The Feudal .
Future Podcast .
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Feudal Future Podcast . I'm Marshall Toplansky , I'm Joel Kotkin , and today we are going to be looking at a really interesting aspect of California , which is its brand .
California has built its brand around innovation , and Dr Ken Murphy , who was our guest today , and I just finished a research project called Is California Losing Its Mojo , and we're worried about the innovative character of California . So , joel , do you want to kick us off ? Sure .
I mean one of the things that has been something that's rescued California , particularly after the aerospace crash , has been high-tech and high-end business services . Are we losing our edge in those areas ?
Well , it's hard to say definitively as of right now , but the innovation index that Marshall and I and some others created together does indicate that certain metropolitan statistical areas MSAs , as you'll hear us refer to are not growing the way they were in the past .
So definitely , especially since COVID , we're seeing some definite , even declines in their level of growth .
Yeah , you know just an interesting sidebar on that . If you look at the state , metro area by metro area , the Silicon Valley area is doing just great , continues to thrive . Where the problem has arisen is everywhere else in the state .
So places like Los Angeles , Orange County , San Diego , Sacramento , all of whom had really strong innovation characteristics , they're dropping characteristics . They're dropping , In fact , some cases , not just from a market share perspective of they're losing out to other areas , but we're actually seeing real declines .
Well , the other thing I would wonder about a little bit is when you look at what's happening with jobs there's . I mean , silicon Valley does very well from the GDP perspective . I'm not sure that it's generating as many jobs as it once did . Otherwise , there are people getting really rich , but there are fewer of them .
Yeah , Silicon Valley is still a powerhouse . I mean , in all the data we look at , Silicon Valley is the number one sort of innovative job place . I should be clear about this . We use a set of job categories in our most of our analysis , which are 50 job categories . Um , and those job categories are we call the advanced industries .
Essentially , they have a high STEM component and a high investment in R and D . That's what makes them make the list and Silicon Valley still leads the country in that area . There's sort of no question that it's number one . But , like Marshall said , the other areas are declining a little bit and they are falling .
Well , and if you look at employment overall , which I know you're trying to ask the question of whether or not , even if they're doing well , is employment declining ? No , actually , they continue to do well , but employment is declining in these advanced industries elsewhere . The other worrying thing though that's just one indicator .
The other worrying thing and we found this in our research is if you look at what the innovative industries are actually producing from an economic perspective , right , are they , regardless of whether they're hiring people or not , hiring people , are they in fact producing more and what's the growth rate of that production ? This is a worry bead .
So , for instance , we looked at the information sector . Government breaks out the information sector , government breaks out the information sector for GDP , for gross domestic product , and what we found is that historically , california always , always , has outpaced the rest of the country in terms of economic growth , gdp growth In the information sector .
It's not , it's stopped . The rest of the country is actually now growing faster in that area . So that doesn't necessarily mean that you know it's a disaster area in Silicon Valley or California as a whole , but it does mean that others are out competing us .
Yeah , I was just in Austin , texas , and the atmosphere there in terms of startups Texas , by the way , most recent data was creating more high-tech jobs in California , which is unbelievable . If you've been studying this stuff as we've been doing for decades stuff as we've been doing for decades you know so are there .
So would it be accurate to say that in the innovation world , which had been dominated by California , california now leads , but , but it's sort of the old satchel page thing . But don't look behind , because there are people leaning on you .
Yeah , I mean , I would say that's accurate . You know , there's lots of reasons for it . I mean , part of it , I think , is the um . People can work from anywhere now , and so , and , and there's it's , there's a more of an I wouldn't say it's a hundred percent , but there's more of an acceptance of that .
And so if you , you know , can still work for a company that may be headquartered in Silicon Valley , but you could work from any place , maybe you want to choose a place that's less expensive to live , for example , which I think is exactly what's happening .
I think you're right . The other now . This is not a doom and gloom scenario . There are other indicators that are showing that California is continuing to be an innovation leader . One piece of data is the amount of venture capital money that is going into California Ventures and is coming from California .
So even in the worst case , where venture investors are deciding to put their money into investments in other states , the fact that the wealth is here and that the funds are here gives um , gives us cover fire but I think that this leads us to the more important issue in my mind , which is the neo-feudalist , which is you have an economy where there's a few
sectors that still are very strong .
