Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio, and welcome to my new timeslot. The Carol Markowitz Show now airs Wednesdays and Fridays, so you can get this non political podcast, The Carol Markowitz Show on Wednesdays and Fridays, and then normally the political podcast I co host with Mary Katherine Ham every Tuesday and Thursday. The only day you don't get me is Monday. There was an article in The New York Times a few days ago that
caused a stir. In it, a feminist playwright argues that women focused too much on wanting men to be breadwinners, and the men weren't succeeding at the same rate as women were forced to vote for Donald Trump. On My political show Normally yesterday we got into the politics of it, and how funny it is that The New York Times is blaming women for not wanting to settle for Trump selection. But here I want to talk about the culture part.
I know this is supposed to be a pro woman article, but the writer ends up arguing that women should lower their standards. How is that pro women? She writes that women should quote let go of the male breadwinner. Norm do women want a man who can take care of them? Yes, of course, but what does that really mean. Once stat in the piece is that men like when women make up to forty percent of their pay, but no more so.
It's also funny because they get into women wanting a provider, but then blame the men for wanting a woman that they could provide for as well. My husband sent me that stat and wrote, He'll set aside his pride and let me go to two hundred percent. Haha. But that's the thing. If I do make two hundred percent of what my husband makes, he won't be threatened by it and he won't be taking care of me any less. The question really is what happens if my two hundred
percent goes to zero? Because what I think goes on said in studies on income and that kind of thing, is that in the back of the minds of many women is the idea that they may want to step away from their high earning role to be with their children. I know plenty of super type A doctors and lawyers who gave it all up to be with their kids. But you can only do that if your husband makes
enough to support the family. But we don't talk about that because it's easier to have gender wars and talk about how men aren't thriving and how women have to tone down their ambition for them. But that's really not it at all, And to flip it to the man's perspective, I think the idea if a woman is making two hundred percent the man's salary is that she just won't
be there. Very often men have a vision for how their family life will go if their women is a higher earner, and it might not be appealing to them. When my husband jokes about me making two hundred percent of his pay, he means and key being the same hours I currently have and travel and all the rest of that that I do. Now my workday every day is done by three pm, so I can pick up my kids from school and be with them. Not sure he should be counting on that two hundred percent anytime
soon if he wants that to continue. One thing I talk about on this show is what we want versus what we're supposed to want. If you want to be a wife who will be home with the kids more often than not, yes, you will be looking for a man who makes more money than you. Do to support you and the family. But it takes admitting that to yourself, and then it takes not listening to the New York Times when they tell you to settle for less. Coming
up my interview with a Jeet Pie. But first, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, which is you a blessed beginning of the holiday season as you gather with your families, grateful for the blessings that God has given us all.
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eight eight four three two five. Welcome back to the Carol with Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is a jeep Pie, former FCC chair and current partner at Searchlight Capital.
So nice to have you on, Aje.
Great to be with you, Carol, Thanks for having me on.
I'm going to have to start.
The first question is the obvious one. Why did you destroy the Internet? What was the problem? We liked the Internet and then you like took it away from us.
Why.
I know, I've always thought in life that one should set big goals and then really try your best to accomplish them. And for me, there was no bigger goal, you know, since the dawn of the commercial Internet in the nineteen nineties, then getting rid of it. So yeah, I did everything I could during my time in office
to do so. But it was kind of funny looking back on it now, like all the hyperbolic stuff twenty seventeen, twenty eighte eight about how we were destroying it it's pretty obvious now in twenty twenty four that wasn't something I succeeded at.
But you again and tried real hard, and you know, I just didn't quite get there. But seriously, looking back at that time, it was crazy.
You getting threats, You had people coming to your home.
The hysteria was like nothing I had seen before for an issue like that, like, you know, judicial appointments, maybe wars, an FCC chair.
I don't even think I could name our FCC chair right now.
I don't know who it is.
Yeah, So that was kind of a crazy time.
