1 00:00:10,679 --> 00:00:13,593 You know, I've covered business and technology here in the 2 00:00:13,593 --> 00:00:17,370 Seattle region for more than 25 years, and the industry is 3 00:00:17,370 --> 00:00:22,140 really not always good at remembering what came before. 4 00:00:22,140 --> 00:00:25,036 You know, tech people, I can tell you firsthand, 5 00:00:25,036 --> 00:00:27,500 tend to treat every few years as the start 6 00:00:27,500 --> 00:00:28,178 of something new. 7 00:00:28,178 --> 00:00:30,359 We're in the middle of one of those right now. 8 00:00:30,359 --> 00:00:34,015 But if you take a step back and look at the long-term patterns, 9 00:00:34,015 --> 00:00:37,597 you can start to see what really matters in the institutions 10 00:00:37,597 --> 00:00:40,823 and the people and the traditions that fuel long-term 11 00:00:40,823 --> 00:00:42,399 innovation and progress. 12 00:00:42,399 --> 00:00:45,228 So joining me now are two people who've spent their 13 00:00:45,228 --> 00:00:48,060 careers focused on that history and these issues. 14 00:00:48,060 --> 00:00:51,401 Historian Margaret O'Mara of the University of Washington 15 00:00:51,401 --> 00:00:54,140 writes about technology and American politics. 16 00:00:54,140 --> 00:00:57,651 Her book, The Code, is the definitive history of Silicon 17 00:00:57,651 --> 00:01:01,161 Valley, which distinguishes itself in part, this book, 18 00:01:01,161 --> 00:01:04,075 for documenting the role of the government and 19 00:01:04,075 --> 00:01:07,587 universities in a story that's usually told through the 20 00:01:07,587 --> 00:01:09,379 lens of geniuses in garages. 21 00:01:11,060 --> 00:01:13,265 Computer scientist Ed Lazowska has been a 22 00:01:13,265 --> 00:01:16,099 fixture at what is now the University of Washington's 23 00:01:16,099 --> 00:01:20,358 Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering since 1977. 24 00:01:20,358 --> 00:01:22,938 He's had a hand in most of what's happened there 25 00:01:22,938 --> 00:01:24,459 over the past five decades. 26 00:01:24,459 --> 00:01:26,319 All the good stuff, at least, Ed. 27 00:01:29,620 --> 00:01:32,058 So we're going to have a conversation, the three of us, 28 00:01:32,058 --> 00:01:35,218 about how the Seattle region and Washington State became 29 00:01:35,218 --> 00:01:38,159 a center of technology as a prelude to where it 30 00:01:38,159 --> 00:01:39,438 could be headed next. 31 00:01:39,438 --> 00:01:41,358 A big welcome to Ed and Margaret. 32 00:01:48,500 --> 00:01:51,608 So we're switching over here to the lab. 33 00:01:51,608 --> 00:01:54,343 So Ed and Margaret, so take us back. 34 00:01:54,343 --> 00:01:55,917 When you look at 35 00:01:55,917 --> 00:01:59,658 Washington State's history, what is it about our region 36 00:01:59,658 --> 00:02:02,542 and the Seattle region in particular that has created 37 00:02:02,542 --> 00:02:04,120 this climate for innovation? 38 00:02:04,120 --> 00:02:07,540 Because it feels like we've got something special here 39 00:02:07,540 --> 00:02:09,377 in a lot of ways if we don't screw it up. 40 00:02:10,818 --> 00:02:12,318 How do we get to this place? 41 00:02:12,318 --> 00:02:14,340 - The first thing I wanna say is lunch was delicious. 42 00:02:14,340 --> 00:02:16,280 It's too bad that you were standing in the corner 43 00:02:16,280 --> 00:02:19,360 while we were enjoying it, but we appreciate that. 44 00:02:19,360 --> 00:02:22,098 You know, I'm gonna say a few words 45 00:02:22,098 --> 00:02:23,685 it's about the University of Washington. 46 00:02:23,685 --> 00:02:24,954 Of course, Margaret and I will say 47 00:02:24,954 --> 00:02:25,812 more about that later. 48 00:02:25,812 --> 00:02:26,961 I think it does have to do 49 00:02:26,961 --> 00:02:27,484 with tech. 50 00:02:27,484 --> 00:02:28,354 We'll get to that. 51 00:02:28,354 --> 00:02:30,500 But, you know, the University of Washington 52 00:02:30,500 --> 00:02:33,829 was founded in 1861 when there were 200 people 53 00:02:33,829 --> 00:02:35,668 living in Seattle, okay? 54 00:02:35,668 --> 00:02:40,173 The state of Washington had existed for eight years at 55 00:02:40,173 --> 00:02:41,163 that time. 56 00:02:41,163 --> 00:02:45,680 The university was built on, I guess, Denny Knoll 57 00:02:45,680 --> 00:02:47,173 here in downtown Seattle. 58 00:02:47,173 --> 00:02:48,461 There are photos of it. 59 00:02:48,461 --> 00:02:51,667 It's this building with these four beautiful white 60 00:02:51,667 --> 00:02:55,360 columns, this big multi-story wood building with a sea 61 00:02:55,360 --> 00:02:56,693 of mud around it. 62 00:02:56,693 --> 00:02:57,931 Okay, just mud. 63 00:02:57,931 --> 00:03:01,460 And the first president of the University of 64 00:03:01,460 --> 00:03:03,961 Washington, Asa Shinn Mercer, was chosen because he was 65 00:03:03,961 --> 00:03:06,513 the only guy in Washington territory who 66 00:03:06,513 --> 00:03:07,620 had a college degree. 67 00:03:08,740 --> 00:03:12,560 And so, to me, that just speaks of a certain audacity 68 00:03:12,560 --> 00:03:15,460 that this region has always had. 69 00:03:15,460 --> 00:03:18,680 And I think we have carried that innovation forward. 70 00:03:18,680 --> 00:03:19,900 Margaret's, of course, the historian, 71 00:03:19,900 --> 00:03:21,699 so knows more about this than I do. 72 00:03:21,699 --> 00:03:23,180 - No, I think, yes and. 73 00:03:23,180 --> 00:03:25,300 I think, you know, when we look at sort of 74 00:03:25,300 --> 00:03:29,280 the key ingredients of innovative places through time, 75 00:03:29,280 --> 00:03:32,240 tech and otherwise, they're sort of some core things. 76 00:03:32,240 --> 00:03:37,098 One is capital resources, and that's taken different forms 77 00:03:37,098 --> 00:03:39,217 here in Seattle in different generations, 78 00:03:39,217 --> 00:03:40,960 both public and private. 