I mean you've got , you know , three or four of the wealthiest companies in the world that headquartered within you know 20 miles of each other . I mean you know so that that that you have , but the rest of the state doing badly .
The fact that we , the you know aerospace , which used to be a big employer here in Southern California , that business and professional service growth is is low even in the Bay area . I think that that means that young people in California , particularly minority populations , they have no place to go in this economy . I mean , you know .
I mean how many you know PhDs from Indian Institutes of Technology can we keep employing ? How about the graduates of San Jose ?
State . I mean it's hard to say . I wouldn't paint quite as gloomy a picture as you would . I would say it's maybe our growth is slowing and that could portend bad things in the future . In other words , we're not growing the way we were , especially in San Diego .
We saw San Francisco .
Yeah , San Diego was a dominant in our sort of index that we created . San Diego was like number four in the country . It's starting to slip down now a little bit .
And you said Orange County as well .
Yeah , orange County has definitely slipped . I mean , I'm more familiar with Orange County because that's the one I think about the most . We were 11 or 12 when I first started tracking this a few years back , and now we're down to 16th in the ranking of 50 , the 50 largest .
And what would be a nicer place to live than San Diego ?
Yeah , oh , and , by the way , Los Angeles's decline is also quite precipitous .
I mean , Los Angeles is more tricky because you know industries like the media industry .
A lot of the media industry , film industry , is not in our index right , it's not considered an innovation industry and also having lots of problems , indeed , indeed , and that I think that personally , you know , if I were a leader in California I'd be worried about that , because , you know , reading these stories of sort of middle class participants in the industry ,
you know , makeup artists and all sorts of other technical people not being able to get their gigs that they used to get , and of course , their work is more piecemeal , right , they work project to project and now they're not being able to make ends meet . You know that's terrible .
Well , and part of that is because you know the law of ultimate competition has seen a growth of facilities outside of California . I mean , look at Atlanta as an example .
Well , I was just , um , uh , meeting with somebody from from who's a Hungarian and they're they've built two big studios in in outside budapest . Yeah , I mean , and if you take a look at movies , like you know , many of the movies that you watch now , particularly the , a lot of the streaming it's made in norway .
It's made in , yeah , but particularly in eastern europe bulgaria , romania , hungary where it's much cheaper because you know they're not on the euro well , and if you have talent , if you have irreplaceable talent , you can fly them to Bulgaria .
But much of the talent is highly replaceable .
Well , and one of the interesting things is that the high end , if you want entertainment talent , London can do as well as any place in this country and is much cheaper .
You know it's a little off topic , but when I watch I've been watching a lot more streaming lately . My partner watches a lot of streaming and what I noticed is the quality of what they produce and I like to watch movies in movies isn't as high as Hollywood blockbuster quality , but there's a lot of it you know , and there's a lot of demand for it .
You know you have all these streaming outlets . They all have to produce content , and so it may kind of make sense . We can't afford to do it in California , so we're going to do it in other places , and we have to do it quickly too , right ? We ?
have to do a lot of it . Well then , I think that parallels what you guys are seeing in tech . You know that other , you know other places are getting the basis of all the technology . They're getting the young people , because we know where millennials are going and we know where they're leaving .
And so , longer term , I'm a little bit concerned about this trajectory , even in tech and certainly in business and professional services , which is by far the largest highway .
Well , and we worry about as business school professors we worry about whether or not people are going to pursue business education if there's no opportunities or the opportunities have dropped . So it's definitely a high profile thing .
To me , the big question mark is AI , because you know , of course , there's every scenario about AI is going to put everybody out of work and we're going to go back to Luddite England and , you know , nobody's going to have a job at the looms anymore .
But what I see happening in AI is the platform wars of what platform you're going to use to be able to host your AI application on , and the core algorithms and guts of what goes into AI . That's kind of getting settled out .
We're seeing that consolidating among a relatively small number of players , but once that's done , you're going to start to see everybody develop applications for AI . And just like , if you think of the app world on your iPhone . There's a gazillion apps and that's keeping a lot of programmers going .
I'm thinking we're going to see a lot of AI application companies . Now the big question there is where are they going to be ? Is that going to be a California thing ? Is it going to be much more evenly distributed ?
That's the big question mark that's coming up , and we have an opportunity , by the way , as California , to actually actively participate in that evolution . I'm not sure we are . I'm not sure from a state policy point of view . Our policymakers are tuned into the opportunity that they have here .
