Why businesses need to engage in political processes | Jay Bregman | TEDxSalford
Summary
TLDRThe speaker shares their nervousness about discussing the intersection of politics and technology, challenging the Silicon Valley notion that startups should ignore regulation. Drawing from personal experience founding companies like 'Halo', they argue that engaging with regulators proactively is crucial for startups, especially in regulated industries. They highlight the importance of understanding the impact of new technologies on society and the role of politics in shaping future regulations, advocating for a proactive approach to create competitive advantages.
Takeaways
- 🤔 **Longest Applause:** The speaker starts by acknowledging their nervousness due to receiving the longest applause in the history of a four-year event and addressing the challenging topic of politics and technology.
- 📚 **Secret to Success:** The speaker discusses a concept from Peter Thiel's book, 'Zero to One', which suggests that successful businesses are built on secrets—something you believe is true that others think is false.
- 🔍 **Politics and Technology:** Contrary to popular belief in Silicon Valley, the speaker argues that politics and regulation are crucial for startups and businesses to consider, as they impact society and need to be engaged with proactively.
- ⏳ **Different Time Horizons:** Entrepreneurs and politicians operate on different timeframes; while startups often focus on short-term gains, politicians think in terms of years or decades, which influences how they regulate technology.
- 🚀 **Entrepreneurial Experience:** The speaker shares their entrepreneurial journey, starting from registering the domain classof2001.com to creating e-courier, emphasizing the importance of aligning with regulations to succeed.
- 🚖 **HALA's Success:** HALA, a service focused on connecting drivers and consumers efficiently, succeeded by addressing regulatory concerns from the start, engaging with regulators in cities like London and New York.
- 🏙️ **Different Regulatory Environments:** The speaker contrasts regulatory approaches in London and New York, noting that London's lenient stance contrasts with New York's cautious, lawsuit-prone environment, likened to Gotham City.
- 💼 **Regulatory Asymmetry Opportunity:** Regulatory differences can create business opportunities, as understanding and engaging with regulations can offer a competitive advantage in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.
- 🌐 **Impact of Emerging Technologies:** The speaker emphasizes that modern startups have a significant impact on daily lives and need to anticipate regulatory involvement to prevent challenges and gain market advantage.
- 🔮 **Future Business Opportunities:** The speaker suggests future businesses might capitalize on predicting regulatory changes, using this knowledge to create vast business opportunities by understanding how technology will be regulated.
Q & A
What is the speaker's secret about politics and technology?
-The speaker's secret is that politics and regulation are inevitable in the tech industry, and startups should engage with regulators proactively rather than ignoring them.
Why does the speaker believe startups should engage with regulators?
-The speaker believes that regulators will regulate whether startups are involved in the conversation or not, and being proactive can help shape regulations that are beneficial for both parties.
What is the difference in time horizon between entrepreneurs and politicians according to the speaker?
-Entrepreneurs often think about the short term, like the next year, while politicians commonly think about the next 10 years, which is the typical time frame for things to get done in politics.
What was the speaker's first entrepreneurial venture?
-The speaker's first venture was registering the domain name 'classof2001.com' in 1997 with the idea of creating a social network for college students.
What is 'e-Courier' and how does it relate to the speaker's entrepreneurial journey?
-'e-Courier' is a service that uses technology to improve the efficiency of courier companies, allowing customers to track their deliveries. It was a stepping stone for the speaker to later create 'Hala'.
What was the core idea behind 'Hala'?
-The core idea behind 'Hala' was to connect people with service providers efficiently through just a couple of taps, starting with taxi services and expanding to other types of transportation and services.
Why did the speaker and their partners decide to engage with regulators before launching in London?
-They engaged with regulators to understand their concerns, such as safety and the impact on the ecosystem, and to proactively address these issues before they became problems.
What was the outcome of engaging with regulators in London for 'Hala'?
-Engaging with regulators in London led to the creation of services for the disabled and ensured that only licensed drivers were on the platform, which eventually became part of the official regulations.
What was the difference in regulatory approach between London and New York as described by the speaker?
-In London, the regulatory approach was more about clarifying existing legislation, while in New York, it resulted in a multi-million-dollar lawsuit and a more detailed set of regulations due to a more cautious and stringent regulatory environment.
Why does the speaker think there is an opportunity to create businesses based on regulatory asymmetry?
-The speaker believes that regulatory asymmetry is not going away and that understanding and navigating these differences can provide a competitive advantage and a business opportunity.
What advice does the speaker give for future businesses in terms of politics and regulation?
-The speaker advises future businesses to consider the societal impact of their services, engage with relevant politicians and regulators proactively, and potentially use knowledge of future regulations as a business advantage.