79 00:03:40,960 --> 00:03:44,419 It's also institutions, places where people can get together 80 00:03:44,419 --> 00:03:46,699 and learn and play around with ideas 81 00:03:46,699 --> 00:03:48,538 and innovate and generate things, 82 00:03:48,538 --> 00:03:50,437 and universities in the modern era, 83 00:03:50,437 --> 00:03:52,680 like our university, are one of them. 84 00:03:52,680 --> 00:03:55,060 And the other is kind of quality of place 85 00:03:55,060 --> 00:03:57,740 and something that draws people in and sticks them 86 00:03:57,740 --> 00:04:00,104 here and I think one of the things that also is a 87 00:04:00,104 --> 00:04:03,060 commonality really key factor that's been in Seattle from 88 00:04:03,060 --> 00:04:04,883 the very beginning it's been a crossroads of 89 00:04:04,883 --> 00:04:07,763 people from around the world it's been a place 90 00:04:07,763 --> 00:04:12,060 that has been as much as of sea as of land right where 91 00:04:12,060 --> 00:04:14,104 people of different cultures and different 92 00:04:14,104 --> 00:04:17,809 nations have come together collided, collaborated, and 93 00:04:17,809 --> 00:04:20,439 people are constantly moving. 94 00:04:20,439 --> 00:04:22,800 So I like to think of the Pacific Northwest 95 00:04:22,800 --> 00:04:25,259 as kind of far away and close to. 96 00:04:25,259 --> 00:04:28,800 It's a place that has a very distinctive regional character, 97 00:04:28,800 --> 00:04:31,278 but also has always been deeply connected 98 00:04:31,278 --> 00:04:33,420 to the rest of the world, both across the Pacific Rim 99 00:04:33,420 --> 00:04:35,399 and also across North America. 100 00:04:35,399 --> 00:04:36,959 - The other thing I'd say is that innovators 101 00:04:36,959 --> 00:04:38,800 attract other innovators, all right? 102 00:04:38,800 --> 00:04:40,439 And that's really important. 103 00:04:40,439 --> 00:04:42,420 And that's the old Richard Florida thing, right? 104 00:04:42,420 --> 00:04:46,259 But if you think about our history in music, 105 00:04:46,259 --> 00:04:51,884 from Quincy Jones to Macklemore, or art with Dale Chihuly 106 00:04:51,884 --> 00:04:56,355 and Jacob Lawrence, on and on and on, creative, 107 00:04:56,355 --> 00:04:58,838 distinctive retail, Nordstrom and REI. 108 00:04:58,838 --> 00:05:00,660 Nobody knows Costco is from Washington. 109 00:05:02,160 --> 00:05:06,240 And all of these distinctive, innovative characteristics. 110 00:05:06,240 --> 00:05:09,579 And of course, that spills into technology. 111 00:05:09,579 --> 00:05:12,548 If you think about, you know, Todd pointed out that 112 00:05:12,548 --> 00:05:15,660 desktop publishing is from the state of Washington. 113 00:05:15,660 --> 00:05:18,459 You know, the software industry is from the state of Washington. 114 00:05:19,639 --> 00:05:22,120 E-tail, Amazon is from the state of Washington. 115 00:05:22,120 --> 00:05:24,519 Cloud computing, commercial cloud computing is from 116 00:05:24,519 --> 00:05:25,639 the state of Washington. 117 00:05:25,639 --> 00:05:29,600 But, you know, biomedical technologies are from the state 118 00:05:29,600 --> 00:05:31,620 of Washington as well, right? 119 00:05:31,620 --> 00:05:34,795 Home dialysis, for example, is from here. 120 00:05:34,795 --> 00:05:36,519 Medic One is from here. 121 00:05:36,519 --> 00:05:37,699 On and on and on. 122 00:05:37,699 --> 00:05:41,382 This innovation goes back so many years and 123 00:05:41,382 --> 00:05:43,019 in so many sectors. 124 00:05:43,019 --> 00:05:45,084 So bring that up to the current day. 125 00:05:45,084 --> 00:05:46,721 When you look at our current 126 00:05:46,721 --> 00:05:50,035 leadership in information technology. 127 00:05:50,035 --> 00:05:53,461 How does that history that you're talking about there 128 00:05:53,461 --> 00:05:55,060 get to where we are today? 129 00:05:56,699 --> 00:06:00,170 Well, you know, the question is what are the important 130 00:06:00,170 --> 00:06:01,250 factors, right? 131 00:06:01,250 --> 00:06:03,795 And obviously there's a long history of 132 00:06:03,795 --> 00:06:05,800 engineering innovation here. 133 00:06:05,800 --> 00:06:08,802 Boeing goes back a long way and I think Paul Brainerd 134 00:06:08,802 --> 00:06:11,290 and at least Jeremy Jaech and some others had been 135 00:06:11,290 --> 00:06:13,579 at Boeing at some point in their career on the way to 136 00:06:13,579 --> 00:06:16,064 PageMaker. But by the way when we think of desktop 137 00:06:16,064 --> 00:06:19,105 publishing you heard about Paul Brainerd he was a CEO 138 00:06:19,105 --> 00:06:22,240 but somebody had to build the stuff and his one of 139 00:06:22,240 --> 00:06:24,966 his other co-founders Jeremy Jaech is an alum of our 140 00:06:24,966 --> 00:06:28,473 department we'll talk more about that later, but the 141 00:06:28,473 --> 00:06:32,579 folks who actually engineer the systems tend to be folks from 142 00:06:32,579 --> 00:06:34,180 technical backgrounds. 143 00:06:34,180 --> 00:06:38,031 You know, I think the most important thing that's happened 144 00:06:38,031 --> 00:06:41,235 here is that Paul Allen and Bill Gates moved back here 145 00:06:41,235 --> 00:06:42,980 from Albuquerque, New Mexico. 146 00:06:42,980 --> 00:06:44,480 And why Albuquerque? 147 00:06:44,480 --> 00:06:49,793 You may remember that Paul was working for Honeywell in Boston, 148 00:06:49,793 --> 00:06:52,300 and Bill was going to Harvard. 149 00:06:52,300 --> 00:06:56,384 And Paul saw the first kit microcomputer on the cover of 150 00:06:56,384 --> 00:07:00,468 a magazine and went running to Bill in his dorm and said, 151 00:07:00,468 --> 00:07:04,819 you know, we're going to miss this train if we don't act now. 152 00:07:04,819 --> 00:07:07,740 And that machine was the Altair MITS. 153 00:07:07,740 --> 00:07:11,889 and the Altair MITS was, the company was located in 154 00:07:11,889 --> 00:07:14,062 Albuquerque, New Mexico. 