It really was. And I was just talking about this with some of my former teammates a couple of weeks ago. It's kind of odds and funny to look back on it now, but at the time it was pretty all consuming. As you pointed out, it was not pleasant for me and my family, and a couple of people went to jail as a result of it, one for threatening to murder my kids. You had to spend money, thousands of dollars on that security system from my house. It is down in the safe room. My personal email was act
you're just going around. I had to have security, which is not my norm you know, like I like to be unadorned and you know, meet people and be friendly, and so it was just a really awful time for
me personally and for our team generally. And yeah, no to me, at least now with their benefit of hindsight, it's pretty obvious now that there's sort of a paranoid style among a certain segment of the American populist that they'll pick a random issue that is typically chosen by some so called comedian or a grandstanding politician or a self interested so called a public interest group, and they'll just say, this is the apocalypse if we don't stop it,
and you know, the world's going to end, and whoever is the leading the change in that regard is going to become the devil incarnate for that day or week or month or year. And so, you know, it passed on for me, and now it's on to other people. And I'm quite sure when the new administration takes over, they're going to be plenty more people who are the
focus of their eyre. I would love to see a day when the public discourse actually focuses on the merits of an issue and try to look at soberly what the puts in takes are it's kind of that's so adorable. I know that's not going to happen, but you wouldn't expect it. Going from the Title one Title C classification of broadbanded Title one would like lead millions of people to lose their minds. That's so here we are.
Yeah, so you really miss it. Obviously.
I don't miss that issue, but I do miss the work we did. We really got a lot done during those four years. And now it's kind of gratifying when I see people in airports or grocery stores and they recognize me, we'll act you point out something we did that has made their lives scatter. It's kind of nice in a way. It's not something you typically hear as a former.
Federal regulator, right, And I don't feel like that's not typical at all.
So I first, I mean, you were the FCC chair.
I knew who you were, but I first heard you at the Reason dinner in New York.
Now, people who don't know Reason is a libertarian magazine. Conservative but I love those crazy libertarians and I love going to their stuff. It's always the best parties. Libertarians really do host the best parties. So you spoke at that dinner and you were really funny, and I was like, oh, I didn't know they do that in.
The federal government. So how did you get into this world?
What was your because you don't seem like the cutout, you know, bureaucrat guy.
You seem like you're maybe destined for more.
Well, you're very very kind. I think if you asked my mom, she would say I still haven't accomplished my true calling, which is to go to medical school and finally make something myself.
As he got it Russian Indian culture sort of similar. Yeah, everybody should be a.
Doctor exactly one hundred percent. Thanks for the kind of words about the reason dinner. That was such a great night, and I still remember that the aura in that place, the Art deco look of the place, and the good time that was had by all. And so I would like to think there's something more than my libations that made me funny. So I'm glad, but are good too, absolutely, But yeah, no, for me, it was really I sometimes joke that I'm the Forest Gump of the DC world.
That I moved to Washington in nineteen ninety eight not really knowing anybody other than my lost roommate, and not really knowing what I wanted to do other than work at the Justice Department, which is the reason I moved here to work on antitrust in telecom M and A in the late nineties. Didn't have a plan beyond that, and just kept going from job to job and increasing levels of responsibility, increasing levels of interest to me and public sector in private sector, and just happened to be
in the right place at the right time. In twenty eleven, when Senator McConnell's office called and said, Hey, would you been interested in interviewing for this position? There's going to be an opening, A lightning struck, And then of course lightning struck again in twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen when President Trump Donald Trump was elected president. Then he in January, once inaugurated, he designated to be as chairman of the Agency.
Free It is medical school next right that this it's the table hair.
But no, no, certainly not that. But I feel extraordinarily blessed, and to the point that I see you often voicing on Twitter and others too. There's something really unique about this country that there are things, there are paths like that that can happen if you can worked hard, if you believe, and if you just embrace that opportunity that America offers you, and it's there's nothing like it in the world. I know that family is far flong, from
India to Australia to the UK. There's something special about the US, there absolutely is.
So what advice would you give your sixteen year old self if you're you know, doing this all over again?
