EVERY SPOKEN WORD
135 min read · 27,410 words- 0:00 – 0:30
Jared Kushner Introduction
- SGSarah Guo
(music plays) Hi, listeners. Welcome back to No Priors. I'm Sara Goa, and Elad and I are here today with Jared Kushner at the Miami headquarters of his investing firm, Affinity Partners. We're here to talk about Affinity, the new co they're launching, BrainCo, and his career in government, business, and investing. Welcome, Jared. Jared, thanks so much for doing this with us.
- JKJared Kushner
Oh, it's good to be with you guys.
- SGSarah Guo
So, you
- 0:30 – 1:59
Starting Affinity Partners Post-Government
- SGSarah Guo
have a couple interesting new and new-ish projects. Let's start with Affinity. Um, you were an investor before, and you started a firm after your time, um, as a public servant. What did you do differently?
- JKJared Kushner
When I left government, I was thinking, "What could I do to apply the different learnings that I'd had to my next version of a business career?" And as I was studying all the different firms out there, I realized the world didn't need another, you know, couple billion dollar private equity firm. But I tried to focus as I would speak to my friends who were investors on what they needed, what value we could provide, and what we saw was that we had the ability to be, uh, complex problem-solvers. Uh, that's what I did in government, that's what we were good at, and we thought we could do that in partnership with a lot of other firms. So, the aspiration with Affinity is to be the most, uh, value-add and outcome determinative partner to, um, you know, the best entrepreneurs and the best companies in the world. And so we focused on finding the best companies, thinking through what are their, uh, biggest challenges, what are their biggest opportunities, and thinking through how we can, uh, partner with them, putting skin in the game by investing with them versus a consultant, and being in a position where we can then help them achieve, uh, their aspirations. And, uh, a lot of... You know, we have a very unique, uh, large network and, uh, are very trusted by the people we, we deal with. And so they open up to us about their challenges and opportunities, and then we're able to, you know, scope and look for different, uh, solutions, and then we validate them through investment, and then we're able to add value to the companies we're investing in by helping them find, uh, new customers and new opportunities.
- 1:59 – 3:34
Value of Global Perspective
- JKJared Kushner
- SGSarah Guo
In what ways do you think companies are not as globally ambitious as they should be, like if they knew what you knew, or had the network you did?
- JKJared Kushner
I think for most people to be very successful at something, they usually are very focused on an industry or on a geography. And to be exceptional, you have to be a fairly, uh, obsessive about whichever of the fields you are trying to be exceptional in. And so what happens is, is they usually have a lot of perspective in their field or in their geography, but they don't have the time or the knowledge or the network in order to see how people like them are doing similar things throughout the world. And so, by having a real global perspective, I was able to see that in most places, if you're successful, you've a fairly, um, positive and, uh, and local-centric view of yourself. But when you can look at a global, global view, I would say, wow, these guys in, in India, or these guys in, in, uh, in the Middle East, or these guys in Europe, they're doing, uh, the same business but in a different way. And so by, you know, giving those suggestions, sometimes connecting them together, you can help people who are very good at something accelerate or modify their business in order to do something hopefully better than they would have done without your perspective.
- EGElad Gil
My sense is, uh, Yuri Milner kind of did that when he showed up for Facebook and did a famous investment there. It's because he'd been involved with a cor- Or he started a Russian network, a-
- JKJared Kushner
Mm-hmm.
- EGElad Gil
... Russian social network, and so he realized that Facebook could monetize in all these ways that it wasn't doing yet, and so that's how he did valuation. And I think at the time, everybody thought his valuation was crazy, and how could you invest in Facebook at $5 billion, or whatever (laughs) it was? And of course now, it's like a trillion dollar-ish company. And so I think it's really notable when people kind of bring these cross-border things over.
- 3:34 – 5:14
Ventures with Affinity
- EGElad Gil
I think you mentioned in the past that you all are involved in businesses in Israel, in Europe, in Latin America. Could you, could you give some specific examples of some of the things that you've done through Affinity and how that has pulled together from a global perspective?
- JKJared Kushner
Sure. So I, I agree very much with what you're saying about being a generalist. Sometimes you can miss things, but also sometimes you can see things that other people don't see. And the cool thing about investing is you don't have to be right about everything. You have to, you know, be very focused on finding the things that you think you have a differentiated perspective on where you can have high conviction, and then you place your bets on those, uh, high conviction, um, uh, bets that you wanna take. And so, uh, by being global, we've, we've done things, uh, a lot in the technology space. We've done a lot here in, in the US in technology, uh, in AI, in the data layer, in some of the, uh, the models and some of the, uh, different applications that we've worked on. You've helped us, uh, source and introduce us to some incredible, uh, companies in that space. And then we also, also have made investments, uh, throughout the world. So we'd, uh, we've done some in insurance. Uh, we've had, uh, four insurance investments, which we like. I mean, those fit into more of our bucket of conventional businesses that have, uh, some form of differentiation, uh, great leadership, and can be long-term compounders. Uh, another, uh, one of those businesses we did was we bought, uh, into the, uh, the food sector in, in Brazil. We bought a lot of the Burger Kings there, and then we just bought the Starbucks and the Subway out of bankruptcy. We did that in partnership, uh, with Mubadala, which has been, uh, great so far, and I think that'll be a, a great, uh, a great long-term investment. And so we just look for different types of companies. And then now obviously with AI, we're thinking, "How can we apply AI to these businesses?" Which is helping us understand what the limitations and what the capabilities are of AI and how that will impact the future of both conventional businesses, but also technology businesses.
- SGSarah Guo
You talked
- 5:14 – 9:09
Evaluating Investments Via Macro Trends
- SGSarah Guo
about how, um, uh, your time in government changed how you think about, you know, how you can help these businesses, and you know, who to do business with.
- JKJared Kushner
Mm-hmm.
- SGSarah Guo
Has it changed your underwriting at all, like how you evaluate?
- JKJared Kushner
I'm not gonna say we're gonna be right all the time, but I think where we have some form of specialization is that we're able to understand what are the macro trends of a country, and do we think that the...... governance in place and the leadership in place is pushing the country in a direction that is, uh, compatible with private sector investment. And my, my general framework of, of what I came away from government with is that government has limitations, and that government, a- at their best, can set the right policy. And if you have great leaders who can do that, you still need the private sector to come and be your partner in order to bring, um, expertise, technical expertise. You need them to bring project management capability. You need them to bring capital, and then they also need to have local navigation skill. If you have three out of those four things, it's a recipe for disaster. So, uh, the private sector isn't always organized in a way that governments need them to be in order to effectuate their ambitions. But if you can put that cocktail together in a good way, um, there, there's amazing potential for what can be achieved. And, you know, one example is, you know, we're doing a big investment in Albania now. Um, that's a market that, um, when I started, uh, looking at it three years ago, a lot of my friends were saying-
- SGSarah Guo
Mm-hmm.
- JKJared Kushner
... I was crazy. But what I saw there was a, a country that had a ton of potential. You know, you looked at where it was located, uh, in Europe. The, the, the place was incredible. Uh, and very, very good leadership for a while. They have a prime minister, Edi Rama, who's actually, I think, a socialist, technically. Uh, but he's, you know, a socialist and that he's for the people, but he's pro-private sector, pro- pro-business. And he's created an environment with the rules and regulations that's encouraging capital investment in the country. And so... And he also is an artist, uh, by, by training, so he actually has amazing taste, and he, uh, really wants to make his country dynamic in that regard. And so, um, so what we help there is we saw the right elements as a government that was, uh... and the raw, uh, material for a country to be successful. But what we're bringing is capital expertise, uh, you know, great designers, great brands. And I think we'll be able to, uh, help each other do incredible in that scenario. And I have a friend, actually, who was there this summer, and, and he called me after and he said, "Jared, when you told me you were going to Albania, I said, 'How is somebody of the world like you investing in some place that's so outside of the world like Albania?'" And he called me after to say, "Can I buy a house there?"