155 00:07:14,062 --> 00:07:15,502 So Paul initially moved to 156 00:07:15,502 --> 00:07:18,300 Albuquerque. There's a famous story of him, let me say 157 00:07:18,300 --> 00:07:20,783 what they did was to build an interpreter for 158 00:07:20,783 --> 00:07:24,536 the BASIC programming language, okay, that ran on 159 00:07:24,536 --> 00:07:27,764 the Intel processor in the MITS. 160 00:07:27,764 --> 00:07:30,987 And flying down on the plane to demonstrate 161 00:07:30,987 --> 00:07:34,480 this to the guy who had founded MITS, Paul realized that they 162 00:07:34,480 --> 00:07:36,812 didn't have a bootstrap loader. 163 00:07:36,812 --> 00:07:40,439 So he wrote that on a placemat on the plane and keyed 164 00:07:40,439 --> 00:07:43,165 it into the MITS machine when he got there so they could 165 00:07:43,165 --> 00:07:46,100 load the paper tape that had their interpreter on it. 166 00:07:46,100 --> 00:07:47,937 But that's how they wound up in 167 00:07:47,937 --> 00:07:52,233 Albuquerque. But importantly, not just were they from Seattle, 168 00:07:52,233 --> 00:07:56,519 but they got their technology chops at the Lakeside School, 169 00:07:56,519 --> 00:08:00,319 among other things, poaching time on computers 170 00:08:00,319 --> 00:08:04,120 in my department at a UW startup called Computer 171 00:08:04,120 --> 00:08:05,444 Center Corporation. 172 00:08:05,444 --> 00:08:07,800 One of the most charming things is when 173 00:08:07,800 --> 00:08:09,639 Paul, now eight years ago, was 174 00:08:10,680 --> 00:08:13,365 announcing the donation that named the Paul G. 175 00:08:13,365 --> 00:08:15,019 Allen School where I work, he 176 00:08:15,019 --> 00:08:18,932 pulled out of his pocket a letter from 1971 sent 177 00:08:18,932 --> 00:08:22,485 by a now deceased faculty member in our department, 178 00:08:22,485 --> 00:08:25,379 Hellmut Golde, that written to Paul that ordered him 179 00:08:25,379 --> 00:08:28,540 and his Lakeside friends to turn in their keys for 180 00:08:28,540 --> 00:08:30,160 a set of transgressions. 181 00:08:30,160 --> 00:08:32,893 And the astonishing thing is that Paul is a 16-year-old 182 00:08:32,893 --> 00:08:37,177 who had the presence of mind to save this letter and then be 183 00:08:37,177 --> 00:08:40,100 able to find it 40 years later. 184 00:08:40,100 --> 00:08:42,873 You shared a copy of that letter with me, and I share 185 00:08:42,873 --> 00:08:45,475 that with my UW students, and they get great 186 00:08:45,475 --> 00:08:47,177 delight from that story. 187 00:08:47,177 --> 00:08:48,940 Well, they bore no grudges. 188 00:08:48,940 --> 00:08:51,884 But the point is they got their start here in Seattle, 189 00:08:51,884 --> 00:08:56,100 connected to the university, and they returned here and... 190 00:08:56,100 --> 00:08:58,100 And I would say they returned here 191 00:08:58,100 --> 00:09:01,620 because Albuquerque doesn't have a University of Washington. 192 00:09:01,620 --> 00:09:04,440 It has a lot of Los Alamos, you know, 193 00:09:04,440 --> 00:09:06,600 nuclear engineers and physicists, 194 00:09:06,600 --> 00:09:10,038 but they came up here because they knew 195 00:09:10,038 --> 00:09:12,120 it was one place outside of California 196 00:09:12,120 --> 00:09:15,460 where they could get talent or they could attract talent. 197 00:09:15,460 --> 00:09:16,820 I don't know if this is an apocryphal story, 198 00:09:16,820 --> 00:09:18,600 but I did read once that Paul said, 199 00:09:18,600 --> 00:09:20,440 well, it rains all the time, so people will just stay 200 00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:21,340 in and work all the time. 201 00:09:21,340 --> 00:09:22,200 - I've heard the same story. 202 00:09:23,557 --> 00:09:27,120 - But that was a real, that's not, 203 00:09:27,120 --> 00:09:29,798 when I first moved here 22 years ago, 204 00:09:29,798 --> 00:09:32,120 people would sort of say, oh, well, we just have tech, 205 00:09:32,120 --> 00:09:33,980 we have what we have because Bill Boeing 206 00:09:33,980 --> 00:09:35,000 and Bill Gates are from here. 207 00:09:35,000 --> 00:09:37,057 And I thought, well, that's kind of selling 208 00:09:37,057 --> 00:09:38,038 this joint short. 209 00:09:39,200 --> 00:09:43,980 There are reasons that these companies thrived here 210 00:09:43,980 --> 00:09:46,677 and grew, not simply because the accident of birth 211 00:09:46,677 --> 00:09:49,460 of certain people being from here. 212 00:09:49,460 --> 00:09:51,240 So I'd phrase that a different way. 213 00:09:51,240 --> 00:09:54,899 I think that has been our region's strategy. 214 00:09:54,899 --> 00:09:57,663 Our region's strategy is Bill Boeing moved here, 215 00:09:57,663 --> 00:10:00,360 Bill Gates was born here, and it's a nice place to live 216 00:10:00,360 --> 00:10:01,700 and we haven't screwed it up. 217 00:10:01,700 --> 00:10:04,200 And we need a better strategy than that. 218 00:10:05,460 --> 00:10:09,480 And there is a group led by Brad Smith and Chris Gregoire now 219 00:10:09,480 --> 00:10:14,745 who are trying to jiggle the region into coming up with 220 00:10:14,745 --> 00:10:17,158 a strategy for the future. 221 00:10:17,158 --> 00:10:20,817 Bill Gates, Sr. began this with the Technology 222 00:10:20,817 --> 00:10:22,600 Alliance back in 1995. 223 00:10:22,600 --> 00:10:24,658 By the way, Todd, I think, neglected to mention 224 00:10:24,658 --> 00:10:26,720 that Paul Brainerd, I believe, was the founder 225 00:10:26,720 --> 00:10:29,649 of what was the Washington Software Association 226 00:10:29,649 --> 00:10:30,580 and is now WTIA. 227 00:10:30,580 --> 00:10:36,460 So that was founded in probably about 1985. 228 00:10:36,460 --> 00:10:41,019 And so these organizations have played a very essential role. 229 00:10:41,019 --> 00:10:44,129 One topic that has not come up yet, we think about 230 00:10:44,129 --> 00:10:48,100 software and aerospace, but telecommunications and McCaw. 231 00:10:48,100 --> 00:10:51,167 I mean, it's interesting how you see this snowball 232 00:10:51,167 --> 00:10:54,379 effect happen in all sorts of different industries. 