on plan, um, and a lot of people who are in the business of sort of acquiring and flipping. So it's more financial engineering than it is building, and they don't spend the time sort of sweating these details that make something great and make something functional and you feel it in the end result. Um, but I, I mean, blood, sweat, tears, years of my life for...

Lex Fridman 27:30 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 27:30 ... for those projects and, and it was worth it. I, I enjoyed almost (laughs) , I enjoyed almost every minute of it.

Lex Fridman 27:37 So to you, it's not about the flipping. To you, b- it's about the art of the... And the function of the thing that you're creating.

Ivanka Trump 27:44 100%.

Lex Fridman 27:45 What's design on plan? I'm learning new things today.

Ivanka Trump 27:49 Um, when, when proposals are put forth by an architect and, and really just the plan is accepted without... And in the case of a renovation, like if you're not walking those rooms... The number of times a beautifully laid out room was on a blueprint and then I'd go to Washington and I'd walk that floor and I'd realize that there was a column that ran right up through the middle of the space where, you know, the bed was supposed to be or the toilet was supposed to be or, um, or the shower. So there's a lot of things that are missed, um, when you do something conceptually without sort of rooting it in, um, in the actual structure. And that's why I think even, you know, with ground-up construction as well, people who aren't constantly on their job sites, constantly walking the projects, there's just a lot that's... There's a lot that's missed.

Lex Fridman 28:41 I mean, there's a wisdom to the, the idea that we talked about before, live with the materials and walking the construction site, walking the rooms. I mean, that's what you hear from people like Steve Jobs, like Elon.

Ivanka Trump 28:54 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 28:54 That's why you live on a factory floor.

Ivanka Trump 28:56 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 28:56 That's why you constantly obsess about the details, the actual- not of the, the plans, but the physical reality of the product. I mean, the, the insanity of Steve Jobs and Jony Ive working together on, like, making it perfect. Making the iPhone, the early designs, prototypes, making that perfect, like what it actually feels like in the hand. You have to be there, like, as close to the metal as possible to truly understand.

Ivanka Trump 29:24 And you have to love it in order to do that.

Lex Fridman 29:26 Right. It, it shouldn't be about the, how much it's going to sell for, all that kind of stuff.

Ivanka Trump 29:31 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 29:31 You have to love the art.

Ivanka Trump 29:32 'cause for the most part, you can probably get 90, maybe even 95% of the end result unless something has terribly gone awry by, by not caring with that level of almost like maniacal precision. But you'll notice that 10% for the rest of your life, you know? So, um, I think, I think that extra effort, that, that passion, I, I think that's what separates good from

Ivanka Trump 30:01 great.

Lex Fridman 30:01 If we go back to that young Ivanka, the, uh, the confidence of youth and, uh, if we could talk about your mom. She had a big influence on you. You told me she was an adventurer.

Ivanka Trump 30:15 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 30:15 Uh, Olympic skier and a businesswoman. Uh, wh- what did you learn about life from your mother?

Ivanka Trump 30:22 So much. Um...She passed away two years ago now. And, um, she was a remarkable, remarkable woman. She was a trailblazer in so many different ways. Um, as an athlete in, growing up in communist Czechoslovakia, as, um, a fashion mogul, as a real estate executive and, and builder, um, just this all around trailblazing businesswoman. I also learned from her, you know, aside from, from that element, how to really enjoy life. You know, I look back and some of my happiest memories of her are in the ocean, you know, just lying on our back, um, looking up at the sun and just so, so in the moment. Or dancing. She loved to dance, so she (laughs) , um, she really taught me a lot about living life to its fullest, and, um, and she had so much courage, so much conviction, so much energy, um, and a complete comfort with who she was.

Lex Fridman 31:27 What do you think about that, I mean, an Olympic athlete, the trade-off between, like, ambition and just wanting to do big things and pursuing that and giving your all to that, and being able to relax and just throw your arms back and enjoy the mo- every moment of life. What, like that trade-off?

Ivanka Trump 31:47 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 31:48 What, what do you think about that trade-off?

Ivanka Trump 31:51 I think because she was this unbelievable, formidable athlete, and because of the discipline she had as a child, I think it made her value those moments more as an adult. I think she was a great balance of the two that we all hope to find, and she was able to find both incredibly serious and formidable. I remember as a little girl I used to literally traipse behind her, um, at the Plaza Hotel, which, um, she oversaw and actually kind of was her old post office. It was this unbelievable historic hotel in, in New York City. And I'd follow her around at construction meetings and on job sites and, um, there she is, dancing. See?

Lex Fridman 32:37 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 32:37 (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 32:39 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 32:39 That's funny that that's the picture you pull up.

Lex Fridman 32:41 (laughs) I'm sorry.

Ivanka Trump 32:41 That's great.

Lex Fridman 32:42 The two of you just look great in that picture. (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 32:43 That's great. She had such a, a joy to her, and she was so unabashed in her perspective, in her opinions, I mean, you know, she made my father look reserved. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 32:57 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 32:58 So whatever she was feeling, what, she was just very expressive, um, and, and a lot of fun to be around.

Lex Fridman 33:05 So she, uh, as you mentioned, uh, grew up during the, the Prague Spring in, uh, 1968, and that had a big impact on human history. I mean, my, my family came from the Soviet Union, and then, you know, the 20th century, the story of the 20th century is a lot of Eastern Europe, uh, the Soviet Union tried, uh, the ideas of, um, of communism, and it turned out that a lot of those ideas resulted into a lot of suffering. So why do you think the communist ideology failed?

Ivanka Trump 33:39 I think fundamentally, as people we desire freedom, we want agency, you know, and, and my mom was like a lot of other people who grew up in, in similar situations, where she didn't like to talk about it that often.

Lex Fridman 33:53 Mm-hmm.

Ivanka Trump 33:54 So one of my real regrets is that I didn't push her harder, you know, so... But I think back to the conversations we did have and, and I try to imagine what it's like. She was at Charles University in, in, in Prague, which was really like a focal point of, um, of the reforms that were ushered in during the Prague Spring and the liberalization agenda that was happening. The dance halls were opening, the student activists, and, and she was attending university there right at that same time. So the, the contrast to this feeling of freedom and progress and liberalization in the spring, and then it so quickly being crushed in the fall of that same year when the Warsaw Pact countries and, uh, and the Soviet Union rolled in to, to put down and, and ultimately roll back all those reforms. So for her to have lived through that, you know, she didn't come to North America until she was, uh, 23 or 24, so that was her life. As, um, as, as a young girl she was on the junior national ski team for Czechoslovakia. My, my grandfather used to train her. They used to put the skis on her back and walk up the mountain, um, in Czechoslovakia because there were no, there were no ski lifts. She actually made me do that when I was a child (laughs) -

Lex Fridman 35:24 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 35:24 ... um, just to, to let me know, uh, what her experience had been. If I complained that it was cold out, she's like, "Well, you didn't have to walk up the mountain. You'd be, you'd be plenty warm if you had carried the skis up on your back (laughs) and, uh, up the last run."