Outlines
😨 Embracing the Intersection of Politics and Technology
The speaker begins by expressing their nervousness due to the high expectations set by the audience's applause and the sensitive topic of politics and technology. They challenge the Silicon Valley notion that politics and regulation are antithetical to startups, sharing a secret from Peter Thiel's book 'Zero to One' about the importance of secrets in business foundations. The speaker believes that engaging with regulators proactively is crucial for businesses, especially those with societal impact, as ignoring them can lead to unforeseen consequences. Drawing from personal experience, they highlight the different time horizons of entrepreneurs and politicians and the importance of being part of regulatory conversations.
🚔 Navigating Regulation in the Transportation Industry
The speaker recounts their entrepreneurial journey, starting with a college social network idea and moving to e-courier, which led to the creation of 'Halo', a service designed to connect people with providers of goods or services. They emphasize the importance of engaging with regulators early on, using their experience with taxi drivers in London as an example. They discuss the concerns of regulators regarding safety, licensing, and ecosystem impact, and how addressing these concerns proactively led to the inclusion of services for the disabled in their product. The contrast between the regulatory experiences in London and New York is highlighted, with New York's more adversarial and detailed approach leading to a lawsuit. The speaker concludes by emphasizing the importance of understanding and engaging with regulation as a competitive advantage and the potential for businesses to be created around regulatory asymmetry.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Politics and Technology
💡Regulation
💡Peter Thiel
💡Secrets
💡Silicon Valley
💡Hailo
💡E-Courier
💡Disabled Access
💡New York vs. London
💡Regulatory Asymmetry
Highlights
The speaker is phenomenally nervous due to the longest applause in the event's history and discussing politics and technology.
The speaker read Peter Thiel's book, 'Zero to One,' and emphasizes the importance of secrets in founding big businesses.
The speaker believes the secret is that politics and regulation should not be ignored by startups.
Regulators will regulate regardless of startup involvement; it's crucial to engage with them early.
There is a vast difference in time horizons between entrepreneurs and politicians.
The speaker has a background in entrepreneurship, starting with registering the domain classof2001.com in 1997.
The speaker's venture, e-courier, improved courier efficiency using technology and laid the groundwork for Hala.
Hala focused on providing efficient transportation services through technology, emphasizing driver needs.
Engaging with regulators early helped shape Hala's business model and address concerns such as safety and licensing.
Regulators in London were concerned about safety, licensing, and the impact on the ecosystem, leading to product adaptations.
Hala also focused on services for disabled individuals, integrating their needs into the product.
Hala's engagement with regulators ensured that licensed drivers were the only ones on the system, aligning with safety concerns.
In New York, regulatory challenges were more intense, involving multi-million dollar lawsuits.
The speaker highlights differences in regulatory attitudes between London and New York, reflecting views on human nature.
The speaker believes future businesses can capitalize on regulatory asymmetry, using knowledge about potential regulations as a competitive advantage.
Transcripts
so the truth is following that i'm
phenomenally nervous um
for two reasons one because uh it was
said to be the longest applause ever in
the history of this four-year event
and the second because i'm going to talk
to you about politics and technology i'm
actually going to take one of your
favorite words technology and i'm going
to mix it with a word that you might not
find quite as appealing
and i'm going to tell you why
so i was on the train up here and i was
reading peter thiel's book peter thiel
being an ex-operator at paypal
one of the first investors in facebook
and he wrote a book called zero to one
and in that book he actually has a very
interesting part where he talks about
secrets he says every big business that
existed is founded on a secret something
that you know to be true that the
outside world thinks is false
so i believe i've got a secret and i
wanted to share it to you because i
believe that maybe you can use it to
found an extremely big business and i
believe a lot of businesses can use it
to become even bigger than they are
so the secret is about politics the
traditional vogue thinking in silicon
valley is that politics and regulation
and startups simply don't mix and they
shouldn't mix that startup should ignore
regulation i don't believe that that is
true
my experience is that regulators are
going to regulate whether you're in the
conversation or not whether you're in an
industry that is currently regulated or
will be regulated if you have an impact
on society politics will be there and if
you are not engaged in those
conversations there will go on without
you and ultimately although it may take
days years
for those for those blowbacks to be
certain they will come and that's
another thing about why i think politics
and regulation or politics and
technology haven't mixed well
is there is a vast difference in time
horizon when you're an entrepreneur
thinking about next year unless it's you
know a minute to midnight
is a lot
when you're a politician thinking about
next year or next quarter about next 10
years is commonplace because that's the
amount of time that it takes for things
to get done
so let me tell you about a little bit
from my own experience uh building a
couple of different companies so by way
of background i've been an entrepreneur
for as long as i can remember i actually
registered the domain name
classof2001.com when in 1997 when i was
about to enter college
therefore with the idea that you could
have a social network that kind of
connects people in college if you catch
my drift um from from one place to
another
starting universities and eventually
taking over the world but i missed that
boat then i started something called uh
e-courier and e-courier is still around
um in london although it has different
owners e-courier is a service that is
not regulated that uses couriers to
basically uh or uses technology to
improve the efficiency of courier
companies and allows you to actually see
where your courier is
and really out of that grew the idea for
what would become hala
which was really all about two taps to
taxi or two taps to transportation and
pretty soon two taps to anything the
idea was long before people would view