233 00:10:54,379 --> 00:10:58,360 So how did we end up with T-Mobile here, for example? 234 00:10:59,399 --> 00:11:02,700 Well, importantly, what happened was 235 00:11:02,700 --> 00:11:06,899 Craig McCaw started acquiring small wireless companies 236 00:11:06,899 --> 00:11:09,658 and wireless bandwidth in a very visionary way. 237 00:11:09,658 --> 00:11:11,700 And again, you probably know this better than I do. 238 00:11:11,700 --> 00:11:16,200 But I think then John Stanton got involved 239 00:11:16,200 --> 00:11:18,658 in other wireless companies. 240 00:11:18,658 --> 00:11:23,282 But the birth of modern wireless cell phone communication 241 00:11:23,282 --> 00:11:26,820 is McCaw Cellular, which was acquired by AT&T 242 00:11:26,820 --> 00:11:28,658 and became AT&T Wireless. 243 00:11:28,658 --> 00:11:30,081 So we did that. 244 00:11:30,081 --> 00:11:31,740 We did software. 245 00:11:31,740 --> 00:11:33,600 And that's a Pacific Northwest story, too. 246 00:11:33,600 --> 00:11:36,394 It's a story when we think about the Pacific West as 247 00:11:36,394 --> 00:11:37,860 why is tech growing there. 248 00:11:37,860 --> 00:11:40,989 This specialization in communicating wirelessly over 249 00:11:40,989 --> 00:11:44,149 long distances is kind of handy when you're far away from 250 00:11:44,149 --> 00:11:47,143 traditional communications infrastructure, when 251 00:11:47,143 --> 00:11:49,798 sea to land communication is really important. 252 00:11:49,798 --> 00:11:53,682 So we have these really deep roots in terms of what the 253 00:11:53,682 --> 00:11:57,638 expertise is, and it may be very different types of engineering, 254 00:11:57,638 --> 00:12:00,600 different types of technology, much earlier generations, 255 00:12:00,600 --> 00:12:03,091 but there are these really interesting strands of 256 00:12:03,091 --> 00:12:04,340 DNA that follow through. 257 00:12:04,340 --> 00:12:06,538 Why is Seattle special? 258 00:12:06,538 --> 00:12:09,158 Why does aerospace grow in Seattle? 259 00:12:09,158 --> 00:12:14,365 Why do miniaturized electronics and communication devices 260 00:12:14,365 --> 00:12:16,100 grow in the Bay Area? 261 00:12:16,100 --> 00:12:20,278 Those have very, very deep roots that go far beyond this modern. 262 00:12:20,278 --> 00:12:24,322 And it has to do with the region and the necessity 263 00:12:24,322 --> 00:12:28,566 of other industries and other people being able to 264 00:12:28,566 --> 00:12:33,820 communicate and do business in this relatively remote place. 265 00:12:33,820 --> 00:12:36,634 And yet, even when we're talking about something like 266 00:12:36,634 --> 00:12:39,580 a cell phone and the wireless infrastructure behind it, 267 00:12:39,580 --> 00:12:42,596 Seattle, the knock is we're known for the plumbing, 268 00:12:42,596 --> 00:12:43,860 the infrastructure. 269 00:12:43,860 --> 00:12:47,802 Even when it came to this modern era, we're thought 270 00:12:47,802 --> 00:12:49,399 about for the cloud. 271 00:12:49,399 --> 00:12:52,720 And I think that is one of the reasons that Seattle 272 00:12:52,720 --> 00:12:55,995 tends to get overlooked when you think about 273 00:12:55,995 --> 00:12:58,038 that West Coast tech hub. 274 00:12:58,038 --> 00:13:01,220 How would you compare us to San Francisco in that regard? 275 00:13:01,220 --> 00:13:02,740 And are there lessons to be learned? 276 00:13:02,740 --> 00:13:05,692 Or are we in a better position because we're more 277 00:13:05,692 --> 00:13:08,720 focused on the infrastructure as a tech economy? 278 00:13:08,720 --> 00:13:09,759 Or am I totally wrong? 279 00:13:09,759 --> 00:13:11,080 I can see it in your eyes. 280 00:13:11,080 --> 00:13:14,600 I mean, the infrastructure is maybe not as, you know, maybe 281 00:13:14,600 --> 00:13:17,980 we're not always as flashy as those folks in California. 282 00:13:17,980 --> 00:13:21,365 But, I mean, I do see, you know, this has always been 283 00:13:21,365 --> 00:13:23,139 a big company town, right? 284 00:13:23,139 --> 00:13:25,960 We go back to timber, to airplanes. 285 00:13:25,960 --> 00:13:29,283 You know, we've had these big dominant, that has kind of 286 00:13:29,283 --> 00:13:33,038 been the corporate temperament of this place and this region. 287 00:13:33,038 --> 00:13:36,696 And that has a lot of reasons ecological 288 00:13:36,696 --> 00:13:40,918 economic financial all sorts of things whereas it you 289 00:13:40,918 --> 00:13:44,677 know some what grew up in the valley in Silicon 290 00:13:44,677 --> 00:13:47,951 Valley starting the 60s with the semiconductor 291 00:13:47,951 --> 00:13:50,197 industry was which originally the first 292 00:13:50,197 --> 00:13:52,177 electronics companies in the valley were big 293 00:13:52,177 --> 00:13:54,519 companies that were headquartered elsewhere 294 00:13:54,519 --> 00:13:57,230 Lockheed now Lockheed Martin But Lockheed was the 295 00:13:57,230 --> 00:14:00,375 biggest employer in Silicon Valley from the mid-50s 296 00:14:00,375 --> 00:14:03,220 when it started there until the end of the Cold War. 297 00:14:03,220 --> 00:14:05,643 It was doing defense business, so it was mostly top secret, 298 00:14:05,643 --> 00:14:08,312 so people weren't on the cover of Forbes and Fortune, 299 00:14:08,312 --> 00:14:11,177 so it was a little more below the radar screen. 