- SGSarah Guo
(laughs)
- JKJared Kushner
"And I want to invest with you, and I'm gonna be doing several projects there because I think it's gonna be, uh, an unbelievable place." But, but understanding governance and the structure allowed us to see it for what it was, not for what it reputationally was perceived to be. And, uh, again, we obviously did a lot of diligence and spent a lot of time trying to validate those things. And so far, our experience has been very, very positive there.
- SGSarah Guo
It's interesting to think that there are, like, entire countries that are underpriced or mispriced right now.
- JKJared Kushner
Yeah. Well, if you think about it, there's, there's tens of thousands of companies, if not more, and you could buy or s- or sell them every day on the market. And those, by and large, are fairly efficient. I mean, there, there, there's obviously inefficience- i- inefficiencies as well in public markets, but it, it's pretty efficient. But there's, you know, roughly 200 plus countries, and, uh, they're all very inefficient. And, uh, and so there's always opportunities, uh, to optimize, and that's why they need the private sector. And if you can understand the countries that you think have upside in it, you know, the, the number one thing I- I've looked at is, like, what are the big macro trends? And I think that that's... I wouldn't call it our number one criteria. It's just a criteria, right? If you don't have the right tailwinds behind you, you shouldn't be investing. It's just much easier to be with tailwinds than headwinds. You know, I, I liken it to surfing. If you're a mediocre surfer and you surf, you know, terrible waves, it's gonna be bad. If you surf a great wave, you'll look okay, right? The goal is to obviously find amazing waves and also to be an amazing surfer. Uh, but if you're a great surfer, you have to make sure you're going to the places where you have the potential for a great wave. So, those are the macro trends we look at. And then, obviously, we have our criteria beneath that for what we look at in order to make something qualified as an investment that we would, uh, look to partake in.
- 9:09 – 12:32
Undervalued Countries
- JKJared Kushner
- EGElad Gil
If you look at countries that are... it looks like they're gonna really participate in the future, there's sort of the preexisting stalwarts. You know, there's the US and, uh, Israel and, in some ways, China, et cetera. And then there's, at least in Silicon Valley, some perception that some areas are increasingly really engaging with sort of being pro-tech or pro-progress. An example would be Singapore, would be UAE. What do you view as sort of the most, uh, either underpriced or underappreciated countries in the world, either from a technology perspective or more broadly from just a general investment progress, you know, forward-looking perspective?
- JKJared Kushner
So, so Singapore is like blue chip. When I was in, when I was in government, uh, anytime I was given a new problem, I had the desk where, like, all the really bad problems when people were like-
- EGElad Gil
Yeah. (laughs)
- JKJared Kushner
... "We don't know what to do with this, you know, let's, let's give it to Jared."
- SGSarah Guo
Mm-hmm.
- JKJared Kushner
Um, my first question was always, "Okay, what are they do in Singapore?" Right? Because, you know, in government, what I learned is nothing- even though every problem seemed crazy, like, I started reading a lot of history and then studying other countries, because nothing was actually new under the sun. Every problem I was dealing with, somebody had dealt with it either at some time or in some form or in some place. And I wanted to pull whatever learnings I could from that in order to inform the approach I was gonna take. In some ways, my lack of experience was actually a benefit, because I approached every problem by saying, "How could I, you know, learn from the people who have done well and the people who have failed in order to effectuate that?" So Singapore has just been a very, very steady example of a country that's done a lot of the right policies in the- in the right ways for a long time. Uh, when I left government, one of my strong instincts was that the Middle East, you know, whether it was Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, uh, were places that were very, very much on the rise. And, uh, I really had to kinda go back and question myself, because I wanted to make sure I didn't have, like, a recency bias from having spent so much time there and having built such strong relationships there. But a lot of the time when I was helping them think through, how do we solve intractable political problems like ISIS and Iran, you know, f- funding proxies and, and, uh, in different areas, uh, a lot of the efforts were around how do we build strong economic ties with America? How do we build strong economic ties with Israel, potentially? And what are the win-win scenarios that economic cooperation can bring to lift societies? And so I saw a lot of ambition, uh, in those places, and then, obviously, they're, uh, probably more middle market countries, but they have, um, you know, big, uh, big tools available to them from an economic perspective. And so, when you put a country's toolkit together with kind of industry and capital, uh, there's a lot that they can do to really accelerate innovation. And obviously, they all have different forms of leadership, but, uh, but all committed.... um, in different ways to- to big advancements. That's part of the world, uh, very excited about. And then Latin America, I think that there's a lot of opportunity there. I think, um, you know, after COVID, there's a lot more, um, hesitancy from US corporations to be dependent on Asia for their supply chain, so I think Mexico, uh, has been and will continue to be, uh, a big beneficiary of that. I think, obviously, under President Trump, uh, he's trying to work out some issues, particularly with the cartels and- and- and illegal, uh, immigration, and then to make sure we have kind of a fair and balanced relationship. But the reality is, is that if we- if we set that relationship right, Mexico should be a massive beneficiary, uh, from a rising US. And I think so far, the policies that have been set forth of lowering taxes, uh, lowering regulation, uh, it appears that interest rates will probably come down next year. Uh, if we can get some of these global conflicts, uh, resolved, uh, I think Mexico will be a big bene- beneficiary, along with the rest of Latin America, of a rising America.
- SGSarah Guo
Speaking
- 12:32 – 16:50
Origins of BrainCo
- SGSarah Guo
of just, like, being focused on the biggest macro trends, I'm biased here in thinking that, uh, you know, AI is probably the biggest macro technology wave we're gonna see in our lifetimes. Um, you and Elad and, uh, Eric and Luis started a company together around this. What can you tell us about BrainCo and- and how it came about?
- JKJared Kushner
Sure. So, uh, AI definitely, as far as I'm concerned, is the biggest, um, technology shift that I've seen in my lifetime. And as an investor, when something's changing, uh, we felt it was very important to kinda take a step back and say, "Okay, you can't just assume that tomorrow's gonna be like yesterday." So, how do you go and get a deep understanding of what this change is gonna be, and how can it either affect every investment you've either made or will make in both a positive way where it could add extra margin or extra growth or extra value, or in a negative way where it creates vulnerabilities for a business that you maybe didn't anti- anticipate before the inevitability of AI became so pronounced? And so, um, so it really, uh, uh, uh, forced us to kind of take a moment and stop. We looked at our portfolio. We started dealing, uh, even deeper with our partners to understand kind of what their ambitions were, what their needs were. And what we saw was that there were very few places where you can actually apply AI in a thoughtful way that didn't feel like, um, either they were ineffective or rip-offs or more happy talk, uh, solutions. And so, uh, we were looking for real tangible solutions, uh, for our portfolio and for our partners. And so obviously, Elad is somebody who is- is incredibly well respected, um, in the US investing community, but particularly in AI with the way he's been so far ahead of a lot of these, uh, companies in seeing, in investing in and seeing, uh, the trends, understanding them, seeding some of the best entrepreneurs, uh, in America. And so we were having a conversation. I shared with Elad, um, some of the frustration that- that we felt at not finding great solution providers for, uh, our portfolio. Uh, also, my partner Luis had been in the Middle East, uh, the week earlier dealing with some of our partners going through their, uh, AI aspirations and roadmaps, and they were having a very similar, uh, frustration. And so, uh, we were sharing, uh, the learnings with Elad, and Elad, in the way he does, uh, says, "Well, let's start a company to do it." And we said, "That sounds great." And so that, we really got to work. We pulled in our friend, uh, Eric Wu as well, and the four of us really set out to try and, uh, build something and define what it could be. And the goal was really how do you, uh, can create almost a frontier AI implementation company where you can work with, uh, top clients in the most, uh, impactful institutions and companies in the world, help them identify what the best use cases can be, uh, where they can apply AI either to make their companies more efficient or where they can use AI to create more productivity, uh, and growth out of their, uh, revenue-generating opportunities. And then what we do is we work on, uh, scoping, you know, w- what the capabilities are. Uh, we can build the technical solutions, we can implement the technical solutions, and then we can keep updating those technical solutions as the base models, uh, change as well. So much with AI r- right now is what we're seeing, is that the- the- the change that's happening is so rapid that if you don't have a dynamic product and you're not constantly up to date on what's possible, um, then it's very, very possible you'll either do something that will be obsolete very, very quickly, and you have to understand both the trends and the capabilities and have the right team available to do that. So, uh, what we saw in Silicon Valley is that they're amazing at solving problems. They're not always the best at identifying which problems to solve, and we thought that BrainCo could be a great, um, a great way to build a bridge between, uh, some of the top problems that could be solved in AI and a great team, uh, that can provide solutions.