So here's a question I'll ask both of you what do we do ? I mean , we're all Californians , we all want the state to do well . People think I mean , even though we may say another region is doing better , it's not because we want them to do better , we're just . It's just the facts . Ma'am , as you know , friday would say so .
So the question is this what can we do ? What steps could actually be taken by California to address this , this problem of the erosion of our lead in in high end , high end industry ?
Well , there's two parts right . One part is bringing the innovative ideas out from research and commercializing them right , and that might even include the innovative talent that you're talking about around AI , developing AI apps , for example .
The other part is sort of doing your business , so to speak , right , operating your business , the companies that you're creating Exactly . And I think in that part , california has a lot of challenges because of just the cost of doing business here and some other problems that have been pretty well documented .
Well , and it comes down to regulatory compliance and taxes at the end of the day . And so just as we've been saying , joel , for the last three years , that California needs to revise its regulatory regimen to allow growth to happen , it's no different here . The one thing that might be a little different , though , is the issue of subsidies .
So we're all worried that the movie business is going to move out , right . How do we handle that ? That the movie business is going to move out , right . How do we handle that ? We basically bribe the companies to stay here with tax incentives .
So then you're competing with everybody else , who- .
Right , who's also bribing ?
them Right . Who's also ?
bribing them right , and so I don't know , but it seems to me there are incentives that we could put in place for newly emerging software companies , like maybe it's a R&D tax credit , maybe it's some kind of incentive to hire more coders here or more programmers here Because that ties to the H-1B issue , which has become quite controversial , which is where I agree
with Musk that you know you want to have .
if you've got some brilliant guy from India or China and he wants to come to the United States , let's make him a citizen and bring him in . But a lot of the H-1B was taking jobs that used to go to San Jose State . We have got to provide a road of opportunity for our emerging working class and middle class populations .
Well , let's get ourselves out of the tech world for a moment and address that question of how are we going to get jobs for the rest of us ?
Right , and one of the things that came out of our research actually which is kind of interesting , which is a positive element is that the number of businesses forming and the number of new business applications is growing . And so where is that coming from ? That's coming from working class people who are basically saying , okay , I'm going to start something .
I'm going to take the entrepreneurial risk Right .
It could be anything from you know a taco truck to a new software company . But , that's a very , that's a very positive thing . Now , what are we doing to nurture those kinds of emerging businesses ?
I think nothing . I hear from every business you know , particularly when I'm in Texas . I'll say you know , I tried to do this in California and it took so long . I just moved to Austin and I did it in two days .
Right .
You know , I mean or Dallas or Houston , it doesn't really matter , we're in Texas . But what I'm trying to understand is why is there no focus on this ? I mean , if we're going to lose a lot of big corporations outside of tech , which has been definitely the case , then we have to substitute it with something else which is on the grassroots level .
Why is nobody focusing on that , and why do they keep adding more and more regulatory ?
So here's my theory about that . I just recently had a discussion with somebody that opened my mind to a new way of thinking about it . Here's what I think the political establishment is thinking .
How do you use the words political establishment and thinking ?
in the same sentence . Very good , so their mindset is it's a privilege to be in California this is what I think our state legislators think it's a privilege to be in California , as opposed to someplace else and along with that privilege comes the responsibility of supporting the rest of society .
And so , therefore , if you're going to get the privilege of opening a company in California , you're going to have to accept the burden of subsidizing the state , and I think that's just not going to get us where we want to go in terms of the growth mindset that we need to be able to create new jobs and companies , but I do think that's where the mindset is .
So if you ask why aren't we doing it , I think it's because I don't think the legislators have their minds tuned the right way .
Well , but I think there's also the factor A the vast majority of legislators , particularly in the Democratic majority , have no idea how the private sector works . I mean , they have no idea that well , if you artificially cap this , it's going to come out someplace else .
And the other thing that I think is really critical is that the legislators have imposed on California businesses saving the climate , for instance , which means if I'm running a business , let's say building give you an example building batteries Now that's supposed to be something you want .
Why does Elon Musk build them in Reno instead of building them in the San Joaquin Valley , where those jobs would be incredibly ?
positive Right . Well , I mean , that's pretty obvious right . Nevada doesn't have the same . You know Nevada has . Yeah , they have big , big , giant piles of nuclear waste in Nevada . I mean yeah . So , yeah , I mean it . It that's a good question . It sounds like when you talk about it it sounds like we're more like you're .