Lex Fridman 35:39 I feel like they made people tougher back then. Like, my, my grandma, and you mentioned, it's funny, they, they go through some of the darkest things that a human being can go through and they don't talk about it, and they have a general positive outlook on life, like, uh, that's deeply rooted in the knowledge of what life could be.

Ivanka Trump 35:59 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 35:59 Like how bad it could get. My grandma survived, uh, Holodomor in Ukraine, which is, was the mass starvation brought on by the, the collectivist policies of the Stalin regime, and then she survived the Nazi occupation of Ukraine, never talked about it, probably went through extremely dark, extremely difficult times, and then just always had a positive outlook on life, and also made me do-... very difficult physical activity like you just mentioned. (laughs) Just to-

Ivanka Trump 36:31 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 36:31 ... to humble you.

Ivanka Trump 36:33 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 36:33 Like, kids these days are soft kind of energy, which I'm deeply, deeply grateful for on, on all fronts, including just having hardship and, uh, including just physical hardship flung at me.

Ivanka Trump 36:45 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 36:45 I think that's really important.

Ivanka Trump 36:46 You wonder how much of, of who they were was a reaction to their experience, you know, would she have naturally had that sort of forward-looking, grateful, optimistic orientation or was it a reaction to, to her childhood? I think about that, you know, I look at this picture of my mom and she was unabashedly herself.

Lex Fridman 37:07 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 37:07 You know, she loved flamboyance and glamour and, and in some ways I think it probably was a direct reaction to this very austere, controlled childhood, you know? This was one expression of it. I think her, you know, how she dressed and how she presented, I, I think her entrepreneurial spirit and love of capitalism and all things American was, was another manifestation of it and one that I grew up with. I remember this story she used to tell me, um, about when she was, uh, 14 and she was going to neighboring countries and, you know, as an athlete you were given additional freedoms, um, that, that you wouldn't otherwise be f- afforded in, um, in, in these societies under, under communist rules. So she was able to travel where most of her friends never would be able to leave Czechoslovakia. And she would come back from all of these trips and the first place where she'd do ski races in Austria and, and elsewhere and the first thing she had to do was check in at the local police.

Lex Fridman 38:13 Hmm.

Ivanka Trump 38:14 And she'd sit down and she had enough wisdom at 14 to know that she couldn't appear to be lying by not being impressed by what she saw and the fact that you could get an orange in the winter, but she couldn't be too excited by it that she'd become a flight risk.

Lex Fridman 38:32 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 38:32 So give enough details-

Lex Fridman 38:33 Oh, boy.

Ivanka Trump 38:34 ... that you're believable, but not so many that you're not trusted. And imagine that as a 14-year-old.

Lex Fridman 38:43 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 38:43 You know, that experience and, and having to navigate the world that way and, um, she told me that eventually all those local police officers, they came to love her because one of the things she'd do is smuggle back, stuff back from these countries and give it to them to give their wives. (laughs) Perfume and stockings-

Lex Fridman 39:03 Yep. Yep.

Ivanka Trump 39:03 ... and (laughs) s- so, so she figured out the system pretty quickly, um, but, but it's, it's a very different experience from what I was navigating and the pressures and challenges me as a 14-year-old was, was dealing with. So, so I have so much respect and, and admiration for her.

Lex Fridman 39:21 Yeah. Hardship clarifies what's important in life. Uh, you and I have talked about Man's Search for Meaning, that book.

Ivanka Trump 39:28 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 39:28 Uh, having kind of an ultimate hardship clarifies that, uh, finding joy in life is not about the environment, it's about your outlook on that environment. And there's beauty to be found in any situation.

Ivanka Trump 39:42 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 39:42 And also in that particular situation the, uh, when everything is taken from you, the thing you start to think about is, uh, the people you love, so in the case of Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl thinking about his, his wife and how much he loves her, and that love was the flame that, uh, the, the, the warmth that kept him excited. The fun thing to think about when-

Ivanka Trump 40:03 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 40:03 ... everything else is gone. So we sometimes forget that with the busyness of life, you get all this fun stuff we're talking about like building and being a creative force in the world. At the end of the day what matters is just, like, the other humans in your life, the people you love.

Ivanka Trump 40:16 100%.

Lex Fridman 40:17 It's the simple stuff.

Ivanka Trump 40:18 You know, Viktor Frankl is, is somebody, I mean, his, that book and, um, just his philosophy in general is, is, um, is so inspiring to me, but I think so many people, they say they want happiness but they want conditional happiness, you know? When this and this thing happens or under these circumstances, then I'll be happy. And I think what he showed is that we can sort of cultivate these virtues within ourselves regardless of the situation we find ourselves in, and in some ways I think the, the meaning of life is the search for meaning in life. It's the relationships we have and we form, it's the experience we have, it's how we deal with the suffering that life inevitably presents to us. And, uh, and Viktor Frankl does an amazing job highlighting that under the most horrific circumstances, and I think it's, it's just super inspiring to me.

Lex Fridman 41:17 He also shows that you can get so much from just, like, small joys. (laughs) Like getting a little more soup today than you did yesterday. I mean, it's like, it's the little stuff. If you allow yourself to love the little stuff of life, it's all around you, it's all there, so you don't need to, like, have these ambitious goals and the comparison being a thief of joy, that kind of stuff. Just, like, it's all around us, the ability to eat. Like when I, when I was in the jungle and I got severely dehydrated 'cause there's no water, you run out of water real quick, and I mean, the joy I felt when I got to drink. Like I didn't care about anything else. It's, speaking of things that matter in life, I would, I was, I would start to fantasize about water and it would... That was bringing me joy. (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 42:06 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 42:06 And then, and then-

Ivanka Trump 42:08 You can tap into this feeling-

Lex Fridman 42:10 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 42:10 ... at any time.

Lex Fridman 42:10 Exactly. I could, I was just tapping in just to stay positive.

Ivanka Trump 42:12 Just go into your bathroom, turn on the sink-

Lex Fridman 42:14 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 42:14 ... and watch the water and feel joy.

Lex Fridman 42:15 Oh, for sure.

Ivanka Trump 42:16 Yeah. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 42:16 For sure. I mean, people really... I, it's good to have stuff taken away for a time. That's why struggle is good to make you appreciate, to have a deep gratitude for when you have it. And water and food is a big one, but water is the biggest one.

Ivanka Trump 42:32 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 42:32 I, I wouldn't recommend it necessarily to get severely dehydrated to appreciate water. But maybe every time you take a sip of water, you could have that kind of gratitude.

Ivanka Trump 42:40 There's a, a prayer in Judaism you're supposed to say every morning, which is basically thanking God for your body working.

Lex Fridman 42:50 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 42:50 Um, it's, it's something, you know, so basic. But it's when it doesn't that, that we're grateful. So just reminding ourselves every day the basic things of, of a functional body, of, of, of our health, of access to, to water, which, um, so many millions of people around the world do not have reliably is, um, very clarifying and super important.

Lex Fridman 43:17 Yeah. Health is a gift. Water is a gift.

Ivanka Trump 43:20 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 43:20 Is there a memory with your mom that had a defining effect on your, uh, life?