300 00:14:11,177 --> 00:14:13,864 So there's a big company story there too, but this kind of 301 00:14:13,864 --> 00:14:17,094 start-up, you know, why is there a start-up, you know, 302 00:14:17,094 --> 00:14:21,298 there are more start-ups in the Valley than there are here, 303 00:14:21,298 --> 00:14:23,514 partially has to do with the nature of the business 304 00:14:23,514 --> 00:14:26,114 building small electronics rather than big airplanes 305 00:14:26,114 --> 00:14:28,538 back in the day and also the growth of the venture 306 00:14:28,538 --> 00:14:31,427 capital industry from the 1950s forward that just 307 00:14:31,427 --> 00:14:34,268 created this critical mass and as Ed and I were talking 308 00:14:34,268 --> 00:14:36,639 about before lunch if you have a start-up and you're 309 00:14:36,639 --> 00:14:39,509 based here in Seattle you can just get on a plane to 310 00:14:39,509 --> 00:14:42,581 San Jose or San Francisco and you can do a day trip 311 00:14:42,581 --> 00:14:45,700 and raise money or the VCs can come here and so 312 00:14:45,700 --> 00:14:49,041 that's part of thinking about the symbiosis between the two 313 00:14:49,041 --> 00:14:52,379 places is a really important way to understand the Seattle and 314 00:14:52,379 --> 00:14:54,177 the Washington State tech story. 315 00:14:54,177 --> 00:14:58,028 It isn't, you know, this isn't necessarily we're competitive, 316 00:14:58,028 --> 00:15:01,221 sure, and we're different, sure, but we're also very 317 00:15:01,221 --> 00:15:04,778 much part of the same broader western regional ecosystem. 318 00:15:04,778 --> 00:15:05,840 So two other comments. 319 00:15:05,840 --> 00:15:08,581 One is that for better or worse, many of our startups 320 00:15:08,581 --> 00:15:10,177 in many sectors get acquired. 321 00:15:10,177 --> 00:15:13,711 That's been sort of the bane of our existence in biotech, 322 00:15:13,711 --> 00:15:17,320 right, which is a Seattle biotech company gets acquired. 323 00:15:17,320 --> 00:15:20,570 Eventually, its lab gets shut down and moved to California, 324 00:15:20,570 --> 00:15:23,557 and Expedia occupies the space down on the waterfront. 325 00:15:23,557 --> 00:15:27,278 It's lovely these days, but nonetheless, it's not biotech. 326 00:15:27,278 --> 00:15:29,750 You know, out of my department, several companies have 327 00:15:29,750 --> 00:15:30,879 been acquired by Google. 328 00:15:30,879 --> 00:15:33,783 Several companies have been acquired by Apple, 329 00:15:33,783 --> 00:15:35,240 of course by Microsoft. 330 00:15:35,240 --> 00:15:37,658 So I think that's an issue for sure. 331 00:15:37,658 --> 00:15:41,658 Another is that we are just so damned modest. 332 00:15:41,658 --> 00:15:43,720 We don't tell our story. 333 00:15:43,720 --> 00:15:47,057 And I think that's a serious problem. 334 00:15:47,057 --> 00:15:50,884 That is, this region is so aw shucks about ourselves 335 00:15:50,884 --> 00:15:54,798 and honestly doom and gloom about ourselves as well. 336 00:15:54,798 --> 00:15:57,966 You know, there was a, we were discussing earlier 337 00:15:57,966 --> 00:16:01,519 today this recent study by, I forget who it was, Oxford, 338 00:16:01,519 --> 00:16:05,590 somebody that ranked Seattle as the fourth among 339 00:16:05,590 --> 00:16:09,658 world cities after Paris and New York and London. 340 00:16:09,658 --> 00:16:13,057 Now, look, all these surveys are nonsense. 341 00:16:13,057 --> 00:16:16,519 I say this as someone in part of the University of Washington 342 00:16:16,519 --> 00:16:18,320 that's very well ranked in these surveys. 343 00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:22,220 But on the other hand, you know, if you asked anyone in Seattle 344 00:16:22,220 --> 00:16:24,340 where Seattle ranks among world cities, 345 00:16:24,340 --> 00:16:26,677 they would say, well, you know, kind of with Cleveland. 346 00:16:28,580 --> 00:16:31,798 You know, this is crazy. 347 00:16:31,798 --> 00:16:34,460 We should do a better job of branding ourselves, 348 00:16:34,460 --> 00:16:38,798 which would in turn help us attract and retain workforce. 349 00:16:38,798 --> 00:16:39,918 Seattle rocks, as they say. 350 00:16:39,918 --> 00:16:41,100 Seattle rocks. 351 00:16:41,100 --> 00:16:41,980 Seattle rocks. 352 00:16:41,980 --> 00:16:44,720 So you're both obviously at the University of Washington. 353 00:16:44,720 --> 00:16:47,596 Can you talk about the role of the university, 354 00:16:47,596 --> 00:16:51,100 of a research institution, in these fundamental 355 00:16:51,100 --> 00:16:54,620 underpinnings of the innovation economy? 356 00:16:54,620 --> 00:16:56,720 Why don't you talk about the general role of universities? 357 00:16:56,720 --> 00:16:59,254 Well, the general role of universities, you know, one 358 00:16:59,254 --> 00:17:01,738 of the things we focus often a lot when it comes to tech 359 00:17:01,738 --> 00:17:04,327 on tech transfer, the idea of, oh, something's created 360 00:17:04,327 --> 00:17:06,700 in a university lab and then it's commercialized. 361 00:17:06,700 --> 00:17:09,659 And that absolutely is part of the story, 100%. 362 00:17:09,660 --> 00:17:13,361 But when I look at Silicon Valley, when I look at here, 363 00:17:13,361 --> 00:17:17,481 when I look at Boston, any place that has become a hub of tech 364 00:17:17,481 --> 00:17:19,837 activity, it's about the people. 365 00:17:19,837 --> 00:17:21,880 It's a story of people. 366 00:17:21,880 --> 00:17:24,746 Yes, it's also a story of technology, but it's about the 367 00:17:24,746 --> 00:17:27,553 people that are educated at the University of Washington, 368 00:17:27,553 --> 00:17:30,140 the people that teach at the University of Washington, the 369 00:17:30,140 --> 00:17:33,297 connections that are forged there, the particular 370 00:17:33,297 --> 00:17:35,940 sensibility, the type of attitude towards 371 00:17:35,940 --> 00:17:39,787 technology, sort of a tech-forward attitude within the 372 00:17:39,787 --> 00:17:43,136 university that then percolates It's out. 373 00:17:43,140 --> 00:17:47,136 And so, and then that's people who are not only computer 374 00:17:47,136 --> 00:17:49,400 scientists, but also historians 375 00:17:50,538 --> 00:17:52,740 and all sorts of other disciplines. 376 00:17:52,740 --> 00:17:55,480 Yes, history majors. 377 00:17:55,480 --> 00:17:59,864 And that is this ecosystem when we look at, you know, 378 00:17:59,864 --> 00:18:03,577 Stanford is obviously people are like, what's Stanford secret? 