You know , we're more like Europe than the rest . You know , maybe , maybe we should split off from the country .
You know the premise . The premise here's one of the flaws in that logic of of it's a privilege to live in California . Therefore you have to do this . It may , in fact , be a privilege to be in California . We love California , right , we love the weather , we love the climate , we love physically being here . But it's not the only place you can be Right .
It's we're living in a competitive world . You know , people who move to Texas think it's a privilege to live in Texas . People who move to Oregon thinks it's a think it's a privilege to live in Oregon .
So it's not the exclusive , only good place in the world to live , and it may be the best place , but but there are other places that you could you could live that .
Ok . Maybe it's not as good , but don't impose the same burden on the other side of it right and so um . That kind of hubris is , I think , working against us I wouldn't be surprised .
I mean , you know , I'm not really historically from california , so I always feel like an outsider , even though I've now lived here for quite a while , like over 10 years , 15 years .
But you know , there is definitely this element of oh , california is the best , it's the greatest , and and living on those past laurels certainly isn't a good way to look at things , right , like what you know . You know it's very crowded , as we know Right , very expensive , very expensive to do anything , particularly housing , yeah , and housing's crazy , right .
So Well , and look at it as a business school professor . Look at the business model of California . This is kind of a classic innovator's dilemma problem . So we've built up a business here called california . The deal is and has been it's a privilege for you to live in california . Now support it . And so california has developed a ton of services for people .
That means the overhead of the state is extremely high not to mention the public pensions .
Well , but that's overhead of the state is extremely high , not to mention the public pensions .
Well , but that's part of the overhead . That's part of the overhead . So what that really means is if , on the margin , fewer people are going to be here or you're chasing people away who are the motive power behind being able to fund all of that , guess what ?
Even just a little bit of taking the foot off the gas pedal is going to put you into a financial tailspin , which , by the way , is what's happened in California right the only thing that's pulled us out of California is the fact that rich guys making money on capital gains in their AI stocks this year .
You know , kind of plug the gap a little bit Terrific , but is that something you can really count ?
on . I don't . I don't think that's a solid basis to have a business , and we're an aging state too , I mean . That's another thing . I mean I noticed I read an article recently that said we're about 62% participation in the workforce , where we were 67% not that long ago . So that's a bad sign . Yeah , that's a bad .
Well , it's you and I have talked about this for years . Are we going to turn into Hawaii , Right ? Basically , you know , are we going to basically be a bunch of old people who have money , who have money right , Can pay to have somebody push the wheelchair right Right .
Hopefully , the people who push the wheelchair can afford to actually live here to be able to . Otherwise , we have to use AI to push the wheelchair , but so that's what happens when you have an aging population . We're not the only place in the world that has had that profile issue right , and so it's a worry . It's a long-term worry . How do you fix that ?
Probably by incenting immigration . I was going to say Bring people in who are younger , who have more motive power , but this is the critical issue .
When our government talks about immigrants , they talk about people who cross the border illegally illegally , right , you know , most of whom have very minimal skills . There's a certain element that's criminal . I'm sure it's a small minority , but they're . They're there .
Um , yes , we need immigrants , we need people who can start businesses , we need machinists , we need people with skills , with skills and also people who have a profile of having been a hard worker , not committed crimes , right Indeed , and so , yes , with vetted immigration , I think that would be .
Well and I agree with you completely on the vetted side .
Of course , we don't want to import people that are going to be deleterious to the society , but the reality is , if you look at countries like China , who don't bring in a lot of people , or Japan , who don't bring in a lot of people , they're going through an environment of very low birth rates and their societies are actually in decline from an economic
perspective . Even China you know , china is expected to go from 1.2 billion people to 500 million people by the end of the century yeah I mean , that's a huge drop that comes from really not incenting immigration .
We would be in the same place it's sort of like managing the economy right like they . They over managed birth rate rate and they held onto the one child for too long .
Yeah , it was also also part of it . Is that in China and throughout Asia is they ? They have such high densities and things are so expensive ? I mean , you know Hong Kong has about the lowest birth rate in the world . Well , because you know , this is a luxury apartment , the studio is a luxury apartment .