Ivanka Trump 43:27 I have these vignettes in my mind, you know, seeing her in action in different capacities, a lot of times, um, in the context of things that I would later go on to do myself. So, you know, I would go every day, almost every day after school. And I'd go to the Plaza Hotel, and I'd follow her around as she'd walk the hallways and just observe her. And she was so impossibly glamorous.

Lex Fridman 43:54 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 43:54 She was doing everything in-

Lex Fridman 43:56 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 43:56 ... you know, four and a half inch heels with this-

Lex Fridman 43:58 Nice.

Ivanka Trump 43:59 ... bouffant. And so it was almost, it was almost like an, it's almost like an inaccessible visual. But I think for me, when I saw her experience the most joy tended to be by the sea. Um, almost always. Not, not a pool. And I think I get this from her. Pools? Eh, they're fine.

Lex Fridman 44:19 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 44:19 Um, I love the ocean.

Lex Fridman 44:21 Yeah. Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 44:21 I, I, I love salt water. I love the way it makes me feel. And, um, and I think I got that from her. So we would, we would just swim together all, all the time. And, and, you know, it's, it's a lot of what I love about Miami actually, being, being so close to the ocean. I find it to be super cathartic. But a lot of my memories of my mom, seeing her really like just in her bliss, um, is, is floating around in, in, in a body of salt water.

Lex Fridman 44:52 Is there also some aspect to her being an example of somebody that could be sort of beautiful and feminine but at the same time a powerful, a successful businesswoman that showed that it's possible to do that?

Ivanka Trump 45:06 Yeah. I think she really was a trailblazer. It's not uncommon in, in real estate for there to be multiple generations of, uh, of people. And so on, on job sites, I ... it was not unusual for me to run into somebody whose grandfather had worked with my grandfather in Brooklyn or Queens or whose father had, um, worked with my mother. And, and they'd always tell me these stories about her, you know, rolling in and they'd hear the heels first. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 45:35 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 45:35 And, and a lot of times, the story would be like, "Oh, gosh." Like-

Lex Fridman 45:38 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 45:38 ... you know, "Really? It's two days after Christmas. Like we thought we'd get a reprieve." Um, but she was, uh, she was very exacting. Um, you know, so I have this visual in my mind of her, you know, walking on rebar, you know-

Lex Fridman 45:52 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 45:52 ... on the balls of her feet in these four-inch heels.

Lex Fridman 45:54 Nice.

Ivanka Trump 45:55 I'm assuming she actually carried flats with her.

Lex Fridman 45:57 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 45:57 Uh, but, but I don't know (laughs) . That's not the visual I have.

Lex Fridman 46:02 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 46:02 But she was, um ... I loved the fact that she so embodied femininity and, um, and glamor and, um, and was so comfortable being tough and ambitious and determined and, um, and this unbelievable businesswoman and entrepreneur at, at a time when she was very much alone. Even, you know, for, for me in, in the development world and so many of the different businesses that I've been in, there really aren't women outside of, of sales and of marketing. You don't see as many women in the development space, in the construction space, even in the architecture, um, and, and design space. Um, maybe outside of interior design. So, and she was, you know, decades ahead of me. So it was ... I love hearing these stories.

Lex Fridman 46:54 Mm-hmm.

Ivanka Trump 46:54 I love, I love hearing somebody who's my peer tell me about their grandfather and their father and their experience with, with one of my parents. It's, it's amazing.

Lex Fridman 47:04 And she did it all in four-inch heels.

Ivanka Trump 47:06 And she did it.

Lex Fridman 47:07 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 47:07 She used to say, "There's nothing that I can't do better in heels."

Lex Fridman 47:11 (laughs) That's a good line.

Ivanka Trump 47:12 That would be her (laughs) that would be her exact thing. And when I'd complain about wearing something, you know, it was like the early 90s, everything was all so like uncomfortable, these fabrics and materials. And, and I was, I would like go back and forth between being super girly and a total tomboy. Um, but uh, but she'd, you know, dress me up in, in these things and I'd be complaining about it, and she'd say, "Ivanka, pain for beauty."

Lex Fridman 47:37 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 47:37 Which I happen to totally disagree with.

Lex Fridman 47:40 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 47:40 Because I think there's nothing worse than being uncomfortable.

Lex Fridman 47:43 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 47:43 So I haven't accepted or internalized all of the, this, this wisdom so to speak. But, um, but-

Lex Fridman 47:51 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 47:51 ... but it was just funny. You know, she had, she had a very specific point of view.

Lex Fridman 47:55 Mm-hmm. This ... and full of good lines. Pain for beauty. That's be- (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 47:59 (laughs) It's, it's funny because I mean, just even in fashion, if something's uncomfortable, to me there's nothing that looks worse than when you see somebody like tottering around and like their heels hurt them so they're kind of walking oddly. Um, and you know, it doesn't ... they're not embodying their confidence in that regard. So I'm like kind of the opposite. I start with, "Well, I want to be comfortable." Um, and that helps me be confident and, um, and in command.

Lex Fridman 48:24 A foundation of fashion for you is comfort, and on top of that you build things that are beautiful.

Ivanka Trump 48:29 And it's not comfort like dowdy, you know?

Lex Fridman 48:31 Right.

Ivanka Trump 48:31 There's that level of comfort. But um-

Lex Fridman 48:33 Functional comfort.

Ivanka Trump 48:34 But I think you have to, for me...... I wanna feel confident.

Lex Fridman 48:38 Mm-hmm.

Ivanka Trump 48:38 And you don't feel confident when you're, like, pulling at a garment or, um, you know, hobbling on heels that don't fit you properly.

Lex Fridman 48:46 Mm-hmm.

Ivanka Trump 48:46 Um, and she was never doing those things either, so I don't know how she was wearing stuff like that-

Lex Fridman 48:49 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 48:49 ... that's, like, a 40-pound Vida dress.

Lex Fridman 48:51 Yeah, yeah.

Ivanka Trump 48:51 And I know this because I have it-

Lex Fridman 48:55 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 48:55 ... and I wore it recently, and-

Lex Fridman 48:57 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 48:57 ... I mean, I got a workout walking to the elevator.

Lex Fridman 48:59 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 48:59 Like, this is a heavy dress. And you know what? It was worth it. It was great. Um...

Lex Fridman 49:04 Yeah. She's making it look easy, though.

Ivanka Trump 49:05 But she, uh, she makes it look very, very easy, so.

Lex Fridman 49:09 Do you, uh, miss her?

Ivanka Trump 49:11 I... So much. It's unbelievable how dislocating the loss of a, of a parent is. And, um, her mother lives with me still, my grandmother, who helped raise us, so that's very special. And I can ask her some of the questions-

Lex Fridman 49:34 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 49:34 ... that I would've, sorry, (chuckles) I wanted to ask my own mom, but it's hard.

Lex Fridman 49:40 Yeah, it was beautiful to see. I've gotten a chance to spend time with your family to see so many generations together-

Ivanka Trump 49:48 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 49:48 ... at the table. And there's so much history there.