379 00:18:03,577 --> 00:18:05,357 I'm like, just look at the people. 380 00:18:05,357 --> 00:18:08,069 It's not, you know, it wasn't that Hewlett and 381 00:18:08,069 --> 00:18:11,499 Packard invented something and then commercialized it. 382 00:18:11,500 --> 00:18:14,256 They went to grad school at Stanford and their grad 383 00:18:14,256 --> 00:18:17,210 advisor persuaded them to come back and get in a garage 384 00:18:17,210 --> 00:18:18,719 and start a company in 1939. 385 00:18:18,720 --> 00:18:20,259 And that was Hewlett Packard. 386 00:18:20,259 --> 00:18:23,419 So that's, I think, emphasis. 387 00:18:23,420 --> 00:18:27,298 Let's not forget, tech does matter, but people matter a lot. 388 00:18:27,298 --> 00:18:31,211 So while I deeply admire my historian colleagues, 389 00:18:31,211 --> 00:18:35,220 let me talk about tech graduates for a second, okay? 390 00:18:35,220 --> 00:18:38,146 You know, first of all, there's the rank and file, and I mean 391 00:18:38,146 --> 00:18:40,900 that in a positive sense, not a pejorative sense, okay? 392 00:18:40,900 --> 00:18:44,259 Amazon hired more than 100 of our graduates last year. 393 00:18:44,259 --> 00:18:45,596 You hear all this stuff about layoffs. 394 00:18:45,597 --> 00:18:47,140 They hired 100 last year. 395 00:18:47,140 --> 00:18:50,038 They hired, this most recent year, they hired 396 00:18:50,038 --> 00:18:51,720 100 the year before, okay? 397 00:18:51,720 --> 00:18:55,337 Microsoft always hires large numbers of our graduates. 398 00:18:55,337 --> 00:19:00,573 But if you scroll back decades, a little-known story is 399 00:19:00,573 --> 00:19:03,160 that IBM was considering two operating systems 400 00:19:03,160 --> 00:19:08,028 for its IBM PC in 1981, and both of them were written by 401 00:19:08,028 --> 00:19:10,140 UW computer science graduates. 402 00:19:10,140 --> 00:19:12,634 The one they didn't come to terms with was 403 00:19:12,634 --> 00:19:15,278 written by Gary Kildall, who had moved to California. 404 00:19:15,278 --> 00:19:19,921 He was the Naval Postgraduate School and formed a 405 00:19:19,921 --> 00:19:21,959 company in Monterey. 406 00:19:21,960 --> 00:19:23,856 They did not come to terms with Gary. 407 00:19:23,857 --> 00:19:25,077 It's a complicated story. 408 00:19:25,077 --> 00:19:27,981 So they came to terms with Microsoft, which didn't actually 409 00:19:27,981 --> 00:19:29,836 have an operating system at the time. 410 00:19:29,837 --> 00:19:33,130 So they bought for, I believe, $50,000, $25,000, 411 00:19:33,130 --> 00:19:36,337 some small amount of money, an operating system 412 00:19:37,400 --> 00:19:40,709 originally called QDOS, which stood for Quick and Dirty 413 00:19:40,709 --> 00:19:43,670 Operating System, written by Tim , who 414 00:19:43,670 --> 00:19:44,660 was an alum of ours. 415 00:19:44,660 --> 00:19:49,039 So whichever operating system IBM chose for its PC, it was 416 00:19:49,039 --> 00:19:52,480 going to be written by a UW computer science graduate. 417 00:19:52,480 --> 00:19:55,900 And there's Jeremy Jaech, who we talked about. 418 00:19:55,900 --> 00:19:59,903 And Rob Short is an alum of ours who retired a few years 419 00:19:59,903 --> 00:20:04,199 ago as the head of core systems technology at Microsoft. 420 00:20:04,200 --> 00:20:06,778 Jeff Dean has been for 20 plus years at Google. 421 00:20:06,778 --> 00:20:09,516 He's responsible for the vast amount of Google's 422 00:20:09,516 --> 00:20:12,116 core infrastructure that really allowed them 423 00:20:12,117 --> 00:20:12,896 to scale. 424 00:20:12,900 --> 00:20:15,963 And he and three colleagues left a couple of weeks ago to 425 00:20:15,963 --> 00:20:18,788 found a new company focused on machine learning for 426 00:20:18,788 --> 00:20:20,077 scientific discovery. 427 00:20:20,077 --> 00:20:23,038 It was immediately valued at tens of billions of dollars. 428 00:20:23,038 --> 00:20:24,920 It's just four guys. 429 00:20:24,920 --> 00:20:27,749 You know, Paul Mikesell is a recent alum of 430 00:20:27,749 --> 00:20:30,740 ours who co-founded Isilon, now owned by EMC 431 00:20:30,740 --> 00:20:33,798 in Pioneer Square, but now he's in farming. 432 00:20:33,798 --> 00:20:37,540 So he has a company that builds a laser weeding device, which 433 00:20:37,540 --> 00:20:39,636 plays into two important trends. 434 00:20:39,640 --> 00:20:42,393 One is the desire for organic farming, and 435 00:20:42,393 --> 00:20:45,538 the other, honestly, is the lack of inexpensive 436 00:20:45,538 --> 00:20:47,240 labor to pull weeds. 437 00:20:47,240 --> 00:20:50,124 So he's sold hundreds of these million-dollar 438 00:20:50,124 --> 00:20:51,900 machines all over the world. 439 00:20:51,900 --> 00:20:55,538 So these are important contributions. 440 00:20:55,538 --> 00:20:58,432 The one other thing I'd say is Margaret often talks about the 441 00:20:58,432 --> 00:21:00,759 importance of the University of Washington as a 442 00:21:00,759 --> 00:21:01,759 public university. 443 00:21:02,778 --> 00:21:07,652 And I think we are doing better at that in the past 10 444 00:21:07,652 --> 00:21:11,857 years than we did in the 10 or 20 or 30 years before that. 445 00:21:11,857 --> 00:21:15,106 And I give our past president, Ana Mari Cauce, 446 00:21:15,106 --> 00:21:16,817 a lot of credit for that. 447 00:21:16,817 --> 00:21:19,718 I think we spent many years trying to become 448 00:21:19,718 --> 00:21:23,019 a major national and international university, 449 00:21:23,019 --> 00:21:25,597 and we forgot we were the University of Washington. 450 00:21:25,597 --> 00:21:26,576 Computer science didn't. 451 00:21:26,577 --> 00:21:28,375 We were always, we grew up with the tech industry, 452 00:21:28,375 --> 00:21:29,117 so we're connected. 