My god? I mean, the first thing would be to try to address some of the aesthetic challenges that confronted me when I was sixteen, nineteen eighty nine. Mustache, braces, bushy hair, it was a total disaster. But overlooking that, I would say, you know, really just keep your nose to the grindstone and do the best you can and
whatever the job is that you're doing. And I know it sounds mundane, but at that time, as kind of a scrawny Indian kid in rural Kansas in the late eighties, never even occurred to me that somebody like me could be in a position or to have a career path that I've had. It just seemed like that was so far out of reach, and my parents were really focused on the medical they're both doctors. They're just focus on very They had no idea. It never seemed to me
that that was something that I could get into. And so just really work hard and have faith that when the time comes, the door of opportunity will open and you'll be ready to go through it. And I think a lot of kids now, especially now in the social media age, think, Okay, there's always going to be a very quick and easy path to think incremental and painful gains are just not worth it or not likely to
yield things. I tend to be a believer in sort of the professional version of compound interests, that you know, if you keep building and adding to your resume and working hard and impressing your bosses, that pays major dividends at the end of the day.
How did your family end up in Kansas?
So there were both doctors. They in those days, I was born in Buffalo, that we moved to Canada for three years. And at the end of our time in Canada. In those days, medical journals advertised in the classified section at the back, we needed a doctor in this hospital. Here's the salary. Contact us for information. And they were looking for a hospital that needed both of their specialties,
my dad's e relogius, my mom's nanciodyelgist. So they found three hospitals that qualified, went in Montana, went in Texas, and went in Kansas. And they flew to Kansas and I think it was late seventy seven to take a look at the town. And they were like, this is it. We don't even need to look at here in Texas.
So they moved there, didn't know anybody. And I still remember very vividly moving to our new house and yeah, I'd been used to relatively big cities Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, and I've never seen a place like this, and it at first it was kind of jarring, of course as a four or five year old kid, but it was the greatest decision they could have made. I think that was the perfect place for me and my sister to be at that time, especially given my personality the way
I kind of developed. I know it sounds hard to believe, but I was really shy and awkward and in proverted it let me, I know, I know, but it really blessed. It was a blessing in disguise, and it had things like, you know, a really good debate program, and a fantastic orchestra teacher. I play violin and so that helped me develop. It was just a great, great place to grow up
and just being out in the country. We live on a dirt road outside of town, so yeah, getting time to just walk around in the outdoors was fantastic.
It's amazing.
I've never been to Kansas. It's definitely somewhere that I've had on my list.
I've heard just everybody who's ever been from there is like it is the greatest state. It just gets a kind of reputation for people defending it and like saying amazing things about it in a way I think.
A lot of other states don't.
Some people call it Kansas, some people call it's Guts Country. It's really really whichever one you prefer.
You guys, you know you have a good football team. Although is do they play in Kansas or they playing Missouri.
They technically play on the Missouri side, which more not just East coast, friends remind me. But it's right off the state line, and so yeah, and you're the best barbecue, I would argue it is on the Kansas side of the border. So it's yeah, the greater Kansas city metro area. I think Kansas claims for its own I got it.
Yeah, I mean Missouri like stole the name. They how do they even go around calling it Kansas City.
It's ridiculous, It's yeah, no, And that's the thing I never, I never, like take any flak from some of these East Coasters and mock us red. Look, the Midwest is just a haven for greatness, and don't be jealous with all we accomplished. Just try to embrace it. And there's plenty of room on the bandwagon for you, right.
I mean, especially now like the traffs Kelsey.
You know, my daughter was a Travis kelce pan before she was a Taylor Swift fan, but now she's obviously extra like she's like, this is the greatest coupling of all time.
So my daughter was a chief fan too, but it's definitely amped up ever since he started dating Taylor Swift. It's as incredible.
Yeah, they really have a good thing going more coming up with a jeet. But first, Americans are tired and frustrated by a stalling economy, inflation, endless wars, and the relentless assault on our values. Thankfully, there's companies like Patriot Mobile that still believe in America and our constitution. I'm proud to partner with Patriot Mobile because they are on the front lines fighting for the First and Second Amendments, sanctity of life, and our military and first responder heroes.
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So were your parents immigrants to the US they were so.
Yeah, they moved here in nineteen seventy one. My dad came in May, my mom in December. Yeah. They in those days you had to as medical students who just graduated, get to redo your residency, and that's why they moved Canada. I was born in Buffalo, where they moved, but then a year later we moved to Kanada so they can do the residencies. And then once they were done there, they were just sick of Pierre Trudeau's socialism, moved right back to the US and be a state here ever since.
And you will never find a more die hard group of American loving people than those like them. And I'm sure you've seen it in your family too.
Sure, Yeah, I.