Ivanka Trump 49:52 You know, she's 97, and, um, until, uh, she was around 94, she lived completely on her own. No help, no anything, no support. And, um, and now she requires really sort of 24-hour care. And I, I feel super grateful that I'm able to give her that because that's what she did for me. It's amazing for me to have my children be able to grow up and, and know her stories, know her recipes. (laughs) Um-

Lex Fridman 50:23 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 50:23 ... check dumplings and, and goulash-

Lex Fridman 50:25 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 50:25 ... um, and (German) and all the other things she used to make me in my childhood. But, but she really, she was a major, she was a major force in my life, my grandmother. She, um, you know, my mom was working, so, you know, my grandmother was the person who was always home every day when I came back from school. And, um, I remember I used to shower, and it would almost be, like, comical. I, I feel like in my memory, um, and there was no washing machine I've seen on the planet that can actually do this, but in my memory, I'd go to shower, you know, and I'd drop something on the bed, and I'd come back into the room after my shower, and it was, like, folded, pressed. It was all my grandmother. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 51:05 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 51:06 She was like running after me, um, taking care of me. Um, and, uh, so it's nice to be able to do that for her.

Lex Fridman 51:13 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 51:14 I got from her, reading. My grandmother, she would... She devoured books. Like, devoured books. She loved the more sensational ones.

Lex Fridman 51:24 (laughs) Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 51:26 So she... (laughs) So, like, some of these, like, romance novels-

Lex Fridman 51:28 Nice.

Ivanka Trump 51:28 ... I would pick them up, the covers-

Lex Fridman 51:29 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 51:29 ... but she could tell you... She could look at, like, any royal lineage across Europe and tell you all the mistresses, all the shit. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 51:37 All the drama. Uh-huh.

Ivanka Trump 51:38 All the drama. She loved it. Um, but her face was always buried in a book. You know, my grandfather, Dedo, he was the athlete. Um, he was, um... He swam professionally for, or, you know, on the national team for Czechoslovakia, and he helped train my mom, as I was saying before, in skiing. So, he was a great athlete, and she was at home, and she would read and cook. And, um, and so that's, that's something I, I remember a lot from my childhood. And she would always say, like, I got, I got reading from her. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 52:09 I mean, uh, speaking of drama, I had, uh, my English teacher in high school recommend a book for me by D.H. Lawrence. It's supposed to be a classic. She's like, "This is a classic you should read." It's called Lady Chatterley's Lover. And s-... I've read a lot of classics, but that one is straight up, like, a romance novel about a wife who, like, is cheating with a gardener. And I remember reading this like, "What?"

Ivanka Trump 52:34 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 52:34 Like, in retrospect, I understand why it's a classic, because it was so scandalous to talk about sex in a book 100 years ago or whatever.

Ivanka Trump 52:41 In retrospect, do you know why she recommended it to you? (laughs)

Lex Fridman 52:44 I have no... I think (laughs) maybe she's-

Ivanka Trump 52:47 (laughing) Funny to think about.

Lex Fridman 52:47 ... sending a signal, "Hey, you need to get out more," or something. I don't know. Uh... (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 52:51 (laughs) Maybe, maybe she was seeking to inspire you

Narrator 52:53 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 52:54 Yeah, exactly. Um... (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 52:57 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 52:57 Anyway, I, I mean, I love that kind of stuff too, but I love, I, I love all the classics. And they get, they get... There's a lot of drama. Human nature, drama is part of it, so.

Lex Fridman 53:07 What about your dad? Growing up, what did you learn about life from your father?

Ivanka Trump 53:13 I think my father's sense of humor is sometimes underappreciated.

Lex Fridman 53:16 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 53:17 Uh, so he had an amazing, and has an amazing sense of humor. He loved music. I, I think my, my mom loved music as well, but, you know, my father always used to say that in another life, he would have been a Broadway musical producer. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 53:32 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 53:32 Which is hilarious to think about, but he loves, he loves music. I... (laughs)

Lex Fridman 53:38 (laughs) Tha- that is funny to think about.

Ivanka Trump 53:40 Right? He does... Now, he DJs at Mar-a-Lago.

Lex Fridman 53:43 Nice.

Ivanka Trump 53:43 So people get a sense of... You know, he loves Andrew Lloyd Webber and all of it, Pavarotti, Elton John. I mean, these were the same songs on repeat my whole childhood, so... (laughs)

Lex Fridman 53:56 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 53:56 I know the playlist.

Lex Fridman 53:58 Probably Sinatra and all that too.

Ivanka Trump 53:59 Loves Sinatra, loves Elvis, you know, a lot of, a lot of the greats. So, I, I think I got a little bit of my love for music from, from him, but my mom shared that, um, as well. I think, um, one of the things, you know, in, in, in looking back that I think I inherited from my father as well is this sort of, um, interest or understanding of the importance of asking questions and specifically questions of the right people. And I saw this a lot on, on job sites. So, I remember, uh, with the old post office building, there was this massive glass-topped atrium.So heating and cooling the structure was like a Herculean lift. Um, we had the mechanical engineers provide their thoughts on how we could do it efficiently and, um, and so that the temperature never varied. And it was enormously expensive, um, uh, as an, as an undertaking. And I remember one of his first times on, on the site because, you know, he had really empowered me, um, with this project and he trusted me to, to execute and to also, you know, rope him in when I needed it. But one of the first time he visits, we're walking the hallway and we're talking about how expensive this cooling system would be and heating system would be, and he starts stopping and he's asking duct workers as, as we walk what they think of the system that the mechanical engineers designed. First few, fine, you know, not great answers. The third guy goes, "Sir, if you want me to be honest with you, it's obscenely overdesigned. In the circumstance of a 1,000-year storm, you will have the exact tem- perfect temperature if there's a massive blizzard or if it's unbearably hot. But 99.9% of the time, you'll never need it. And, um, and so I think it's just a, an enormous waste of money." And so he kept asking that guy questions and we ended up overhauling the design pretty well into the process of the whole system, saving a lot of money, creating a great system that's super functional, and, um, so I, I learned a lot and that's just one example of countless. That one really sticks out in my head because I'm like, "Oh my gosh, we're redesigning the whole system."

Lex Fridman 56:21 Mm-hmm.

Ivanka Trump 56:21 You know, we were actively under construction, so it was, um... But I would see him do that on a lot of different issues. He, he would ask people on the work level what their thoughts were, ideas, concepts, designs. And, um, there was almost like a Socratic sort of first principles type of way he, he questioned people, trying to get down to sort of trying to reduce complex things to something really fundamental and, and, and simple. So I, I try to do that myself to the, to the best I can and I think it's something I very much learned from him.

Lex Fridman 57:01 Yeah. I've seen great engineers, great leaders do just that is Elon do that a lot, which is basically ask questions, uh, to push simplification.

Ivanka Trump 57:13 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 57:13 Can we do this simpler? And like why... The basic question is like, "Why are we doing it this way? Can this be done simpler?"

Ivanka Trump 57:19 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 57:20 And not taking as an answer that this is how we've always done it, sort of not, not allowing yourself... Like, it doesn't matter that's how we've always done it. What is the right way to do it? And what is... And usually the simpler it is, the more correct a way.