- EGElad Gil
Yeah, and BrainCo has a- a sort of common platform underlying it where there's a- a common set of things that are provided to every customer, and really is a piece of infrastructure that's used. And then there are some incremental things that can be built on top to help with specific use cases that can then be cross-sold into different verticals. And so the idea is to basically do both the platform side and then a subset of apps that are resold over and over to the world's biggest institutions. Um, the company I feel actually had like a- a few almost like founding moments. There was sort of the four of us helping to get it up and running initially, and then a really key moment was Dan and Marsha, uh, joined and really became part of the founding team, and then later Clemens has come on as the CEO of the company. So there have been multiple key parties really involved in terms of setting this up and driving it and, you know, making it what it is so far.
- SGSarah Guo
What do you
- 16:50 – 23:49
BrainCo Use Cases
- SGSarah Guo
think created, uh, the- the gap, um, given there's this much bus- like business motivation to, you know, increase margins or drive growth and even belief that like AI is gonna be part of the solution, and there's, you know, lots of, uh, existing vendors out there that will do like involved implementation projects with large companies. Like why didn't it get built? Yeah.
- EGElad Gil
It's not really just an implementation thing, it really is a platform company that-
- SGSarah Guo
Okay.
- EGElad Gil
... did the common piece of infrastructure and then they built stuff on top of it. Um, so I think that's an important piece that's sort of, uh, both differentiation but also the ability for one organization to benefit across multiple different aspects of that organization.
- SGSarah Guo
And how did you pick a set of use cases, or what informed the, the, the platform itself?
- JKJared Kushner
Well, but I'll say sorta too to your last question, and we'll get to that, is that what, what I saw working with Thrive was that there was some of the best technologists often are building things, but it takes a while for big corporations to wanna take risks on emerging technologies. And what I saw when I was in government, I would deal with the top CEOs or leaders in the world, and most of them spend a lot of their time, you know, just keeping their job or managing their, their very complex large businesses. And so, uh, a lot of them are hearing about AI and a lot of the things that AI is capable of, but they don't necessarily have the right people around them or access to top technologies in order to implement it into their business. So, um, so that was really kind of the problem we were trying to solve is that a lot of the people who have the best, uh, sandboxes to deploy AI often don't have access to the best talent, and that was really where we thought we could, uh, create differentiation, and so far proven that. But some of the use cases... Do you wanna start with some of the use cases?
- EGElad Gil
Yeah, you should go for it. Yeah.
- JKJared Kushner
Sure. So, uh, we have a wide array... a wide range of use cases that have come either through our portfolio or some of our partnerships, uh, to date. And, uh, quite frankly, um, the more, uh, other of our partners see the capabilities we have, the more they're now starting to, uh, use it for their portfolio. So we're constrained really by the talent we can hire, um, and, and the time we have. So in healthcare, we're working on how to, you know, improve patient experience and throughput time and data to, to a lower cost and also give better experience. Uh, we've been working in the hospitality space to figure out how to work through, um, some of the clusters that come through reservations to make sure that, uh, you know, people are able to do bookings in a much more efficient way. Uh, we're doing it in the insurance space, uh, where we have some very, very good use cases to help claims management, um, you know, go much faster and be more efficient in that regard. And, uh, one that I'm actually really quite excited about, uh, having had a background in real estate as we're working on something in, uh, construction permitting, which is, uh, we found a government that has incredibly digitized records and was willing to, after some time and, and trust, willing to kind of really let our team, uh, go to work in there. And what we saw was they had a, a process that was over 40 steps, and we thought in the beginning when we were doing it that if we could get, uh, the AI to be able to determine, uh, to, to create with over 90% efficiency, uh, on one of the steps, we thought that would be a big success. And, um, and what we saw is like you take a, a construction permit, you make this big application, you submit it, u- usually you have to pay big consultants. Then it takes, you know, three, four months to get your, your approval. With AI, it should take three minutes. And so, uh, we really attacked this problem. We didn't necessarily realize at the time. We were doing a little bit more of a research, uh, project than we, we, we anticipated. Uh, but now we've been able to accomplish two things. Number one, the client is now, uh, gonna reduce the amount of steps that they have in their process to get the permit, right? Because by, you know, building all of the, uh, the, the processes for, to deploy the AI, they realized that the process that had been designed, uh, by humans, uh, was not necessarily efficient. They could reduce over 10 of the step- 10 steps in the process-
- SGSarah Guo
Mm-hmm.
- JKJared Kushner
... through that time. The second thing was is that as the different updates came through the models, one of the issues we had was how do you convert, uh, the spatial plans that were being submitted into the right ways for the AI to then read it and score it, and then actually, uh, change when one of the updates, uh, came in one of the models. So, uh, so as we've been able to evolve, uh, the product, we found that we're now over on... I think it's over like 35 steps, uh, over 90% accuracy on all 35 steps, which has become, uh, really, really, uh, satisfying for us. And so I think this will save obviously the government and their, uh, customers a ton of, you know, time and money.
- SGSarah Guo
Mm-hmm.
- JKJared Kushner
Uh, it, it gets rid of a lot of the consultants who are, you know, just charging fees to do, uh, busy work. And quite frankly, it's the type of task that can be automated, uh, which I think will create a lot of economic value and also, uh, allow the developers to, you know, build faster. It means they pay taxes faster. And from the government's perspective, it also gets rid of, you know, graft and corruption, because it is one of these things where you're relying on a lot of human judgment in a very, um, you know, opaque way that quite frankly shouldn't be that way if this technology, uh, can do what we're seeing that it has the ability to do.
- SGSarah Guo
That's such a great use case, and it sounds like you're, you're serving businesses, you're serving governments, and also assuming it's not... Well, I won't assume, but if it's not the US government, then you're also serving globally.
- JKJared Kushner
Yes. Uh, yes.
- EGElad Gil
Some of these customers are, um, some of the world's largest and most important institutions. And so one of the things I was, um, struck by in terms of working with this company on, on Brainco is, um, there was a very strong "prove it to us" sort of mentality going to... in a lot of these, um, uh, the... a lot of these customers. And, uh, the team really had to show up, show technical excellence, show value, et cetera, before really converting them into a customer. And so initially, we were doing a lot of things at risk just to be able to prove that, yes, we have the technical chops and capabilities, and it really is some of the world's best engineers from all the top institutions that we know in Silicon Valley, um, helping to implement and facilitate these really important valuable use cases for them. So, I think that was a really key part of it is just these were kinda tough deals because to your point earlier, normally with a startup, you start with SMB, and then you go mid-market, and then eventually seven years later, you have enterprises. And this was, "Let's just jump seven years ahead and go to the world's biggest enterprises," but then it became a very strong, "Okay, show us you can really do this well."
