Fixing local problems in San Francisco is more impactful than national politics, and tech workers have a responsibility to engage in civic life

44:43try it again. >> They've done a great job. >> Yeah. >> Okay, last question you know, we talked a lot about kind of utopian visions for the world and problems that are maybe intelligence bound. You've also put a lot of energy into sort of local politics and doing things I think are very pro-social, but it seems like more of those problems are human coordination bound. >> Oh, definitely.

45:02>> Yeah, how do you get energy to do that work? You know, is there a white pill for that aspect of our society? Maybe talk a bit about that. >> I mean the white pill is just believing that America still has rule of law and that people in government are trying to help and like somewhat earnest. Like it's not perfect. I think that the white pill for me

45:22recently was even just doing jury duty in San Francisco and to see like this orderly process of really a cross-section of San Francisco. One thing I realized was like actually we are a big part of the city. Like we're 10 20% of the people are like directly working in tech. >> Yeah. >> And so um to see something that was I mean the judge was really good. I mean

45:48it was a horrible case, but like you know, government is not here to like ruin people. Like >> Yeah. >> And so and then at that point um we can vote. >> Yes. >> Like we actually have a say and then I think everything is downstream of media at that point. Like I think the San Francisco moment that got me very engaged was realizing you know Asian Americans are 25% of the

46:14voting populace about 30% of the population but during COVID like we had a district attorney who was turning a blind eye to some of the most heinous crimes against our elders and simultaneous to that we had a school board that was openly hostile against Asian American kids who just wanted to learn algebra in public middle school which hit me because I was that public school kid in Fremont

46:39in the East Bay. Like if I couldn't have taken algebra in middle school, I couldn't take calculus by senior year. I wouldn't have been able to study engineering at Stanford and I wouldn't be here doing any of the things I get to do today and I'm like oh okay now now they've made it personal and like let me understand and it turned out to be like sort of all the same people the same

46:58people who want to destroy all the data same people who don't want to build any housing in anywhere in California or the world. Like it's sort of Nimbys who want to virtue signal who sort of have these ideologies that like don't square with mine. I mean as a builder you like well you know words have meaning like supply and demand exists markets exist like incentives exist and then

47:27you know I think that government is what you know when people like us don't speak up when we don't like pay attention and like hold our media accountable not just the government then things get very deranged and that's what San Francisco was I think around COVID and then just by sheer organization like this is I think that like the Chinese of the West Side organizing around algebra and