Ivanka Trump 57:37 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 57:37 Has to do with cost, has to do with simplicity of, uh, of production manufacture, but usually simple is best.

Ivanka Trump 57:44 And it's oftentimes not the architecture and the engineers. It's, you know, in Elon's case, probably the line worker who sees things-

Lex Fridman 57:51 Yes.

Ivanka Trump 57:51 ... more clearly. So I think making sure it's not just that you're asking good questions. You're asking the right people those same good questions.

Lex Fridman 57:59 That's why, like, uh, a lot of the Elon companies are really flat in terms of, uh, organizational design where the, the, any- anybody on the factory floor can talk directly to Elon. Th- there's no-

Ivanka Trump 58:11 (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 58:12 There's not the, there's not this managerial class, this hierarchy where you have to travel up and down the hierarchy, which large companies often construct this hierarchy of managers where no one manager, if you ask them the, the question of like, "What have you done this week?" The answer is like, "It's really hard to come up with." Usually it's gonna be a bunch of paperwork.

Ivanka Trump 58:33 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 58:33 Uh, (laughs) so you like nobody knows what they actually do. So when it's flat, you can actually get as quickly as possible when problems arise, you, you can, you can solve those problems as quickly as possible. And also you have a direct, rapid iterative process where you're making things simpler, making them more efficient, and constantly improving. So yeah. It's, it's interesting when, when large... I mean, you see this in government. A lot of people get together, a hierarchy is developed, and that somehow sometimes it's good, but very often just slows things down. And you see great companies, great, great companies, Apple, Google, Meta, they have to fight against that bureaucracy that builds, the slowness that large organizations have. And to still be a big organization and act like a startup is the big challenge.

Ivanka Trump 59:28 It's super difficult to deconstruct that as well once it's in place, right? It's-

Lex Fridman 59:32 Right.

Ivanka Trump 59:33 ... it's circumventing layers and asking questions, probing questions of, of people on the ground level, um, is a huge challenge to the authority of the hierarchy. Um, and there's tremendous amount of resistance to it. So it's how do you grow something in, in the case of a company, in terms of a culture that can scale, um, but doesn't lose its connection to, um, to sort of real and meaningful feedback. It's, it's not, not easy.

Lex Fridman 1:00:05 I've, uh, had a lot of conversations with, uh, Jim Keller, who's this legendary engineer and leader, and he, he has talked about... Like you often have to kind of be a little bit of an asshole in the room. Uh, not in a mean way, but like it's uncomfortable. (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 1:00:21 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:00:22 Like a lot of these questions, they're uncomfortable. They break the kind of general politeness and civility that people have in communication. When you get a meeting, like nobody wants to be like, "Uh, can we do it way different?" Everyone wants just, just to like, "This lunch is coming up.You know, I have, I have this trip planned on the weekend with the family.

Ivanka Trump 1:00:44 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:00:44 Everyone just wants comfort. They... The... When humans get together, they kind of gravitate towards comfort. Nobody wants that one person that comes in and says, "Hey, can we, like, do this way better and way different? And everything we've gotten comfortable with, throw it out?"

Ivanka Trump 1:01:00 Not only do they not want that, but the one person who comes in and does that puts a massive target on their back.

Lex Fridman 1:01:05 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 1:01:05 And is ultimately seen as, as a threat. I mean, nobody r- really gets fired for maintaining the status quo.

Lex Fridman 1:01:13 Right.

Ivanka Trump 1:01:13 Even if things go poorly.

Lex Fridman 1:01:15 Mm-hmm.

Ivanka Trump 1:01:15 It's the way it was always done.

Lex Fridman 1:01:16 (laughs) Yeah. Humans are fascinating. Uh, but in order to actually do great big projects-

Ivanka Trump 1:01:24 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:01:24 ... to, to reach for the stars, you have to have those people. You have to, you have, you have to constantly disrupt and have those uncomfortable conversations.

Ivanka Trump 1:01:32 And really have that first principles type of orientation, especially in those large bureaucratic contexts.

Lex Fridman 1:01:39 So amongst many other things, you created a fashion brand. What was that about? (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 1:01:47 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:01:47 What was the origin of that?

Ivanka Trump 1:01:49 I always loved fashion, um, as a form of self-expression, as a means to, to communicate either a truth or an illusion, depending on what kind of mood you were in. But, um, this, like, sort of second body, if you will. So I loved fashion and, look, I mean, my mother was, um, a big part of the reason I did, but I never thought I would go into fashion. In fact, I was graduating from Wharton, um, it was the day of my graduation, and Anna Wilt- Winter calls me up and, um, and offered me a job at Vogue, which is a dream in so many ways. But I was so focused. I, I wanted to go into real estate and I wanted to build buildings, and, um, and I, and I told her that. So I, I really thought that that was going to be the path I was taking. And then, very organically, fashion, you know, it was part of my life, but it came, it came into my life in a, in a more professional capacity, um, by talking with my first of, of many different partners that I had in the fashion space about... He, he actually had shown me a building, um, to buy. His family had some real estate holdings. And, and I passed on, on the real estate deal, but we forged a friendship and we started talking about how in the space that he was in, fine jewelry, there was this lack of product and brands that were positioned for self-purchasing females. So everything was about, you know, the man buying the Christmas gift, the man buying the engagement ring. The stores felt like that. They were all tailored towards the male aesthetic. The marketing felt like that. And, and what about the woman who had a salary and was really excited to buy herself a great pair of earrings or, um, or had just received a great bonus and, and was gonna use it to, to treat herself? So we thought there was a void in the marketplace, and, um, and that was the first category I launched, Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry, and we just caught lightning in a bottle. It was really quickly after that I met my partner, who had founded Nine West Shoes, really capable partner, and we launched, um, a shoe collection, which, which took off and, uh, did enormously well, and then a clothing collection and handbags and sunglasses and fragrance. So, so we caught a moment and, um, and we found a positioning for this, for the self-purchasing multidimensional woman, and we made dressing for work aspirational. At the time we launched, if you wanted to buy something for an office context, like, the brands that existed were the opposite of exciting. Like, nobody was, you know, taking pictures of, like, what they were wearing to work and, um, and, and posting it online with some of these classic legacy brands. Really, it felt very much like it was designed by a team of men for what a woman would want to wear to the office.

Lex Fridman 1:04:50 Yes.

Ivanka Trump 1:04:50 So we started creating this clothing that was feminine, that was beautiful, that was versatile, that would take a woman from, uh, the boardroom to an after-school soccer game to, um, a date night with a boyfriend to, uh, to a walk in the park with her husband. Like, all the, the different ways women live their lives and creating a wardrobe for that woman who works at every aspect of their life, not just sort of the siloed professional part. And, and it was, it was really compelling. We started creating great brand content, and we had incredible, um, contributors like Adam Grant, who was, um, who was blogging for us at the time, and, and creating aspirational content for, for working women. It was actually, uh, kind of a funny story, but I now had probably close to 11 different product categories, and we were growing like wildfire, and I started to think about what would be a compelling way to sort of create interesting content for the people who were buying these, um, these different categories. And, and we came up with a website called Women Who Work, and I went to a marketing agency, you know, one of the fancy firms in New York, and I said, "You know, we want to create a brand campaign around this multidimensional woman who works, and, um, and what do you think? Like, can you help us?" And they come back and they say, "You know what? We don't like the word 'work.' We think it should be 'Women Who Do.'"