- JKJared Kushner
And one thing, uh, uh, I give Elad credit for a lot of things in structuring the business and helping us keep refining kind of what the optimal products, uh, were to build and how to go forward with it, but, uh, we were able to get some very large institutions to give us a chance, uh, initially to, uh, to, to try and scope out and see if we can, uh, create solutions for them. But Elad's ability to recruit, you know, top talent and what, you know, him, Eric, Luis, uh, Dan Mircha, and the team have been able to do has been really incredible. So now it's over 40 people, growing very rapidly. And, uh, we find that it's just... it's, uh... there's so many, uh, real life, uh, cases where you can apply AI. And quite frankly, from my perspective, you know, at Affinidi, we're usually, uh, writing much larger checks in later stage, uh, companies. But what's appealing to me about this was that with this technology transformation, if you have the ability to work with top talent and really be on the cutting edge of seeing how the AI is advancing, how it's being applied, understanding real use cases, I feel like that was a critical, um, uh, perspective to develop, uh, for being an investor, uh, today in this changing world.
- SGSarah Guo
That resonates, and then especially if you actually think it can change the growth or margin profile of a business.
- JKJared Kushner
Well, it is.
- SGSarah Guo
Uh...
- JKJared Kushner
I mean, we're, we're seeing it, you know, real ways in different, uh, companies that we're implementing it and that it is.
- SGSarah Guo
Then should be, you know, also a, um, a, a weapon for, you know, the portfolio-
- JKJared Kushner
Mm-hmm.
- SGSarah Guo
... at least the expertise.
- 23:49 – 24:47
BrainCo’s Biggest Challenge
- SGSarah Guo
- JKJared Kushner
Yeah.
- SGSarah Guo
What do you think the biggest challenge for the company going forward is?
- JKJared Kushner
It's very early. I, I think it's, um ... Right now, it's just continuing to keep up with the demand of projects that we have, make sure, um, that we're focused on the right projects and not the wrong projects, and, uh, make sure we can continue to attract the right amount of talent, uh, to, uh, not, uh, dilute ourselves to keep up with, uh, fast paced of demand that we have. So, uh, I think the team's done a great job of keeping a high bar on talent and making sure we just continue to, you know, work with, you know, with great customers. So far, in some of our early customers, they've been, uh, really expanding, uh, the scope that they've been asking the team to do because they're realizing what a great capability it is. And so, uh, that's been very gratifying to see. So, I think that, uh, there's a lot of opportunity to go much bigger with some of our existing customers, uh, because they have, you know, multiple, you know, companies or multiple divisions. And word's starting to get out as they achieve success that these are the guys who can, you know, apply AI in a very, very, uh, thoughtful and, um, a- and, and cost beneficial way.
- 24:47 – 26:39
Determining Customer Fit
- JKJared Kushner
- SGSarah Guo
What makes some- somebody a good customer, like the right type of early customer for you?
- JKJared Kushner
I, I would start with, uh, do they have a, a complex problem, um, that we think there's a lot of efficiency to be created by applying AI? Uh, number two is do they have the right data, um, that we can use in order to create the solution? Uh, number three is do they have the right command and control structure in the company where people are willing to buy into it? Because you could have one or two, but if you have a lot of resistance, you know, in the ranks or in leadership, and they're not willing to kind of force people to try, um, there can be a lot of resistance. 'Cause people are afraid of change, you know? Change is like heaven, everyone wants to go there, but nobody wants to die. And what we found is that some of the people who were our, uh, most, um, are most resistant initially, once they see what this can do for them and how much better it's making them at their job, uh, they're actually becoming our biggest champions. And so that's been very gratifying to see in some of the customers, um, so far.
- EGElad Gil
Yeah. The biggest, the biggest obstacle to AI implementation in enterprises tends to be people, processes, you know, organizational redesign. It has less to do with the technology sometimes than rejiggering things so the technology can actually be placed into the workflow or placed into the organization. Um, but I agree with Jared that it seems like, um, there's a lot of interest and a lot of demand for people wanting to work with us. We want to make sure that the platform side of it actually fits in terms of what we're doing. And then, the focus has really been, can we work with the world's biggest and most important institutions versus every smaller company that's kind of interested in doing something? And so it's trying to select for sort of the, the giants who are driving the world forward in different ways.
- JKJared Kushner
And we started this in January of '24. And so, uh, it's been amazing to see since then. Um, you know, obviously it took some time to get going and to really, you know, finalize the idea, but it's been amazing since then to see how much even the underlying technology has changed. And, uh, but I think our central premise has remained pretty, uh, pretty consistent since then.
- 26:39 – 30:03
AI and Policy
- JKJared Kushner
- SGSarah Guo
One of the ways you got involved in AI even earlier was, you know, from a, like a policy lens, right?
- JKJared Kushner
Right.
- SGSarah Guo
I guess, what has been most interesting to you on that front or in sort of the geopolitical, um, perspective of how, let's say, like, energy and our relations with Middle Eastern countries play into, like, the future of AI?
- JKJared Kushner
Yeah. So, uh, so from a policy perspective, when we were ... W- when I was in the White House the first time under President Trump, uh, this was part of, uh, the efforts that, that he was saying he wanted to focus on. And at his direction, actually, I reached out to TSMC, uh, and was in touch with them then to, uh, push them to try and start doing some, uh, uh, production of their fabs in, uh, the US. And we, we pushed them to Arizona, which, uh, I think is now the foundation of what hopefully will be a much bigger, uh, deployment. So, that's obviously a very critical, uh, element. I think from a policy perspective, um, the way that, uh, President Trump has put out his policies so far, I think, uh, David Sachs has done a fabulous job. I think their plan is the right plan. We need to do two main things, which is, one is make sure we have all the tools to compete, which is, uh, really accelerate our ability to build energy in the US. I think that'll be really, really bad if we're, we're constrained on that. And I think they've taken a lot of, uh, steps to do that. It's not like a switch you can flick, so it takes time, but you need to obviously make the permitting, uh, process a lot better. And I think in America, our capital, our private sector is so dynamic that the capital formation will occur to, uh, help us build all of the energy and the data centers that we need. I think the government could help us do that. So, we need to create the environment.
- SGSarah Guo
We need the seven-year cycle for nuclear to get 90% more efficient. (laughs)
- EGElad Gil
You think it's nuclear or you think it's something else? Like, what do you think from an energy perspective are the, the areas that need to move fastest? And I'm guessing it's a mix of everything, but are there things that stand out the most that ...
- JKJared Kushner
So, the thing I saw actually, and this was in one of the investments I was looking at about two years ago, we ended up not doing it, it was a battery company, uh, here in the US. But there was one graph that my team showed me that actually made me quite optimistic, which was that in the US, we have about 1. -uh, 1,300 gigawatts of energy. Um, but what they showed me was that there's about 2,000 gigawatts of energy that was waiting for permits from the FERC, which was quite actually optimistic because it shows that the US, um, has a lot of private sector interest. Uh, we just need the government to get out of the way and to allow us to do what we want to do. And so, i- it's complex, but I think that, uh, what we saw under, under the last four years, under the Biden administration, was that, uh, it was just kind of a war on business, uh, an over-regulated environment. And, um, they said some of the right things, but there was no effort towards trying to kind of, uh, relieve that bottleneck. And so now, I know there's a very intense effort to relieve that bottleneck and to try to stimulate the growth of energy. I think the second part, uh, which also is on the AI roadmap, um-... that President Trump put out was really to figure out how can you just stimulate as much innovation as possible? And you see the regulation they put on in Europe, uh, and that's why there's really not a whole lot happening in Europe on the AI front right now. Uh, which isn't necessarily bad for America, but I think the goal is to not over-regulate before we kind of know what to regulate. I think if you're a regulator or if you're a politician, you see this coming, you wanna focus on what are the worst case scenarios and then think about how you regulate because that's kind of all you do. I think right now we can, uh, stimulate trying to bring the best talent to the US, uh, in order to have them focusing, um, on this problem here where I think everyone does want to be innovating. And number two is creating the most dynamic environments that we can do, uh, the most amount of innovation in AI as possible so that we can be the global leader, uh, and usher, uh, this technology into the world under the guise of US values.