Have a very similar story. My father was a doctor. We moved her from the Soviet Union. He had to redo all the exams, drove a cab like you know, I had to read your residency in the whole thing.
It's incredible, isn't it. I'm sure you hear stories from him too. But because they know what the delta is between where they left and where they are, and nobody takes that for granted in that generation. So I wish we could do have that same ethos, but right, and I'm so used to it now, I think a lot of us do take it care.
So how do you instill that in your kids? Because I think about that all the time.
My kids live this magical American life and they've never known anything else, and they've never had, thankfully, any serious strife. Right, But if you never have strife, how do you raise kind of grateful children who become well functioning adults.
It's hard, and I wouldn't benefit of being the d area is that I can tell them and show them a lot of these things. So we go to Arlington National Cemetery for example, Memorial Day, or we walk around the Washington Monument and talk about President Washington. Or when we're on the road, I've taken them to Independence Hall in Philadelphia and we've done the three hour tour where
we just go through yea even small things. We were in Arizona for spring break this past year and after we hike Campbell back Mountain nine sister that we go to the Bury Goldwater Memorial and they're grousing like, oh, we're tired. It's odd, both like, no, You've got to go out and see this memorial and we just started talking about Goldwater's life. And so my hope is that they're not tuning out all of that because such an
important aide. They're thirteen and eleven now, and I really want to make sure that before the onslaught of America slucks comes at them, that they have a core foundation of believing in what this country is. Even if we're imperfect at times, we are always seeking to build a more perfect union. And there's something special about that that I want them to to remember.
Yeah, I mean, if it makes you feel better. I went through an America sucks phase in my late teens.
I was in Europe.
They all said America sucks. I just agreed, but you know, very quickly I was like, wait, America's actually awesome. I don't know what you guys were talking about. So they you know, even if they do end up going through that phase, good chance they come back around because we are kind of amazing.
And you know, facts are facts.
Really absolutely, I know if you ever think about this, but we are the luckiest human of all the humans who have ever existed on this earth. We're living in We're in the top zero. Here's there's or zer a one percent of people who've ever had it as good as we have it, and yet somehow we always think that things are terrible and getting worse, and it's yeah, there's so many worse places to be than America in
twenty twenty four. So I certainly want my kids to remember that, you know, yeah, a lot of people have had it a lot worse than.
You, absolutely and still do.
Right.
I mean again, you're right.
We get to be the point zero zero zero one percent who greatest country in the history of you know, the world. I think this is so funny, you know, immigrant and child of immigrant having a conversation like America's the best.
Yeah, America is the best, just the greatest. It's so good.
And the thing is, like, I want my kids to be able to have the same conversation, but I don't think that they can.
I just don't feel like the longer you get away.
From the immigrant experience, the harder it gets to be so unabashedly patriotic. And I just see I even get it.
From like my friends, like, oh, you're an immigrant, Like obviously you think America is the best ever, but it's it's tough to maintain.
It really is isn't it. And so that's why I hope I wish there was some sort of in school, there was some sort of civic education that really was strong and not totally non partisan. Of course, no, you know, raw Raw this team or that, just teach them the very very basics. And we had that I don't know if you did when I was in what six or seventh grade, and you memorize the Preamble to the Constitution
and things like that, and it was great. I remember once we an exercise we had to study the Bill of Rights and pick our favorite amendment and describe why and things like that may eyes at the time, but it's like, yeah, it was. It was a great experience. But yeah, no, I think I really hope my kids and all kids, right, we really embrace that. We're very very fortunate.
Florida has a very good civic education program in schools. And so every episode, you know, I try to convince my guests to move to Florida.
So if you're if you're interested in that sort of thing, you let me know.
I have to say my firm has an office in Florida. Whenever I do calls with my colleagues down there. The sun is shining, they seem happy. Ah, everything seems good and warm and bright, and so I definitely see the appeal, especially when as now it seems to be getting dark here in Virginia at four thirty in the afternoon. I'll keep it.
We get a little bit more daylight. I think we get dark around five thirty, So it's it's a little.
Bit better here, but I'll take it. I'll take it.
So what do you worry about?