Lex Fridman 1:06:18 Mm-hmm.

Ivanka Trump 1:06:19 And I just started laughing because I'm like-

Lex Fridman 1:06:21 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 1:06:21 (laughs) Women who do? And the fact that they couldn't conceive-

Lex Fridman 1:06:25 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 1:06:25 ... of it being sort of exciting and aspirational and interesting, um, to sort of lean into to working at, at all aspects of our lives was just fascinating to me, but showed there, that was part of the problem. And, and I think that's why ultimately, I mean, when...... the business grew to be hundreds of millions of dollars in, in sales. We were distributed, uh, at all the best retailers across the country from, you know, Neiman Marcus to Saks to, um, to Bloomingdale's and beyond. And, and I think we... it really resonated with people in, in an amazing way and, and probably not dissimilar to how I have this incredible experience every time somebody comes up to me and tells me that, um, that they were married in a space that I had painstakingly designed. I have that experience now with, with my fashion company. The number of women who will come up, tell me that they, they loved my shoes or they loved the handbags. And I've had women show me their engagement rings, they got engaged with us and, um, it's really rewarding. It's really beautiful.

Lex Fridman 1:07:32 Yeah, when I was hanging out with you in Miami, the number of women that came up to you saying they love the, the clothing, they love the shoes is awesome.

Ivanka Trump 1:07:41 All, all these years later. It's amazing.

Lex Fridman 1:07:42 All these years later.

Ivanka Trump 1:07:43 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:07:44 What does it take to make a shoe where somebody would come up to you years later and just be just full of love for this thing you've created? What's, what's that mean? Like what does it take to do that?

Ivanka Trump 1:07:56 Well, I still wear the shoes, so... (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:07:58 (laughs) I mean, that's a good starting point, right? Is you create a thing that you want to wear.

Ivanka Trump 1:08:02 I feel like the, the product... I think first and foremost you have to have the, the right partner. So shoe... Building a shoe, if you talk to a great shoe designer, it's like, it's architecture. Like making a heel that's four inches that feels good to walk in for eight hours a day?

Lex Fridman 1:08:18 Mm-hmm.

Ivanka Trump 1:08:18 That is an engineering feat. And, uh, so I found great partners in everything that I did. My, my shoe partner, um, had founded Nine West, so he really knew what went into making a shoe wearable and comfortable. And then you overlay that with great design and, uh, and we also created this really comfortable, beautifully designed, super feminine, um, product offering that was also affordably priced. So I think it was, like, the trifecta of those, of those three things that, that made, that... I think it made it stand out for so many people.

Lex Fridman 1:08:53 Can you speak to... I don't know if it's possible to articulate, but can you speak to the process you go through from idea to the final thing? Like what you go through to bring an idea to life?

Ivanka Trump 1:09:06 So not being a designer, and this was true in real estate as well, I was never the architect, so I didn't necessarily have the pen, and in, in fashion the same. I was kind of like a conductor. (laughs) I was... I knew what I liked and didn't like, and I think that's really important, and that became honed for me over time. So I would have to sit a lot longer with something earlier on than later when I had more res- refined my aesthetic point of view. And so I think first of all you have to have a pretty strong sense of, um, of what resonates with you. And, and then as, in the case of, of my fashion business, as it grew and became, um, quite a large business and I had so many different categories, everything had to work together. So I had individual partners for each category, but if we were selling at Neiman Marcus we couldn't have a pair of shoes that didn't relate to a dress that didn't relate to a pair of sunglasses and handbags all on the same floor. So, you know, in the beginning, it was much more collaborative, um, as time passed, I, I really sort of took the point on deciding and... This is the aesthetic for the season, these are the colors we're gonna use, these are fabrics, and then working with our partners on the execution of that, but I, I needed to create an overlay that allowed for cohesion as the collection grew and... And that was actually really fun for me because that was a little different. You know, I was typically initially responding to things that were put in front of me and towards the end I was... It was my partners who were responding to the things that myself and my team... But it's still, it's... You know, I would always, I always wanted to bring the best talent and so I was, I was hiring great designers and printmakers and, um, and copywriters and so I had this... You know, almost like that conductor analogy. I had this incredible group of, in this case, women assembled who, who had very strong points of view, um, themselves and, and it created an, a great team.

Lex Fridman 1:11:15 So yeah, I mean, great team is really sort of essential. It's, it's, it's the essential thing behind any successful story.

Ivanka Trump 1:11:21 100%.

Lex Fridman 1:11:21 But there's this thing of taste which is really interesting because it's hard to kind of articulate what it takes, but basically knowing A versus B, what looks good, or without A/B comparison to say like, "If we did... If we changed this part, that would make it better." That sort of designer taste that's hard to make explicit what that is, but the great designers, like, have that taste, like, "This is gonna look good." And it's not actually, again, the Steve Jobs thing, it's not the op- opinion p- Like you can't, uh, poll people and ask them what looks better. It's you got... You have to have the vision of that.

Ivanka Trump 1:12:03 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:12:04 And as you said, you also have to develop eventually the confidence that your taste is, is good such that you can, like, curate, you d- can direct teams, you can argue that, "No, no, no, this is right," even when there's several people that say this doesn't make any sense. If you have that vision, have the confidence-

Ivanka Trump 1:12:23 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:12:23 ... this will look good, that's how you come up with great designs because it's a mix- mixture of great taste as you develop over time and the confidence.

Ivanka Trump 1:12:32 And, and that's a really hard thing, especially...

Ivanka Trump 1:12:35 And I think one of the things I love most about all of these creative pursuits is that ability to, to work with the best people.Right now, I'm, um, working with my husband. We have this 1,400-acre island in the Mediterranean, and we're building... bringing in the best architects and the best brands and... But to have a point of view and to challenge people who are such artists, respectfully, um, but not to be afraid to, to ask questions, it takes a lot of confidence to do that. Um, and, and it's hard. So these are actually just internal early renderings. So we're in the process of doing the master planning now, but...

Lex Fridman 1:13:14 But this is beautiful.

Ivanka Trump 1:13:15 It's-

Lex Fridman 1:13:15 I mean, it's, it's on the side of a mountain. (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 1:13:16 Yeah, this is an early vision. Yeah. It's gonna be extraordinary. Amman's gonna operate the hotel for us, and they're gonna be villas, and, uh, we have Carbone, who's gonna be doing the food and beverage, and... But it's, it's amazing to bring together all of this talent, and for me to be able to play around and flex the, the real estate muscles again and, and have some fun with it is, is-

Lex Fridman 1:13:38 The real estate, the design, the, the art. How hard is it to bring something like that to life? 'Cause that's like, that looks surreal. Out of this world.

Ivanka Trump 1:13:47 Well, especially on an island, it's... (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:13:50 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 1:13:50 It's challenging, meaning the logistics of even getting the building materials to an island are no joke.