453 00:21:29,117 --> 00:21:32,178 But I think the university as a whole lost track of that, 454 00:21:32,178 --> 00:21:33,837 and Ana Mari restored that. 455 00:21:33,837 --> 00:21:37,759 And you saw in the room across the way the material for the 456 00:21:37,759 --> 00:21:40,857 Welcome Center, which will be named for Ana Mari. 457 00:21:40,857 --> 00:21:43,526 But the important thing also is that it connects 458 00:21:43,526 --> 00:21:44,659 us to the community. 459 00:21:44,659 --> 00:21:47,421 I've also been involved in the renovation of the 460 00:21:47,421 --> 00:21:50,317 ASUW Shell House, the Boys in the Boat Shell House. 461 00:21:50,317 --> 00:21:56,544 And this is a very powerful story told by 462 00:21:56,544 --> 00:21:59,940 the movie, of course. 463 00:21:59,940 --> 00:22:03,605 But Brad Smith and Brad and his wife Kathy led the fundraising 464 00:22:03,605 --> 00:22:06,700 for the Shell House with a $5 million contribution. 465 00:22:06,700 --> 00:22:10,625 But it's symbolic of what this region can do, regular people 466 00:22:10,625 --> 00:22:14,317 pulling together towards a common goal and believing in 467 00:22:14,317 --> 00:22:16,519 each other and working together. 468 00:22:16,519 --> 00:22:19,173 And I think that's what the University of Washington 469 00:22:19,173 --> 00:22:20,317 aspires to these days. 470 00:22:20,317 --> 00:22:23,181 we can be both the University of and for Washington 471 00:22:23,181 --> 00:22:26,180 and a major national and international university. 472 00:22:26,180 --> 00:22:27,278 Yeah, yeah. 473 00:22:27,278 --> 00:22:34,171 And in a time, you know, one of the core, what's core to 474 00:22:34,171 --> 00:22:39,585 the Silicon Valley origin story is that it was growing at 475 00:22:39,585 --> 00:22:42,308 this moment of extraordinary, what I call an escalator 476 00:22:42,308 --> 00:22:44,689 of upward mobility, where kids from very little 477 00:22:44,689 --> 00:22:47,424 means who were passionate about engineering could get 478 00:22:47,424 --> 00:22:50,403 all these opportunities to get educated and have great jobs 479 00:22:50,403 --> 00:22:53,380 because of the Cold War and all the spending on electronics. 480 00:22:53,380 --> 00:22:56,035 And I think UW as a public university, it is one 481 00:22:56,035 --> 00:22:59,317 of those last remaining escalators of upward mobility. 482 00:22:59,317 --> 00:23:02,336 There are a lot of our undergraduates, you know, we 483 00:23:02,336 --> 00:23:05,930 are educating kids in the state of Washington, you know, who 484 00:23:05,930 --> 00:23:09,307 are, you know, coming, who are first generation college 485 00:23:09,307 --> 00:23:13,115 students who are coming into a world class research university 486 00:23:13,115 --> 00:23:16,778 with opportunities to do all sorts of extraordinary things. 487 00:23:16,778 --> 00:23:20,356 And that is sadly vanishingly rare. 488 00:23:20,356 --> 00:23:23,636 And we really do need to cherish and celebrate and acknowledge 489 00:23:23,636 --> 00:23:25,278 that that's going on every day. 490 00:23:25,278 --> 00:23:28,778 If I remember what I heard the president say last weekend, 491 00:23:28,778 --> 00:23:31,827 more than a quarter of UW's incoming freshman class 492 00:23:31,827 --> 00:23:34,739 of 7,500 students this year is first generation. 493 00:23:34,739 --> 00:23:36,259 That's really remarkable. 494 00:23:36,259 --> 00:23:38,376 And they are all from the state of Washington. 495 00:23:38,376 --> 00:23:39,979 From the state of Washington. 496 00:23:39,979 --> 00:23:41,959 You threw me off for a moment there when you 497 00:23:41,959 --> 00:23:43,788 said the president, because the president 498 00:23:43,788 --> 00:23:44,519 would have said SI. 499 00:23:45,616 --> 00:23:47,400 The other president would have said SI. 500 00:23:47,400 --> 00:23:48,680 And I do want to say, you know. 501 00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:49,419 Please not to mention that. 502 00:23:51,096 --> 00:23:54,880 I do want to say, Amazon hired the engineers and laid off the 503 00:23:54,880 --> 00:23:57,038 journalists and the historians. 504 00:23:58,759 --> 00:24:00,380 I've been holding that in for five minutes. 505 00:24:03,356 --> 00:24:06,979 All right, so now that gets us to where we are today. 506 00:24:06,979 --> 00:24:09,298 So where are we headed next? 507 00:24:09,298 --> 00:24:13,259 when you look at this innovation economy at Washington State, 508 00:24:13,259 --> 00:24:15,317 think about this moment in time. 509 00:24:15,317 --> 00:24:18,875 I mean, I can tell you it is a remarkable moment in time 510 00:24:18,875 --> 00:24:22,836 in ways both fascinating and a little bit scary sometimes. 511 00:24:22,836 --> 00:24:24,557 Where are we headed next? 512 00:24:26,739 --> 00:24:29,259 Don't ask the historian to make predictions. 513 00:24:30,557 --> 00:24:32,180 You only look backwards. 514 00:24:32,180 --> 00:24:33,636 Well, yeah. 515 00:24:33,636 --> 00:24:34,636 So let me see. 516 00:24:34,636 --> 00:24:37,885 You know, I think, first of all, we have to preserve 517 00:24:37,885 --> 00:24:39,278 what we've got, okay? 518 00:24:39,278 --> 00:24:41,508 What we've got is a vibrant city, which we 519 00:24:41,508 --> 00:24:42,817 should take credit for. 520 00:24:42,817 --> 00:24:47,384 And I think, you know, it's important as we cry in our beer 521 00:24:47,384 --> 00:24:51,660 to remember the South Lake Union of 30 or 40 years ago. 522 00:24:51,660 --> 00:24:54,876 I was involved in the Seattle Commons effort when there 523 00:24:54,876 --> 00:24:57,959 was nothing down there except one-story warehouses 524 00:24:57,959 --> 00:25:00,616 with the windows busted out and parking lots. 525 00:25:00,616 --> 00:25:03,102 And when they first built the South Lake Union 526 00:25:03,102 --> 00:25:06,237 streetcar, it was called the Westlake to Hooters Express 527 00:25:06,237 --> 00:25:07,739 because there was nothing. 528 00:25:07,739 --> 00:25:12,317 I bought a Ride the S.L.U.T. T-shirt for my kids back then. 529 00:25:12,317 --> 00:25:14,837 There was nothing at South Lake Union except a Hooters. 