The studio slash closet is a Right . I think one advantage that California has , though you know , from this perspective , from this context , is that we already have a great diversity of people from all over the world who live here .
And you know , just talking to some of my students and students that we have at University of California , Irvine , from China or from other places .
They even go to school in other places and they come back to California to go to grad school , for example , because they feel comfortable here , they feel their cultures are here , their restaurants , their food right , Because we may not realize , but even different parts of China have very different kinds of food and if you live in a town with one Chinese restaurant
, you don't have that .
Yeah , no , you're absolutely right . One of the big strengths of California is its cultural diversity . For sure , you know , and I agree with you .
I think that's what people , when I talk to people who have moved to places like Nashville their big complaint is that they don't have the multiplicity of cultures available to them in the same , at the same level that we have here . And so you know , ok , great , it's cheaper , but it's a different quality of life , right , right .
So it comes down sort of to your values , because I've heard people move to Texas and not like it , right , they realize that the weather's too oppressive for them , or something you know or you know or the weather and it's pretty crowded in texas too .
These cities like dallas and noston are pretty getting pretty packed yeah , yeah you know , and so , um , there's , there's different . Yeah , people have different values . I mean , I did have a colleague uh , maybe you knew her from chapman who , uh , her and husband moved . I think she was originally from Texas .
They moved back there and haven't heard a peep from them . They must be doing well .
They must be Well . One thought , as we kind of get to the close here is let me follow up on your values point of view and that is that you know , the solution to the problem of how do we create growth is really having the values of valuing growth .
Boy , that's perfect , because you know the question of the value . When Newsom talks about California values , it's about transsexual stuff or , you know , unlimited right to abortion . I'm not debating those issues . I'm saying this is what , or we're going to save the planet . You know , everybody's going to have to live off solar power .
That , to me , california values are what the California of Earl Warren or Pat Brown you know the California value is . I came from X and I came here and it changed everything that .
This was a land of opportunity where somebody comes from , you know , from Mexico , you know is a machinist , opens a little shop , builds up a business , buys a house in West Covina . That's to me what our value should be and I don't think those values are remotely endorsed by Gavin Newsom or the people around him .
Yeah Well , the question is whether or not it's endorsed by the majority of people and whether or not the political will of those people can actually be exerted to be able to change the the on the ground in the legislator . My personal feeling is I think more people really do relate to that .
I think that's part of actually what the Trump thing was all about , not so much any of the individual things , but it's the mindset of let's prioritize growth . I remember when he came in after the fires and did his news conference and basically said look , let's just get it done right , let's clean the place up , we'll do it in a week .
We want to rebuild , we want to make this stuff happen . That's very much of a growth mindset . Leaving aside all of the political unniceties of how he expresses it , I think he tapped into people's core beliefs that this is what we should be all about .
Well , there is definitely a shift . When I look at the survey data growing , I think only 40 percent of Californians approve of the legislature . For instance , Trump won the entire Central Valley on the IE . He won the IE for Inland Empire first time in almost 40 years that the Republicans have done as well . So something is happening .
The question is , can it be motivated ? And because the political establishment in California is so entrenched and you have voting laws where you don't have to show an ID and you have vote harvesting , you know the Republicans lost three seats in California , all of whom were winning on election day .
Yeah , but that's probably more just because you know Orange County , for example , where I think two of those three seats were right .
One .
One . Okay , we're just so purple , I mean , you know , we are just so middle of the road . I think . I think we all do believe that . You know we want to do better by our lives and by by we all do have those growth values . At the same time , you know , there's there's this pervasive , you know , worry about the social shifts on the other side .
I guess yeah , Well , the , the , the political , the political thrust is clearly out of sync with the social thrust in the United States . Right and so the fact that I read an article recently Trump won 93% of the rural counties in America 93% . Now , if you look at the economic environment in rural counties , it sucks right .
Employment is down farm it's actually doing considerably better than it was . But people are actually very worried about it and I think what they're thinking and this is the point that I wanted to make is that people , I think , are increasingly worried about the future and where things are going and what it's going to be like for their kids .
And , of course , ai is part of that . Yeah , right .
Of course it's . All these new things are worrying to people , yes , and I think what people are saying is you know , it's not working . The current political system is just working at odds with where we want to go economically and socially .