Lex Fridman 1:13:55 Yeah, yeah.

Ivanka Trump 1:13:55 But, um... (laughs) But we will execute on it, so. And it, it may not be this... This is sort of, as I said, early conceptual drawings, but it gives a sense of sort of wanting to ho- honor the topography that exists. And, um, you know, this is obviously very modern, but, um, making it feel right in terms of the context of, um, of the vegetation and, uh, and the terrain that exists is... And not just have, you know, a beautiful glass box. Obviously, you want glass, you wanna look out and see that gorgeous blue ocean. But, um, but how do you do that in a way that doesn't feel generic and isn't a squandered opportunity to create something new?

Lex Fridman 1:14:38 Yeah, and it's in- integrated with the natural landscape. It's, it's a celebration of the natural landscape around it. So I guess you start from this dreamlike... Because this feels like a dream. And then when you're faced with the reality of the building materials and all the actual constraints of the building, then it evolves from there, right?

Ivanka Trump 1:14:53 Yeah, and, and so much, I mean, so much of architecture you don't see, um, but it's decisions made. So how do you, how do you create independent structures where you look out of one and don't see the other?

Lex Fridman 1:15:07 Mm-hmm.

Ivanka Trump 1:15:08 You know, how do you ensure the, sort of the stacking, um, and the master plan works in a way that's harmonious, and view corridors and all of those elements? All of those components of decision-making are super appreciated, but not often thought about.

Lex Fridman 1:15:25 What's a view corridor?

Ivanka Trump 1:15:26 Like to make sure that the top unit, you're not looking out and seeing a whole bunch of units. You're looking out and seeing the ocean.

Lex Fridman 1:15:33 So you have to-

Ivanka Trump 1:15:34 So, that's where you take this, and then you start angling everything, and you start thinking about, well, in this context, do we have green roofs? So if there's any hint of a roof, it's camouflaged by vegetation that matches what already exists on the island.

Lex Fridman 1:15:47 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 1:15:47 It's where the engineers become very important. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:15:49 Well, yeah. So there-

Ivanka Trump 1:15:50 How do you build into a mountainside, um, while being sensitive to, to the beauty and, of the island?

Lex Fridman 1:15:56 It's almost like a mathematical problem. I, I took a class, Computational Geometry, in grad school, where you have to think about, like, v- these view corridors. It's like a math problem.

Ivanka Trump 1:16:06 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:16:06 Well, but it's also an art problem, because it's not just about making sure that there's no occlusions to the view. You have to figure out when there is occlusions, like what is it, vegetation, is it... So you have to figure all that out. And there's probably... So every single, every single room, every single building is a, is a thing that adds extra complexity.

Ivanka Trump 1:16:26 And then the choices, like how does the sun rise and set?

Lex Fridman 1:16:31 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 1:16:31 So how do you wanna angle the hotel in relation-

Lex Fridman 1:16:35 That's awesome.

Ivanka Trump 1:16:35 ... to the sunrise and the sunset?

Lex Fridman 1:16:37 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 1:16:37 Do... You obviously want people to experience those. Um, so which do you favor? Uh, the directionality of the wind. And on, on an island and, you know, in this case, the wind's coming from the north, and the vegetation is less lush on the northern end. So do you focus more on the sou- southern end and-

Lex Fridman 1:16:56 Mm-hmm.

Ivanka Trump 1:16:57 ... have, you know, the horseback riding trails and amenities up towards the, the north?

Lex Fridman 1:17:01 Mm-hmm.

Ivanka Trump 1:17:01 So, there are these really interesting decisions and, and choices you get to reflect on.

Lex Fridman 1:17:07 That's a fascinating sort of discussion to be having. And probably, there's like actual constraints on like infrastructure issues. So all of those are constraints.

Ivanka Trump 1:17:14 Yeah, the... Well, the grade of the land, right?

Lex Fridman 1:17:16 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 1:17:16 If it's super steep. So also finding the areas of topography that are flatter, but still have the great views. And so it's, it's fun. It's, uh, I, I think real estate and building, it's like a giant puzzle, and I love puzzles.

Lex Fridman 1:17:28 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 1:17:29 Every piece relates to another, and it's all sort of interconnected.

Lex Fridman 1:17:33 Yeah, like you said, an old post office, like the... every single room is different, so every single room is a puzzle when you're doing the renovation.

Ivanka Trump 1:17:39 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:17:41 That's fascinating.

Ivanka Trump 1:17:42 And if you're not thoughtful, it gets like, at best, really quirky. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:17:48 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 1:17:48 At worst, completely ridiculous.

Lex Fridman 1:17:50 Quirky is such a funny word.

Ivanka Trump 1:17:52 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:17:52 It's such a, like a-

Ivanka Trump 1:17:53 You've walked into... I'm sure you've walked into your fair share of like quirky rooms.

Lex Fridman 1:17:57 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 1:17:57 You know, and sometimes like that's charming, but most often, it's charming when it's intentional.

Lex Fridman 1:18:04 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 1:18:04 Through like smart design.

Lex Fridman 1:18:05 Yeah, you can tell if it's by accident or if it's intentional.

Ivanka Trump 1:18:08 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:18:08 You can, you can tell. So much... I mean, the whole hospitality thing, it's just not just like how it's designed, it's how once the thing is operating, if it's a hotel, like how everything comes together-

Ivanka Trump 1:18:20 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:18:20 ... like the culture of the place.

Ivanka Trump 1:18:22 And the warmth.

Lex Fridman 1:18:23 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 1:18:23 Like I think with spaces, they... You can feel like the soul of a structure.

Lex Fridman 1:18:29 Mm-hmm.

Ivanka Trump 1:18:30 And I think on the hotel side, you have to think about like flow of traffic, use, all these things. When you're building condominiums or, or your own home, you wanna think about like the warmth of a space as well. And especially with super modern designs, sometimes like warmth is sacrificed.

Lex Fridman 1:18:47 Mm-hmm.

Ivanka Trump 1:18:47 And I think there is a way to sort of marry both.And, and that's where you get into sort of the interior design elements and disciplines, and how fabrics can create tremendous warmth in a space which is otherwise sort of colder, raw building materials. And that's a really interesting, like how texture matters, how color matters. And I think oftentimes, interior design is not... It doesn't take the same priority, and I think the, I think that underestimates the impact it can have on how you experience a, a room or a space.

Lex Fridman 1:19:30 Yeah, especially when it's working together with a, with the architecture.

Ivanka Trump 1:19:33 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:19:34 Yeah. Fabrics and color. That's so interesting.

Ivanka Trump 1:19:36 Finishes. You know, the choice of wood.

Lex Fridman 1:19:38 It's making me feel horrible about the space we're sitting in right now.

Ivanka Trump 1:19:42 (laughs) This-

Lex Fridman 1:19:42 It's like black curtains.

Ivanka Trump 1:19:44 I- (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:19:44 The warmth, I need to work on this.

Ivanka Trump 1:19:47 (laughs) No comment.

Lex Fridman 1:19:47 This is a big to-do. (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 1:19:49 You know I love it.