530 00:25:14,837 --> 00:25:17,258 And there was no one on the streetcar except drunken 531 00:25:17,258 --> 00:25:20,239 businessmen going back and forth from the Westlake to Hooters. 532 00:25:20,239 --> 00:25:21,179 - Some things haven't changed. 533 00:25:21,179 --> 00:25:23,836 - Right, okay. 534 00:25:23,836 --> 00:25:27,919 So, you know, we have to think about how things have changed. 535 00:25:27,919 --> 00:25:30,097 Now, I think in terms of technology, 536 00:25:30,097 --> 00:25:33,048 we have lots of opportunities, for example, in 537 00:25:33,048 --> 00:25:34,239 artificial intelligence. 538 00:25:34,239 --> 00:25:37,876 If you think about the expertise at Amazon and Microsoft 539 00:25:37,876 --> 00:25:40,506 and the Allen Institute for AI and the University 540 00:25:40,506 --> 00:25:42,373 of Washington, we have a serious 541 00:25:42,373 --> 00:25:43,759 role to play in AI. 542 00:25:43,759 --> 00:25:45,576 We own the cloud. 543 00:25:45,576 --> 00:25:48,959 We have a lot of potential in neuroscience. 544 00:25:48,959 --> 00:25:51,660 We have a lot of potential in synthetic biology, 545 00:25:51,660 --> 00:25:53,636 the sort of work David Baker and his crew do, 546 00:25:53,636 --> 00:25:58,419 and also the Allen Institute for Brain Science, Cell Science, 547 00:25:58,419 --> 00:26:00,919 that is the non-AI Allen Institute. 548 00:26:00,919 --> 00:26:03,227 So there are a set of areas in which we can lead, 549 00:26:03,227 --> 00:26:04,440 space technology. 550 00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:06,519 And I think an important thing we have to do is, 551 00:26:06,519 --> 00:26:08,259 first of all, preserve what we've got, 552 00:26:08,259 --> 00:26:13,798 and secondly, honestly, think about the business climate. 553 00:26:13,798 --> 00:26:17,173 I'm a person who never voted against any tax 554 00:26:17,173 --> 00:26:19,239 initiative on the ballot. 555 00:26:19,239 --> 00:26:20,298 Charge me more, that's okay. 556 00:26:20,298 --> 00:26:22,538 I can afford it and I feel I owe it to the region, 557 00:26:22,538 --> 00:26:25,604 but the fact is that the climate has been pretty 558 00:26:25,604 --> 00:26:29,116 hostile to business in recent years in this area. 559 00:26:29,116 --> 00:26:36,336 And I think that we need to tackle that. 560 00:26:36,336 --> 00:26:39,576 That is, we need to telegraph that we want innovation. 561 00:26:39,576 --> 00:26:41,798 We want to be an innovative region 562 00:26:41,798 --> 00:26:43,959 without losing anything we've got. 563 00:26:43,959 --> 00:26:46,817 So you do that in a way that preserves and enhances 564 00:26:46,817 --> 00:26:50,679 the natural beauty, that raises everyone up. 565 00:26:50,679 --> 00:26:53,538 And when I think about a change that 566 00:26:53,538 --> 00:26:56,759 has been brought to the Washington Tech Industry 567 00:26:56,759 --> 00:27:00,077 Association in the past decade, it's the clear recognition 568 00:27:00,077 --> 00:27:03,519 that tech needs to help raise everyone up. 569 00:27:03,519 --> 00:27:06,597 You need a strong tech industry in a thriving community. 570 00:27:06,597 --> 00:27:08,896 And you can't have one without the other. 571 00:27:09,999 --> 00:27:11,116 What does history teach us here? 572 00:27:11,116 --> 00:27:12,317 What does history teach us? 573 00:27:12,317 --> 00:27:16,557 Well, yeah, that we should never take prosperity for granted. 574 00:27:16,557 --> 00:27:20,019 Every company becomes a dinosaur one day. 575 00:27:20,019 --> 00:27:22,603 Detroit was once the most innovative city in 576 00:27:22,603 --> 00:27:23,999 the world a century ago. 577 00:27:25,219 --> 00:27:26,459 Still a lot of innovation going on. 578 00:27:26,459 --> 00:27:26,896 Sorry, Detroit. 579 00:27:26,896 --> 00:27:30,919 But what we think is these things come and go. 580 00:27:30,919 --> 00:27:35,134 I think what I reflect on a lot now is how this AI moment 581 00:27:35,134 --> 00:27:39,160 is actually reminding us a lot of the importance of 582 00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:41,460 what humans do and the human. 583 00:27:41,460 --> 00:27:45,661 And what I care a lot about is, I think, what Seattle and 584 00:27:45,661 --> 00:27:50,236 Washington's advantage is, is this, you know, the culture 585 00:27:50,236 --> 00:27:54,434 here that has, you know, I think it is really important 586 00:27:54,434 --> 00:27:58,355 that this continues to be a hub of technology and of 587 00:27:58,355 --> 00:28:02,836 where AI is, and shaping what this AI moment is going to be. 588 00:28:02,836 --> 00:28:06,759 And reminding us of the importance of human flourishing 589 00:28:06,759 --> 00:28:10,122 and creating a place that, making sure that this is a 590 00:28:10,122 --> 00:28:14,538 place where people can come, where they feel they can stay, 591 00:28:14,538 --> 00:28:19,219 succeed, create, that it's fun, that it's accessible, 592 00:28:19,219 --> 00:28:24,113 that it is a place where we are not just ceding this 593 00:28:24,113 --> 00:28:28,346 to the forces of commerce, but actually keeping 594 00:28:28,346 --> 00:28:29,778 the human central. 595 00:28:29,778 --> 00:28:32,804 Well, I think creativity in art, in music, in 596 00:28:32,804 --> 00:28:35,959 retail, in technology, they all go hand in hand. 597 00:28:35,959 --> 00:28:38,200 We need them all, and we have to reinforce them all. 598 00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:41,683 And keep Seattle a creative and innovative 599 00:28:41,683 --> 00:28:43,719 place across all fields. 600 00:28:43,719 --> 00:28:44,317 That's right. 601 00:28:44,317 --> 00:28:46,278 That's what we have. 602 00:28:46,278 --> 00:28:48,356 Well, I think that's a great place to end. 603 00:28:48,356 --> 00:28:50,199 Ed Lazowska and Margaret O'Mara, 604 00:28:50,199 --> 00:28:52,117 thank you very much for joining us here today. 605 00:28:52,117 --> 00:28:52,939 Thank you. 606 00:28:52,939 --> 00:28:53,278 Thank you.