It's time to change things , and I think that's the environment we're in , and I don't think that the Democrats in California , for instance , have really tuned into that no , and I think the positive is that there are signs inside the Democratic Party of some rejection .
You have a new mayor of San Francisco . They removed the mayor of Oakland . You've gotten rid of some of the crazy DAs .
Yeah , I mean , failure is a great teacher , right ? And so what we're seeing is we're seeing the results of a set of failed policies and , of course , you're going to have rebirth and reconception if people want to stay viable , which you're going to have rebirth and reconception if people want to stay viable , which they're going to want to .
So do you guys think that California because we're more affluent than most other places are going to be slower to change because we can overcome issues ?
This is the innovator's dilemma . Problem , right , you're a victim of your own success , right , yeah , exactly .
But I think the problem is A we're not as wealthier as we once were , Right , and that wealth is extraordinarily concentrated both in the tech oligarchy and , frankly , in the three people like us . None of us are in the Zuckerberg .
League . Okay , could you call the jet ? Please Get it out ready to go .
But the thing that's very interesting is this huge group of people like us who , let me , bought our houses . I bought my first house in 1979 . Right , you know , and we've been able to trade up the young kids coming up . How are they going to buy a house or even pay ?
the rent . Their parents don't help them . It's not possible , right .
And in fact that's the whole point is that that wealth will transfer over right the you will . You will sell your house to your kid or , in essence , give them the equity that you've created .
We've already established that Right . I mean we've already established that Right right . I mean , I think of my daughter's future . I know that what we've saved and the value of our house will give them a leg up . I you know , from a sort of social Democrat's point of view , that's not what you really want to see , but as a father , as a parent , right .
Well , and let's get back to Ken's argument about is . Are we victims of our own success ? And so is it going to make it harder for us to change . And I think that you know social upheaval , political upheaval are the things that create the change , and we're already starting to see the seeds of both .
So , as dislocating as that may be , so were the 1960s , by the way , right , right , and what happened as a result of that was positive , positive change . I think this is the natural cycle of life and I think we're going to . We'll see it happen , even though it may happen a little later here because of the fact that we're resistant adopters ?
Yeah , a lot of times . These changes are somewhat painful too . I think , they're not always pretty . It was interesting . I went to the 60-year . It's their 60th year at UCI , so I went to this thing at the library yesterday . It was a little disappointing , honestly , but the one guy who spoke was really interesting . He told the history .
Evidently , uci was designed in a way so that they couldn't easily students couldn't easily gather and have protests there because they were looking over at Berkeley during the 60s .
And I guess the protests at Berkeley . And this was designed in 1960-something , right yeah , mid-60s .
I guess the protests at Berkeley started in the early 60s .
Early 60s and I went to Berkeley and it was well into the 70s . Of course , of course yeah .
So I found that fascinating , so maybe we're going to have to go through that again . I mean something .
I mean the problem we have is we have a one-party system .
Yes .
And the one-party system , because of the nature of primaries , tends to elect a certain kind of person and you don't have the competition that you have in other states , which means that you've got to be good at your game . I mean , Gavin Newsom is not particularly seen as a great governor , but how are you going to get rid of them ?
Well , you know , look , I think the thing that I see is that this is a natural phenomenon of long wave economics . Right , this is the way society has worked for centuries , where you have 60 , 70 , 80 years long wave .
Things happen within that time period , but ultimately it kind of comes back and comes back around after 80 years , and I think that's kind of where we're at right . We're now . The generations that created the environment that we're in now are dying off right .
The World War II people that actually came out of World War II in their 20s set the tone for society and now you know , are dead . Well , they're going to be replaced by something , and so that's kind of where we're at right now . But the question is will California maintain its innovative character through this fundamental change ?
So let's give Ken the last word .
I mean it's really hard to say . I think the university , you know not trying to brag , but I do think the university system in California is amazing and it's the largest employer in the state of California . There's 200,000 plus employees . There's more PhDs that work for the University of California than any institution on earth .
So in some sense we have the know-how here . The question is what we do with it , I think , and how we make it possible for that know-how to create new businesses . That was the other part of what I was mentioning earlier and how we then make sure those businesses have a positive economic effect on California .
Well , maybe he should run for governor . All right , I nominate him .
Ken , thank you very much for joining us , thanks for asking me , joel , I had a great conversation , as always , and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Feudal Future Podcast .