I worry about a lot. I know, first and foremost worry about my kids and where they're going to go and what they're going to end up doing. And some of it is linked to some of the technological trends. I see that in a world where things like AI are disrupting the workplace more than ever before, what are they going to find when they finish college or if they go to grad school, and what will they end up doing that's going to be productive. I do worry about the fraying of the bonds that used to hold
Americans together. I know that the plural of anecdote is and data, but I'm always struck when I go to my high school Facebook page that this group of us who has been pretty tight since in some cases of the late seventies and never discussed politics all that often, at least in a serious way, is now starting to come apart because people are attacking each other over politics, and that is really unhealthy, I think for our country.
And I'm sure you've seen it too over the last week, some people saying I'm going to cut off this family member and never speak to the game they voted for X. I mean, that's just they're many more important things than politics, which sounds odd for me to say, given where I had this.
True, Yeah, it's so.
I do worry about that quite a bit. And then yeah, I know, I just worry about all kinds of different things like that, the list, I know. Yeah, I don't know if that resonates with you or others out there, but it's just.
So, Yeah, I absolutely I talk about that a lot on the show and my monologues about not praying with family.
Especially because arguments with your.
Family over Thanksgiving about politics are just not going to solve anything. No one is leaving Thanksgiving being like wow, that was a great point, you know, And now I'm more to change my perspective having respectful conversations and not allowing things to get kind of you know, Hayden is
so important. I had a kind of a fractured family growing up, and just the idea that we would fall out over politics is hilarious because there's so many other things to fall out, exocus on those, you know, and ultimately we're like in a rock, you know, in a rock floating through space. Like, don't spend your time fighting with your mother about whatever the.
Political agenda of the day. Everything is kind of more important on the ground.
I couldn't agree more. And especially now as I'm reaching this age when my parents and their friends are getting older and I start to appreciate more the limited duration of our time a lot really underscores that your family is what matters the most, and right politics is the last thing you should be thinking about. Is being a litmus test for whether you're or not.
And you're likely taking your political positions to protect your family, and then you're going to throw them away if they don't agree with your politics.
Like that makes just no sense to me.
Yeah, well, I have loved this conversation.
You are hilarious, and I think you should go to medical school and be a really funny doctor. Leave us here with your best tip for my listeners on how they can improve their lives.
That's a really good question. I would say, Gosh, there's so many things I could I could pick here. One is to try to read long form articles. This has become increasingly difficult for me in their kind of things like Twitter, when you read everything in two hundred and eighty character chunks. But what I found in recent years is really digging into long form articles or books ideally, but yeah, that's almost going.
To say there's this really long form thing that we have.
No, I've always given up hope on books, but I mean I read a lot of nonfiction books, which are great, but yeah, just try to really dig into something, especially if you might disagree with it. And I found that I've actually changed my views on some things that I thought were bedrock principles of mine, just by virtue of reading different arguments. And so that's something I think it
would be really good for people to do. And I guess a corollary to that is, and I'm the worst violator of this rule, you try to spend less time just doing scrolling through social media.
Yeah, tough, tough to do.
It's very hard to do. And especially now when things like X are my primary source abuse, it's part to escape it. But I do find that on days when I'm just outside with my kids, playing with them, or hiking with them or whatever, just my mood is so much better than when I'm sitting my college neck crane over just scrutch. If someone said this and I'm going to like this tweet that Carol'll put out attacking that, and just I mean nothing against your social media company.
I know I have a great feed, you know.
It's just it's really I think we've become enmeshed in social media so much that our mood becomes co terminous with it, which is not healthy. So yeah, I guess that's Lily.
Although you do have a very happy feed.
I was like, you know, particularly scrolling through yours in the last few days, like getting getting ready for this interview, and you do highlight a lot of really positive stuff.
I think you're doing it right, you know, well, thank you.
I really appreciate that. Every now and then, my former chief of stuff for the SEC would tell me, Okay, do you really want to tweet this out because I just found out something quickly. I always have him on my shoulder down metaphorically.
Do you really want to tweep this out all?
So I try to keep it positive?
Jeep pie Storry.
Yeah, Thank you so much for coming on.
He is a jeeppie. He is fantastic.
You should follow him anywhere that he posts thoughts.
Thank you so much, a jeep.
Thank you so much, Carol for what you do.
Thanks so much for joining us on The Carol Markowitz Show.
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