- SGSarah Guo
It's
- 30:03 – 31:59
Middle East and AI
- SGSarah Guo
been a surprise to me how, uh, much of an emergent player certain Middle Eastern countries have been-
- JKJared Kushner
Mm-hmm.
- SGSarah Guo
... within AI as both, like, an energy and... potential energy and capital provider. Um, what's your take on this?
- JKJared Kushner
So they've been focused on this for a while. I remember I was over in, uh, in UAE in 2018. We were working on the Abraham Accords and was trying to make progress and, uh, Sheik Tah noon, who's a good friend of mine, uh, said, "I won't meet you on, on this topic unless, uh, you stay and after and see what I'm doing in AI." And I said, "Look, I don't really have time with this." (laughs)
- SGSarah Guo
(laughs)
- JKJared Kushner
You know, but, but he made me see after and I, I was quite impressed. I mean, I didn't think much of it after, uh, but, um, and I know, um, you know, in Saudi, MBS has been very focused, in UAE, uh, his brother MBZ also very focused and then, uh, Qatar also, the Emir and, and the, and the Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed incredibly, incredibly focused on AI and they all have different str-
- EGElad Gil
Why is that, by the way? Like, why do they all get interested in it, especially in that era?
- JKJared Kushner
I think they all talk to each other a lot and I think that there's definitely competition, but I think they all have their unique advantages and different ways that they could play it. Like Saudi has a much bigger domestic market. Um, I think UAE obviously wants to be a big investor in it. Um, and, uh, and I think they want to, uh, implement it in their country as well. All three want to implement it in their country, but what we've been doing is understanding what their different ambitions are and we've been, uh, connecting them to a lot of the leading, uh, US AI companies, obviously hoping that they, uh, do partnerships and, and invest in and create, uh, with US companies over, uh, Asian companies, which we think would be much better for the US, uh, and where we have, I think, you know, great capabilities. Uh, but what they also have is, is tremendous, uh, sandbox in, in the sense that they have companies, they have governments, they have data, um, and they're able to really be a great partner to a lot of these AI companies in order to create, uh, tools, applications, and even companies, uh, that you can build off of, um, off of what they're capable of doing. So I actually think they're gonna become a very significant not just investor, but also partner in creating AI tools and capabilities that can then go from there to the rest of the world.
- SGSarah Guo
You
- 31:59 – 40:16
Jared’s Experience in Middle East Diplomacy
- SGSarah Guo
have, um, an amazing set of relationships, but I think it comes from an even more impressive stint in diplomacy without prior experience.
- JKJared Kushner
Yeah.
- SGSarah Guo
If I'm allowed to say that, um, you're described as like a, you know, uh, intense PhD, both the, the region and also geopolitics. Like tell us about the experience of like learning... or first of all, maybe the ambition of, um, what you were tasked with doing in the Middle East and then, uh, the, the learning experience of trying to be effective and e- eventually the Abraham Accords and such.
- JKJared Kushner
Sure. So I got tasked with the Middle East I think almost by accident and the way it kind of came about was, um, we... my... I'd worked very hard on my father-in-law's campaign in 2016. He had almost a family campaign because people were told that if you worked for Donald Trump, uh, you would never get a job in politics again. So, um, you know, the campaign was going, he said, "Try this, work on this, work on this." Next thing I knew I was running a lot of the aspects of his campaign and my wife and I were, uh, in New Jersey for a weekend after he won. He said, you know, "Would you like to join us? Please come join me in Washington." I don't... you know, I think his first night that he ever slept in Washington was in the White House. So he wasn't a governor, he wasn't a mayor, he didn't really have experience there, but, uh, my wife worked with him in, in, in his company so he'd run family business and I obviously worked with him closely on the campaign. And so he wanted people with him who he could trust. Uh, so we were thinking about it, it would have been a big life change, uh, for us and I got a call, uh, that weekend, uh, from, uh, the PR person for my family's real estate company who said, "I got a call from the New York Times, they said you're going to Washington and, uh, you're gonna be working on Middle East peace." And I said, "Well, that's not true." (laughs) I said, "I, I, I... I... I... we haven't made a decision yet." And I said, "Well..." you know, they... uh, she called back and said, "Well, their source is Donald Trump." And he was doing an interview with them and he said, "Of course Jared's coming to Washington and he's gonna work on Middle East peace." So that was kind of how I got the job-
- SGSarah Guo
(laughs)
- JKJared Kushner
... uh, working on Middle East and the next day on the front page of the New York Times there were stories, "Who's Jared Kushner? What does he know about Middle East?" And the answer was nothing. (laughs) No, nobody... you know, nobody knew me there. Um, but if that's what my father-in-law asked me to do, uh, I went about it trying to figure out what was possible so I really spent probably the first six months to a year, uh, asking questions. You know, and, and, um, you know, asking people some version of, "What would you do if you were us?" You know, "What do you think are the solutions?" Uh, I've always learnt in business it's, it's sometimes better to study all the things that have failed and understand why they failed, uh, and you learn a lot from that, um, versus, you know, listening to the, uh, you know, professionals and the experts. Um, I found in Washington it was amusing that only i- in Washington you could fail at something for, for, for a decade or two and then be considered an expert on, on what to do about it. So I started working on it. The goal was really to figure out how do you get through some of the conflicts and bring people together. Uh, at the time, uh, we had Isis, had a, had a caliphate the size of Ohio, uh, they were beheading journalists, uh, they were overruling about eight million people, so that was a big problem. Obama had just done the, uh, Iran deal, signed the JCPOA and in the Gulf felt very, uh, betrayed because they said Obama went behind our back, uh, and went to Persia and they were very surprised by that. So they actually told me they were starting to learn Chinese and, and push their alliance towards, uh, towards China because they thought the US was no longer a reliable partner. Uh, so that was basically what we inherited and so perhaps my father-in-law thought it couldn't get any worse, which is why (laughs) -
- SGSarah Guo
(laughs)
- JKJared Kushner
... he told me to work on it but, uh, but what I basically did was I, I went around, asked questions, um, and I just thought I built a lot of trust by trying to build collaborative ideas and what was interesting about my diplomacy was that I, I really tried to get everyone focused on what are the defined end states and if we could agree on the end state, we're not sitting across...... from the table from each other. We're actually sitting on the same side of the table trying to accomplish a shared goal, and then we would keep iterating on how to get there. And I always joke, um, with the Abraham Accords that we, uh, we were successful on, on plan C, but only because we went through the alphabet, like, three times-
- EGElad Gil
(laughs)
- JKJared Kushner
... and failed at every letter along the way. But every time we failed, we just never gave up. We were very determined. We knew the goal was virtuous. We knew it was important.
- EGElad Gil
Well, and you had a velocity of improvement that wasn't 10 years of doing the same thing repeatedly-
- JKJared Kushner
(laughs)
- EGElad Gil
... and failing, yeah (laughs) .
- JKJared Kushner
You know what? It, it was interesting too. I, I see this in politics, where people are afraid to take on hard things, right? You guys are in Silicon Valley, where everyone who comes into your office every day is saying, "We are going to take on this impossible task." And that's celebrated, and if you fail, uh, you know, doing it, then you start another company, or, you know... That, that's a culture that's celebrated. In politics, everyone's afraid to take on hard things, because they know that there's a high probability of failure.
- EGElad Gil
Mm-hmm.
- JKJared Kushner
Um, and so as a result, they don't try. And so it was interesting. I mean, you look at all the articles, if you go back, at how much I was criticized by everyone for trying to take on these hard problems. Uh, uh, all the experts were saying I was doing it not in the way that they did. And I said, "Why would I do it the way you did it? You failed." Like, let me just... If I'm gonna fail at a hard problem, at least let me fail in an original way.
- EGElad Gil
New data, yeah (laughs) .
- JKJared Kushner
And, um, and, and so that was kind of, uh... It was almost bringing, like, a first principles approach to diplomacy. And, uh, and a lot of it had to do with just building relationships and building trust.
