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Why We Live In A Golden Age Of Innovation – Forbes

Self-organizing team

Despite horrific daily headlines, the important news is that we are living in a golden age of innovation. It has been called the digital age, among other names, although that label is wrongly taken to imply that this is just about technology. In reality its a combination of both new technology and a radically different kind of management. It is the combination of bothnew technology and a new managementthat makes things fundamentally different from what was happening in the 20th century.

The new digital technologies are amazingthe Internet, the cloud, algorithmic decision making, block chain, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and 3-D printing. Moreover the technologies are evolving rapidly and, as Vivek Wadhwa et al point out in their book, From Incremental To Exponential (Berrett-Koehler, 2020), they are interacting with each other to create even further possibilities.

Yet alone, technology doesnt make much difference. We have learned over the last two decades that few benefits ensue from the new technologies unless there is also a different mindset towards managinghuman beings creating value for other human beings. It is a new meta-model of management that is fundamentally different from industrial-era management, which was based on efficiency and outputs. Firms such as Haier and Microsoft, among scores of other firms, have demonstrated the new way, not just in tech, but in cars, finance, health, agriculture, music, movies, retail, restaurants, gaming and hoteling. The new management mindset includes.

Embracing a goal of creating value for the customer as the primary foundation of everything the firm does.

Unleashing talent in self-organizing teams and micro-enterprises. Talent is now driving strategy, rather than vice versa.

Operating as a network of competence, rather than a hierarchy of authority.

Enabling a firm to create new businesses, new business models, platforms and ecosystems, and managing data as an asset.

And once both technology and management are in place, then dramatic benefits start appearing, along three dimensions.

First, the impressive benefits for customers are almost magic, transforming how we work, how we communicate, how we go about, how we shop, how we how we play games, how we deliver health care and education, how we raise our children, how we entertain ourselves, how we read, how we listen to music, how we watch theater, go to the movies, and how we worship: in short how we live. This combination of new technology and new ways of running companies is changing most of our lives, even those in developing countries.

Second, it has changes the workplace, potentially for the better. When those doing the work are collaborating in self-organizing teams, focused on delivering value for customers, work can be meaningful and uplifting. At its best, human beings are delivering value for other human beings, as opposed to individuals producing things in accordance with instructions from bosses.

Third, it is much more profitable for the firms themselves, once they get fully into this mode. Microsoft is a striking example. It made a commitment to the new way in 2014, under the leadership of CEOand now chairmanSatya Nadella. Since his taking over and implementing this different way of running a company, Microsoft has added $1.5 trillion to its market capitalization.

Some critics ask whether there is anything really new in the new way of managing. And indeed, management innovators have been working on some of these changes for at least a century, beginning with Mary Parker Follett in the 1920s. Yet until recently, there was little enduring success, as Art Kleiner noted in his book, The Age of Heretics (Jossey-Bass, 2008).

As Gary Hamel explained last year, You can go back and read about the precursors of the Agile management, about early attempts at building self-managing teams, about more participatory decision structures. A lot of this work, in the 60s and 70s, produced extraordinary resultshuge gains in productivity and engagementbut few of the changes scaled up. Most of these efforts were ultimately aborted or marginalized. In the end, the empire struck back.

Thus, this new meta-model of management isnt just another variant of 20th century management. True, it is not yet everywhere. But the extraordinary gains being made by firms that have embraced the new meta-model create massive incentives for other firms to make the shift, as well as huge disincentives not to make the shift.

What makes Microsoft such a remarkable story is that it is often cited as an example of a stagnant bureaucracy that would never change. Its transformation shows that change is possible.

Meanwhile, many big old industrial-era firms are struggling. Thats why its dangerous to think of the new age as the fourth industrial age, pace Klaus Schwab and his book The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Currency, 2017). If firms think of this as a continuation, or evolution, of the industrial age, they are unlikely to succeed with the new meta-model of management needed for handling digital technologies.