this as commonplace that basically
out in the world there were many many
people that wanted to provide you things
that basically were very very
inefficient that had lots and lots of
free time and there were many many
people that wanted things that basically
you could connect them to
so me and my partners found three taxi
drivers which we went out and uh terry
russ and gary who were basically trying
to do a very similar thing
um and basically they came up with this
idea that you should basically focus
squarely on the needs of the driver on
the needs of the supplier of the
provider of whatever good or service it
was and that by doing that and by
creating a happy pool of people who were
ready to provide services that was the
best way to make
people happy as consumers but we
recognize that this was a regulated
industry that we were going to basically
run into and we're going to have to
engage with regulators so we didn't wait
what we did was we went and talked to
them even before they called upon us and
i think that this is a really important
thing to do
first of all it teaches you what's on
their mind and i'm going to tell this
story through the lens of new york and
london since london is where the
business grew up and new york is where i
live right now
so we went and talked to regulators and
they were concerned in london where we
started about a couple of things they
were concerned about safety they were
concerned about making sure that only
licensed drivers were on the system they
were concerned about how this would
affect the ecosystem and so basically we
went to them we talked to them and out
of that came actually a couple of
interesting things
one is
the ability to provide services for the
disabled so basically we had always had
this in our agenda and had been a
personal passion of mine to make sure
that things like halo could be used to
basically allow people who were of
disabilities who couldn't walk to be
able to provide
match them with service providers who
could as there are only some taxis in
any city that can provide service to
disabled people
and so we went out and found you know
tons of people who were disabled we
talked to them we found out what their
needs were and we built a product around
that and sure enough that would become
part of the eventual regulations that
regulators would have for this product
or service
so the second thing was allowing
licensed drivers now this is something
that basically we would have done anyway
and we already did so basically it's an
exemplar of a lot of the rules and
regulations you will run into are things
that you would have already have done it
wasn't to our advantage to basically
allow unlicensed drivers onto the system
and the reason was is basically that
would make if anybody had an accident or
had an insurance claim that would
basically cause a lot of bad things to
happen
like i said i'm incredibly nervous
following that act
uh
so so anyway we went to new york and we
tried we launched in london was very
very successful there were lots of
people who were using it and we had data
and so we went to new york and what was
interestingly these very same principles
and the very same conversation that
occurred at some windowless offices in
transport for london in london became
actually you know a major multi-million
dollar lawsuit in new york
and
of course it's new york style
and why is that well the reason is that
i think when i think about regulations
and the difference between new york and
london i think that really it's
reflective of what people's view is of
human nature
so if you look at silicon valley you
know i think their view of human nature
is one of idyllic you know it's kind of
reflected by the campuses that they have
right people are good we hire good
people everybody is smart everybody's
well off everybody's well educated
and therefore why would people ever do
bad things
if you look at some place like london
the generally their attitude is look as
long as it's not hurting anybody it's
probably okay
at least that's what we we found in our
microcosm of the world or so we like to
think about
in new york it seems like it's batman's
gotham to anybody or any regulator there
it's i'm gonna think about the world
from the perspective of the most you
know harmful possibly demonic person and
then think about how that might be done
and ask you how your product or service
addresses that um and so what was a
couple of pages of existing
clarification of existing legislation in
london became tens of pages and
literally a lawsuit by the other by the
the um
by the private hire association against
the regulator to basically get to a
conclusion that said exactly what london
had already said before uh you know
absent all that that that but i guess
that's a conversation that you still
have to have in my view and i certainly
don't regret anything about you know us
going through and having those
conversations
in fact i think that basically
there will be the opportunity in the
future for people to create businesses
all about this regulatory asymmetry
because it's not going away
the reason why i'm having this
discussion about politics and technology
is because people are creating services
now that have an impact on people's
lives that is perennial greater than
they ever would you know one-year-old
two-year-old companies are starting to
impact the way that you actually go
about your daily habits
versus something that is say just a kind
of substitute for television or anything
else not to name you know any names
so and i think mobile technology is
definitely bucking that trend so when we
think about what things are going to be
like in the future and you think about
what businesses you're going to create i
think you have to think about what
impact on society is it going to have
and therefore which politicians and
which regulators are going to basically
deal with this
and then try and get to them before they
get to you
or before your competition does because
i think ultimately that's what's going
to create a competitive advantage in the
future
i also believe that it is possible that
basically someone could create a
business based on this lack of knowledge
about regulation and basically knowing
more about how a technology was going to
be regulated in the future than it
actually was
so what do i mean by that well if you
take another area of technology that you
think is going to be regulated in the
future and you really think about it and
you think about well look this is going
to be regulated how are the regulations
going to fall what kind of help do the
regulators need in order to do this
then potentially that in and of itself
is the opportunity to create a vast vast
business
and so anyway
i'm really nervous but that's my secret
and that's what i wanted you to know so
thank you guys very much
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