- EGElad Gil
Where was the conventional wisdom most wrong about the Middle East?
- JKJared Kushner
I mean, it started by saying that you could not get the Arabs together with Israel until you solve the Palestinian issue.
- EGElad Gil
Mm-hmm.
- JKJared Kushner
Um, and I had an assessment of that issue, which felt like it was a riddle designed not to be solved. And I felt like what we can do is, instead of getting people to look backwards, we can get them to look forwards, and that, um, and that joint interests are, are very, very critical. So, the joint interests at the time were, number one, security. People were very afraid of Iran. So, Iran, in some ways, drove people together. Uh, and I think they continue to drive people together by being a menace to, to all sides. Um, and then number two was, what are the, uh, benefits you can get? You know, we talk about AI and technology. I think that the, uh, the match of, uh, Israel's, uh, you know, burgeoning, uh, AI and technology scene and, and the aspirations in the AI, uh, and burgeoning scene in the Gulf, there's a lot of, uh, desire to be together. And I think that those aspirations, uh, actually have driven a lot of the shift, uh, that we've seen.
- EGElad Gil
I think a lot of people aren't aware of how many different treaties or peace treaties came out of this. Could- do you mind just quickly kind of enumerating those? 'Cause I think it's quite striking.
- JKJared Kushner
So, the first one was Israel-UAE, which was, um... It took me three and a half years, uh, to do it, which was really incredible. And, and obviously, you know, I give, uh, President Trump a ton of credit because, number one, uh, he believed in it the whole time, and he was the one, even when I was getting criticized and he was getting criticized for having me there, he would always call me and say, "Hey, they're saying this. What do you think?" And I would say, "No, this is why I'm doing it." And he'd say, "Well, that makes sense to me, so keep going." And so-
- EGElad Gil
(laughs)
- JKJared Kushner
... you know, he really believed in, in the vision and, and pushed forward with it, which was, uh, critical. And you've seen even now, but that's really who trained me, right? His whole view was, you know, we should s- go to the pragmatic form as to what people are, are actually fighting about, and let's come up with the best solution, right? And, and the... And a lot of these outcomes are arbitrary because they're negotiated in, in that regard. So, you have to find ways for people to move forward and be together. And so, uh, we got... Uh, UAE and Israel, uh, came together for the first one. Then after that, uh, we were able to get Bahrain to join, uh, the Abraham Accords. Uh, then we got Sudan, uh, which now, unfortunately, has gone backwards, uh, but they're still, uh-
- EGElad Gil
(coughs)
- JKJared Kushner
... technically a signatory to the Abraham Accords. And then we got Morocco, uh, to join as well. We also got a deal with, uh, Serbia and Kosovo, where Kosovo, uh, uh, wanted to join the Abraham Accords as well. Um, and then at the end, the final agreement we were able to get... And this is all from, like, August 2000, uh, 9... 2020, up until... Uh, the last deal was January 6th, uh, 2021. Uh, we got the GCC dispute solved, which was between, uh, Qatar with, uh, Saudi, UAE, Egypt and Bahrain, and that was a real tough one. Um, we got that one resolved, which I thought would have, uh, paved the way for Saudi to then join the Abraham Accords, which would have led to Indonesia and Pakistan, all the others. So, we still have a long list, and, and right now, um, uh, President Trump is very focused on the next phase of getting, uh, more countries to join the Abraham Accords, and, uh, ambassa-... Uh, Steve Wycoff, uh, is doing an amazing job, uh, leading that effort, and I think that there's a, a long list of people, uh, who will want to join that, uh, once, uh, the current issues with Gaza are, are resolved, which hopefully will be very soon.
- EGElad Gil
So, one analysis that I saw, the claim was that one of the reasons that Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, uh, was in part due to the fact that Israel and Saudi were getting increasingly close to a peace deal, and it was a way to kind of disrupt that process. And in general, you know, Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah are, to some extent, proxies for Iran in terms of funding and arms-
- JKJared Kushner
Mm-hmm.
- 40:16 – 43:52
Brokering Peace Post-October 7th
- EGElad Gil
you think that all evolves, or what do you think happens for Middle Eastern peace process going forward? What do you think happens in Gaza? Like, is there anything you can talk about there?
- JKJared Kushner
Yeah. So, w- when President Trump left in 2021, uh, a deal with Saudi could have been done in three to six months, and that was basically what I passed over to the previous, uh, administration, uh, during the transition. Um, they chose to, uh, go 180 from all the different policies that President Trump had, simply because they were his policies. But I think that, um, we basically inherited a Middle East that was a disaster and left it pretty stable and with a lot of momentum. Uh, it took them two years to then say, "Wait, maybe we should focus on this Saudi thing." And what got them to focus on it was that, um, was that China ended up getting involved to negotiate a deal between Saudi and the Houthis to stop some of that, that issue in Yemen. And, uh, and so when, when Saudi got involved- when China got involved, the US said, "Oh, we don't want to be outdone." So then they ran over and finally started, um, focusing on this issue, which-
- EGElad Gil
Mm-hmm.
- JKJared Kushner
... I think would be a, a historic issue to really resolve this tension between Israel and Saudi and then get full normalization, which I think is much better for lifting the region. So, they were doing that very publicly, and I think that there definitely was a desire on their part to stop it. But what's happened since October 7th-
- EGElad Gil
By their part, you mean, uh-
- SGSarah Guo
Hamas or Iran?
- JKJared Kushner
Uh, both. I think from Iran and Hamas's desire to stop that normalization. Because that normalization means that the, the division that Iran has used in order to justify their existence no longer is justified, right? So what does Iran use their... Well, they call their, uh, their army the Quds Force. Quds is, is Jerusalem. They have the Al-Aqsa Brigade for the Al-Aqsa Mosque. And they use this notion that Israel is trying to destroy the mosque or that they're fighting to liberate Jerusalem, when the reality is, is Israel will let any Muslim or Arab who wants to come there come as long as they want to come peacefully. So, they almost need this cause to stay out there in order to justify, uh, their existence as a revolutionary, uh, government. So, when you look at where we are now after October 7th, Israel's now had, uh... Again, it's been at huge cost, you know, in all regards, but Hezbollah is basically, uh, uh, decapitated. Uh, Iran is now weaker than they've ever been, right, with their nuclear program set back a long way. Um, you know, the Houthis in Yemen didn't having, haven't been having a great month.
- SGSarah Guo
Mm-hmm.
- JKJared Kushner
And Hamas and, and, uh, and Gaza is basically destroyed. And so now they have an opportunity to convert those, uh, those military victories into political victories. But what you have to do is find a resolution in Gaza. If you're able to find a satisfactory, uh, resolution there, I mean, Israel obviously would love to get their hostages back. I mean, I think that's, that's a critical, critical element. And then once you do that and, and you want to find a humanitarian way to, uh, to make sure the population there, uh, of civilians is not negatively impacted by, uh, by the, the horrific, um, uh, leadership that Hamas has brought on and the conflict that's ensued, um, then I think you can get to a place where the full normalization happens with Saudi and Israel. Um, I think you really are able to then just get everyone doing business, getting to know each other. If you look at what's happening now in Syria and Lebanon, both have new leadership. Uh, Hezbollah is destroyed. Uh, by Hezbollah being destroyed, that meant that Syria, uh, is looking to be much more stable, Lebanon is looking to much, much more stable. And with the Iranian influence out of there-
- SGSarah Guo
Mm-hmm.
- JKJared Kushner
... it looks like Israel has a real chance to make stability there as well. I know Ambassador Barrack has been working very hard on that under, uh, Secretary Rubio and President Trump's direction. So, I actually think the board is, is, is am- could be amazingly positive, but we need to get, uh, the Gaza issue, uh, resolved. And I know President Trump and, uh, Steve Wycoff are working incredibly hard on that, and I do believe that they will be successful, and then, uh, big progress will be made soon thereafter.