Lex Fridman 1:19:50 This is a big to-do item. You're making me feel-

Ivanka Trump 1:19:52 You know, I think you may need-

Lex Fridman 1:19:52 I'll listen back to this over and over.

Ivanka Trump 1:19:54 There may be a, like a woman's touch needed. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:19:56 A lot. A lot.

Ivanka Trump 1:19:57 But I actually, I appreciate the vegetation. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:20:00 Yeah. It's fake plants.

Ivanka Trump 1:20:02 Um-

Lex Fridman 1:20:02 Fake, fake plants.

Ivanka Trump 1:20:02 You know what I love about this space though?

Lex Fridman 1:20:03 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 1:20:04 Is it's, is like, you come through. Like every single element-

Lex Fridman 1:20:10 There's a story behind it.

Ivanka Trump 1:20:11 There's a story behind it.

Lex Fridman 1:20:11 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 1:20:11 So it's not just some... You didn't have some interior designer curate, uh-huh-

Lex Fridman 1:20:15 No.

Ivanka Trump 1:20:15 ... your bookshelf.

Lex Fridman 1:20:15 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 1:20:16 You know? There's like, nobody came in here with books by the yard. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:20:18 This is basically an IKEA, uh, like, this is not, (laughs) this is not deeply thought through. But it, it does bring me joy.

Ivanka Trump 1:20:26 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:20:27 Uh, which is one way to do design. As long as you're happy, that usually means if your taste is decent enough, that means others will be happy, or will see the joy radiate through it. But I appreciate you were grasping for compliments and you eventually got them.

Ivanka Trump 1:20:43 (laughs) No, I actually, I love it.

Lex Fridman 1:20:45 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 1:20:45 I love it. Do you have like a little... I love this guy.

Lex Fridman 1:20:48 There's, yeah, you're, you're holding onto, to a monkey looking at a, at a, at a human skull, which is particularly irrelevant.

Ivanka Trump 1:20:56 And this, I mean, I feel like you've really thought about all of these. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:21:00 Yeah. There's, there's robot... I don't know if, I mean, I don't know how much you looked into robots, but there's, there's a way to communicate love and affection from a robot that I'm really fascinated by, and a lot of cartoonists do this too. You have to, when you create cartoons and non-human-like entities, you have to bring out the joy. So with WALL-E or, uh, robots in, um, in Star Wars. To be able to communicate emotion, the anger and excitement that a robot is really interesting to me, and people that do it successfully, uh, are awesome. (laughs) Are awesome.

Ivanka Trump 1:21:36 They make you smile? (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:21:37 Yeah. It makes me smile, for sure.

Ivanka Trump 1:21:39 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:21:39 There's a longing there.

Ivanka Trump 1:21:40 How do you do that successfully as you, as you bring them, your projects to life?

Lex Fridman 1:21:45 I think, uh, there, there's so many detailed elements that I think artists know well. Uh, but one basic one is something that people know, and you now know 'cause you have a, a, a dog, um, is the excitement that a dog has when it, when you first show up.

Ivanka Trump 1:22:04 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:22:05 Just the recognizing you, and like catching your eye and just showing his ex- excitement by wiggling his butt and tail, and all this kind of, this, this, uh, intense joy that overtakes his body. That, that moment of re- recognizing something.

Ivanka Trump 1:22:21 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:22:21 It's the double-take that you, you're, that, that moment of like where this joy of recognition t- takes over your whole cognition and you're just like, uh, there, and there's a connection. And then the other person gets excited and you both get excited together. Um, it's kind of like that feeling, um, where would I put it? You know like when you go to airports and you get to see people, uh, who haven't seen each other for a long time, all of a sudden recognize each other in their meeting, and they're all like, run, run towards each other and they'll hug? Uh, that moment. Uh, by the way, that's awesome to watch. There's so much joy.

Ivanka Trump 1:22:56 And, and dogs though will have that every time. You could walk into the other room to-

Lex Fridman 1:23:00 (laughs) Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 1:23:01 ... get a glass of milk, and you come back-

Lex Fridman 1:23:03 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 1:23:03 ... and your dog sees you like it's the first time.

Lex Fridman 1:23:06 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 1:23:06 So I love replicating that in robots. They actually say children, like one of the reasons why peekaboo is so successful... (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:23:14 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 1:23:15 ... is that they actually don't remember not having seen you-

Lex Fridman 1:23:18 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 1:23:18 ... a few seconds prior. Um, there's a, there's a term for it, but I remember as, um, when, when my kids were younger, you leave the room and you walk back in 30 seconds later and they experience the same joy as if you had been, you know, gone for four hours.

Lex Fridman 1:23:34 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 1:23:34 And, uh, we grow out of that. (laughs) We become very-

Lex Fridman 1:23:37 Yeah.

Ivanka Trump 1:23:38 ... used to one another. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:23:38 I, I kinda wanna forever be excited by the peekaboo phenomena, the simple joys.

Lex Fridman 1:23:44 We were talking about on fashion having the confidence of taste to be able to sort of push through on this idea of design, but you've also mentioned, um, somebody you admire is Rick Rubin and his book, The Creative Act. It has some really interesting ideas and one of them is to accept, uh, self-doubt and imperfection. So is there some battle within yourself that you have on sort of, um, striving for perfection and for the confidence, and always kinda having it together versus like accepting that things are always going to be imperfect?

Ivanka Trump 1:24:20 I think every day. I think I wake up in the morning and, you know, I wanna be better. I wanna be a better mom, I wanna be a better wife, I wanna be more creative, I wanna be physically stronger. And, um, and so that very much lives within me all the time. You know, I think I, I also grew up in the context of being the child of two extraordinarily successful parents, and that could've been debilitating for me. And I saw that in a, in a lot of my friends who grew up in-... circumstances similar to that, they were afraid to try for fear of, of not measuring up. And I think somehow early on, I learned to kind of harness the fear of not being good enough-

Lex Fridman 1:25:12 Mm-hmm.

Ivanka Trump 1:25:12 ... not being competent enough, um, and I harnessed it to make me better, um, and, and to push me outside of my comfort zone. So, I think that's always lived with me, and, and, and I think it probably always will. I think you have to have humility in anything you do, that you could be better-

Lex Fridman 1:25:33 Mm-hmm.

Ivanka Trump 1:25:33 ... and, and strive for that. I think as you get older, it, it softens a little bit as you have more reps.

Lex Fridman 1:25:41 (laughs)

Ivanka Trump 1:25:41 (laughs) You know, as you have more examples of, of having been thrown in the deep end, um, and figured out how to swim. You, you get a little bit more comfortable in your sort of abstract competency. But if that fear is not in you, I think you're not challenging yourself enough.

Lex Fridman 1:26:04 Harness the fear.

Lex Fridman 1:26:07 Um, the other thing he writes about is, um, intuition-

Ivanka Trump 1:26:11 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:26:12 ... that you need to trust your instincts and intuition. Uh, that's a very Rick Rubin thing-

Ivanka Trump 1:26:18 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:26:19 ... (laughs) to say. But so what percent of