- 43:52 – 47:14
Making Deals with Middle Eastern Partners
- JKJared Kushner
- SGSarah Guo
Some of the, uh, companies that you are invested in now have, like, very surprising business relationships and backers. And, uh, I, I feel like, uh, you know, through brokering some of these relationships between Arabs and Ar- Israelis, for example, you're really proving the point that people can build, you know, normal relations and effective business relations, um, in ways people wouldn't have believed before. Can you talk a little bit about that?
- JKJared Kushner
That was one of the things that I've actually been most excited about, but also most cautious about in pursuing the investment. So, uh, a lot of my investment, uh, investors come from the Middle East, uh, from the Gulf countries, uh, but I really wanted to show them, uh, the good experiences that they could have investing in Israel. And, uh, the criteria we've used for that is, number one, to only be with the bluest-chip, uh, partners, and our two investments in Israel have both performed very well but have also, uh, been with, with top, uh, tier firms. Uh, one of the ones we got, uh, the most scrutiny on was we invest in a company called Phoenix Holdings, which is, uh, the number one financial institution in Israel. They're, they're a monster company. They manage about 160 billion. Uh, we became their largest shareholder, but we invested, uh, in July of last year, which is right before the war in the north with Hezbollah, uh, basically started. And I remember at the time when we made the decision, we had very intense discussions in our investment committee because they said, "Look, there's about to be a war in the country."
- SGSarah Guo
(laughs)
- JKJared Kushner
Which is what we kind of thought was gonna happen. And, uh, said, "How do we explain this to the investors if it goes wrong?" And I said, "Well, number one, it's not a bad thing to have them more vested, uh, in the economy of Israel now," but I feel like the pricing that we were able to get at the time was very, um, very advantageous given what was possible. So, uh, we invested then at about $37 a share. Today, the stock's almost, uh, tw- $120 a share. Uh, because we needed a, uh, approval from the regulator, we bought 4.9 then and then another 4.9 later, uh, so we were able to use better leverage because the shares went up quite a bit. And so it's been almost a nine times, uh, return on the investment in just over a year so far, which has been, uh, you know, quite strong. So, obviously, my investors from the Middle East are now looking at Israel and they're saying, "Wait a minute, maybe there's a benefit to having these wars done," and they're seeing a good example there. And so, uh, that's been very, very, uh, satisfying to be able to explain to them the benefits of being together and the positive results that can come from being invested together. The next phase of that is, is Phoenix, which is a monster company, is now looking at investments in Saudi Arabia, investments in UAE, and basically thinking, how can they start deploying their huge amounts of capital into infrastructure projects in the region next to it? Which, again, is just further gonna bring people together. They have a great retirement savings program. How can they take that retirement savings program over to some of the Gulf countries as well? So, it's been very interesting to foster some of these connections together. And then when you get, you know, an Arab and an Israeli together and they start talking about a business opportunity, they forget about everything else-
- SGSarah Guo
For sure.
- JKJared Kushner
... and then they realize that there's a lot of similarities. And you go in the Middle East, right, before, uh, before the 1940s, for a thousand years, the Jews and the Muslims lived, you know, basically side by side in the region. And I think through business and through building these relationships, you find ways, um, to bring people back together. So, uh, again, that's one of the positive things. I mean, in my business, I try to work with, you know, founders I love on, on companies I, um, I'm excited about and on missions that I think could be, uh, productive. And I find with deals like this, it's, it's just extra rewarding to be able to work with, uh, you know, with great people and then to help build relationships and perspective and knowledge for both sides that probably wouldn't have existed otherwise.
- SGSarah Guo
It's been a wide-ranging
- 47:14 – 49:18
Jared and Ivanka’s Partnership
- SGSarah Guo
conversation. Uh, can I ask a really micro question?
- JKJared Kushner
Sure.
- SGSarah Guo
Real close. You and Ivanka have built this incredible partnership across business and politics and also raising a family together. I look at this with great interest given, uh, you know, I feel I am part of two partnerships, mine at Conviction professionally, and then also me and my husband, Pat. Um, how have you done that? Like, what's the framework for it?
- JKJared Kushner
So, it's funny, a lot of people always try to give advice on marriage, but the one that I always felt was the most important is marry the right person. And so I'm very, very blessed that, uh, I married an incredible person. Ivanka has been a great partner, uh, to me in all the different phases of our life. We obviously had our New York phase, which we were building our businesses, we were starting our family. Uh, and then we had the Washington phase, which was a lot more, you know, just survival every day.
- EGElad Gil
(laughs)
- JKJared Kushner
And she was supporting me with my efforts, I was supporting her with her efforts. But, uh, constantly under attack, investigations. I mean, now you're seeing all this stuff about how these Russia investigations were totally, you know, made up. Well, you know, I spent 33 hours, uh, doing Congressional, uh, subpoenas, testimony, uh, special counsel, uh, grand jury testimony. I mean, those were very intense times, and, and Ivanka was an amazing, uh, partner and support to me in my, my weakest times there. Uh, when we left Washington, um, the, the focus, uh, for me was now to, you know, start a new business. We moved down to Florida, and Ivanka said that after so many years of being public and so many years of either building a business or, you know, doing her, her policy work, which helped a lot of people, uh, through her different efforts, she wanted to focus on being a mother and really raising our family. And she's done an incredible job, uh, doing that over the last years. I think our kids are all thriving, uh, really thanks to her, uh, amazing, uh, amazing job as a mother, and, um, then in my business she's been a great partner. And so she's been making investments, uh, she's been helping us, um, uh, a lot on, on some of our early, uh, stage investments that we make in AI and other areas, and she, she has a very good track record (laughs) uh, of, of doing those investments, and a lot's helped her with, uh, some connections and, uh, and they've worked together on some great things. But, uh, but yeah, she's just been an amazing partner, very, very special person, and I'm very, very lucky to have her, uh, as my wife.
- 49:18 – 52:07
Benefits of Joining Public Sector from the Private Sector
- JKJared Kushner
- EGElad Gil
So you made that transition from the private sector to the public center... sector. Obviously it had a really big impact while you were there. Right now, there's a lot of different people that I know in Silicon Valley who are moving out to help with different aspects of government in a way that I haven't seen people show up before. And these are really exceptional people who I think have accomplished a lot in their careers over time in tech, and now they're coming in and helping out in government. What should a private sector person expect when they get to DC?
- JKJared Kushner
It's a completely different world, and I think you have to understand that it's a different system design, but if you spend the time to understand the system, there is tremendous amounts of positive things that can be accomplished from doing it. And when I left government, I'd say the primary reason why I wrote my book was because, uh, I wanted to encourage people from the private sector to then go and serve in government. And, uh, one of the things I've been so satisfied by seeing in, uh, Trump's second term is that, um, you know, with the work that, uh, Elon started with Doge and with, uh, the great work of the, the PPO group, uh, I mean, the people that they're hiring now at, like, third and fourth levels into the government are better than the people who were willing to come work for us at the top levels in the first administration. So President Trump has an amazing cabinet, amazing team, incredible bench of talent, and what we're seeing with, uh, with Doge and what... how it still persisted is that there's a great group of people from the private sector who are there every day renegotiating contracts. I speak to them, they say, honestly, they've never had such easy negotiations in their life-
- EGElad Gil
(laughs)
- JKJared Kushner
... and they're saving a billion here, a billion there.
- EGElad Gil
(laughs)
- JKJared Kushner
And, um, and it's just, it... th- there's so much low-hanging fruit there, it's just a place where, A, there hasn't had a president who's willing to empower people to go and, you know, make deals and let them loose to try and change things. And I think the more that people from the private sector go in, number one, they'll learn how the government works, and the government obviously is a massive, uh, organization that has big impact on all of our lives, uh, in so many different ways, but I think people are finding that the differences that they can have will be quite, um, quite, quite huge. I mean, Joe Gebbia just got announced as the Chief Design Officer for the US. I know Antonio Gracias has done amazing work, uh, helping, uh, figure out how to get, you know, make sure we're only paying social security. I think he saved over 10 billion a year so far-
- EGElad Gil
Mm-hmm.
- JKJared Kushner
... from that. And I think that all these guys are coming away with the experience where they're feeling, uh, enriched from the contributio- from the contributions they've been able to make to a country that's done so much for them, that enables these platforms, uh, that they want to build. Uh, but I think it's just a great place, and I think it's a great opportunity for people to go in, especially during this administration, uh, because they'll be allowed to do things and make big change. And I think the more we do that, I hope that we have more people do it like the founding fathers, uh, kind of design, where, you know, you leave your farm, you go do your service, then you go back to your farm. I think here maybe it's you leave your office, you know, you do your service, you go back to your office. Um, but I think that it's very, very important to have private sector people going into government, doing tours of duty, uh, versus just having a permanent political class, uh, which I think is, uh, is not necessarily great for the long-term, uh, interests of America.
- EGElad Gil
Yeah, it
- 52:07 – 56:25
Jared’s Pitch for Serving in Government
- EGElad Gil
used to be an embedded part of the business community to say that there's enormous both patriotism and value in terms of going in and sort of doing a, a term in, uh, government or sort of helping out in different ways along those lines. I guess often people are motivated by those altruistic reasons, and then there's almost, like, the selfish reasons to do it. What do you think are some of the selfish reasons? You're a 25-year-old engineer and you have a great offer from an OpenAI or, you know, another major sort of tech company, why should you go into government instead right now?
- JKJared Kushner
So I think there's, like, a, a quote that's attributed to Einstein. He gets a lot of quotes, so yeah, I don't know if, if he said them all or not.
- EGElad Gil
If every quote he says is good, yeah.
- JKJared Kushner
Uh, which is, "Once your mind expands, it never returns to its original size." And I think that, uh, it goes to what we were saying, uh, initially about how when you're in business and you're looking at things with a different lens, sometimes you see, uh, different, uh, opportunities or different solutions. I think going into government, number one, if you go there, you'll definitely make a, a contribution and you'll feel, uh, good about the fact that things are different in the world because of you. You'll know that whether you get recognition from... or not for that, doesn't matter. Um, but I think that... I, I look at my experience, right? Again, it was four very, very hard years. I mean, it cost me millions of dollars in legal fees. It was stressful. I dealt with s- you know, some unbelievably, uh-
- EGElad Gil
It was actually one of the things that shocked me as I got to know you and Ivanka, was the degree to which you were vilified in the press, and then you'd meet both of you in person.
- JKJared Kushner
(laughs)
- EGElad Gil
And, you know, you... when I've asked... 'cause before we started working on Brinko together, I actually asked around different people that, you know, I was like, "Just in case, like, is there anything there?" Like, "Is it..." 'Cause there was so much negativity.
- JKJared Kushner
Mm-hmm.
- EGElad Gil
And everybody basically said you were a mensch. You know, good person, tries to help whenever he can, et cetera. Same with Ivanka. And as I got to know you, I'm like, "Oh my God, these people are super smart. They're clear thinkers, they're always trying to do the right thing." And yet they got completely vilified.
- JKJared Kushner
Yeah.
- EGElad Gil
And so I always thought that was almost like a, um...... a travesty in terms of how those things can happen.
- JKJared Kushner
We were very, very fortunate to have the opportunity to make the impact. And the way I would say to Ivanka at the time is that every opportunity in life has a cost. And if this is the cost of what we have to bear, it's a small cost relative to the opportunity we have to make an impact. Now, I kind of just accepted that that was the deal, um, and I think now the fact that people recognize the work a lot more is obviously a- an extra benefit, because I think that we can use it to hopefully inspire more people to come in and do the work. But yeah. It was a very, um, it was a very interesting time, uh, in our country and a very interesting time to serve. But I think that in some ways, like, I was talking with my brother about this, how almost because it was so unpopular to be in, in the government at that time, uh, we weren't spending time doing things other than working.
- EGElad Gil
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- JKJared Kushner
So we just put our heads down, we just got the work done, we weren't being invited to-
- EGElad Gil
Yeah. Very contrarian. (laughs)
- JKJared Kushner
... to, to the party, so our view was like, "Well, let's just spend our time working." And then I think that's ultimately what led to a lot of the successes we had, was just the maniacal focus on the task at hand. We never, uh, took for granted how lucky we were to have the opportunity to serve and, and to make an impact, and we relished it every day. And every day we woke up, I think one of the things that, that made us successful there was every day, you know, we viewed it and said, you know, it's, it's sand through an hourglass. Sometime, at some point it's gonna be over, and how could we use every minute to make as much impact as possible? Um, and I would say the benefits we got from it was we made some incredible, incredible friends. Uh, we learnt, uh, a lot about, you know, our country, we learnt a lot about the world, we made incredible, uh, contacts around the world, and I think we have a much more refined understanding for how the world actually works. And then it's been fun for me to apply, uh, that to the business world, which has only brought me closer with the relationships I've built through that process, um, and allowed me to kind of find ways to create almost a private sector solution that I wish that I had when I was in government in order to hopefully effectuate a lot of the positive, um, missions that I thought were important, uh, doing from the government side.
- EGElad Gil
So I, I guess, uh, to finish off the 25-year-old engineer point is, you know, there's obviously the altruistic impact on the world.
- JKJared Kushner
Mm-hmm.
- EGElad Gil
Um, I guess are there certain things they can learn along the way, or how else do you think about the benefits of going into government right now?
- JKJared Kushner
You'll learn a ton. Uh, you'll meet, uh, a lot of interesting people from different backgrounds. Um, and you will, uh, definitely leave with, uh, with a different perspective on, uh, appreciation for our country, uh, appreciation for, uh, what's possible, and I think you'll learn a lot along the way. So I, I view it almost like a, like it's- it's- it's a two-year business school s- stint, where you go in, you're obviously leaving behind a lucrative career, but you're gonna leave, um, hopefully in a better place than where you found, and you'll feel good about the fact that you're doing it as well. So... And you can make a big impact.
- 56:25 – 58:24
Jared’s Leadership Style
- EGElad Gil
So one of the ways that you've described to me the kind of role that you like to play is almost like a chairman-style role in terms of businesses you get involved with, in terms of things you help build, in terms of different dynamics of what you do in general. Could you, could you extrapolate or explain what that means and how you've been doing that?
- JKJared Kushner
Uh, I've been CEO before, and I- I like operating things. But what I'm enjoying about this phase of being an investor in other companies is the ability to really spend your time on just the most critical things. Anyone who's been a CEO knows that there's, uh, mission-critical things and then there's minutiae, and there's things you have to do to kind of run a business. And, um, a lot of this phase of my life, I'm trying to design how do you kind of spend your time with the people you want to be, be spending your time with, uh, on the best problems, and doing the things that utilize your best skill sets in, in the best way? So, uh, so I've really been enjoying that with different companies, because I get to sit with, uh, incredible CEOs, uh, and I get to work with them on what are their big aspirations and how do I work through those problems? You know, one example is, uh, you know, we made a big investment in QExo with a guy, Brad Jacobs, um, and seeing the way that he's pursued his M&A strategy and then his change transformation strategy, I mean, I'm learning a lot being a, a board member there, uh, and, and watching, you know, him and his incredible operating team, uh, do change management. Take a company that's operated one way for a while and then convince them to operate a different way, to, you know, to integrate technology, to integrate a different mindset. And so, I find that by being in this role with a lot of different CEOs, I'm able to learn from the things that they do well, and then take those learnings and bring them across and help other CEOs, uh, achieve at a higher level. And so, uh, right now, I'm really enjoying that, and that's been, uh, that's been fun to do.
- EGElad Gil
Thanks for an amazing conversation, Jeremy.
- JKJared Kushner
No, thank you guys. (instrumental music plays)
- NANarrator
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Episode duration: 58:24
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