Nobel-Prize-winning economist Edmund Phelps has suggested in his book, Mass Flourishing: How Grassroots Innovation Created Jobs, Challenge, and Change (Princeton, 2013), that we could be on the brink of a Mass Human Flourishing. And when we see what is happening in the best firms today, it begins to look plausible. But there is also a legitimate concern that we could be on the brink of a Mass Human Repression, if these new technologies were to be used for malign purposes. This is a choice that societies around the world are now facing. Are we heading, as Phelps suggests, towards a Mass Human Flourishing? Or a Mass Human Repression? The choice is ours. But to make that choice, we first have to understand it.

How The Digital Age Is Reinventing (Almost) Everything

How Microsofts Digital Transformation Created A Trillion Dollar Gain

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Why We Live In A Golden Age Of Innovation - Forbes

View from Washington: Aukus looms over AI and quantum – E&T Magazine

The new US-UK-Australia alliance is set to shake up how all three countries carry out research in key emerging technologies.

Most of the talk has been about submarines, but another important aspect of the new Aukus alliance between Australia, the UK and the US is that it defines emerging technologies particularly artificial intelligence and quantum computing as first-order national security issues.

As Tom Tugendhat, chair of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a Twitter thread:

Bringing together the military industrial complex of these three allies together is a step change in the relationship. Weve always been interoperable, but this aims at much more. From artificial intelligence to advanced technology the US, UK and Australia will now be able to cost save by increasing platform sharing and innovation costs. Particularly for the smaller two, thats game-changing.

Tugendhat is right. The game has changed, and in ways that are only just coming to light. For example, digital innovation has been driven by communications, e-commerce, consumer electronics and the PC since the mid-1980s, even though the sector originally depended on the defence industry. This alliance puts government and security back at the forefront.

In other ways though, Aukus reflects a consolidation of how the technology landscape has evolved during the last five years amid greater competition between China and the West and recurrent talk of decoupling.

As well as restricting the US activities of several Chinese companies through its Entities List (most notably, but not exclusively Huawei), Washington has blocked Chinese-led takeovers of companies it considers particularly sensitive, such as Lattice Semiconductor. Aukus itself is then consistent with the recommendation of March's US National Security Commission on AI, chaired by former Google chief Eric Schmidt, that the US needed to not just increase its own efforts but also "rally our closest allies and partners to defend and compete in the coming era of AI-accelerated competition and conflict".

UK regulators are still mulling over US company Nvidias proposed $54bn bid for Cambridge-based Arm partly for national security issues more on that later and Prime Minister Boris Johnson has launched probes into a clutch of others. These include a Chinese-backed deal for semiconductor manufacturer Newport Wafer Fab and one with suggested Chinese involvement involving the takeover of a Welsh graphene specialist, Perpetuus Group.

For its part, China has hardly sought to hide that it views AI and other emerging technologies as key to defence as well as future economic prosperity. Its New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan was published in 2017 and calls for the country to be the world leader in the sector by 2030. It became a policy priority following the 2016 defeat of the world Go champion, Lee Sedol, in a tournament against AlphaGo, an AI developed by UK-based Google subsidiary DeepMind Technologies. Chinas military leaders see Go as an important proving ground in the development of strategic thinking for the battlefield.

The landscape has changed greatly since, also in 2016, Theresa Mays government nodded through Softbanks original acquisition of Arm, back then passing over concerns raised in the Ministry of Defence similar to those being taken more seriously today.

With the AI race well under way whether you like it or not the consolidation within Aukus of the research efforts of the three countries promises not only the technological benefits Tugendhat identifies but also feels like a necessary acceleration.

But there will be a price.

The cycle for delivering consumer and other branches of civilian innovation has shortened from the 18 months in Moores Law to one that is now, to all intents and purposes, annual. Of late, defence applications have often used the benefits of programmable logic to which various secret combinations of spices and sauces would be added. However, it has been clear for a while that the worlds of hardware and software are eliding for AI, and quantum computing will require a shift to entirely new architectures. As a result, what companies can and cannot release to the public, and when, is likely to come under much tighter official scrutiny. Time-to-market vs. Defence of the Realm(s).

Consolidation as well as greater cooperation across the three countries is also a possibility, and this brings things back to Arm-Nvidia. As two world-class companies operating in the technology spaces covered by Aukus, and given the environment the alliance seeks to create, it may be much harder for UK regulators to block the deal. Indeed, they may now want to encourage it. Meanwhile the EU, which has serious antitrust concerns over the union of the leading IP provider with a leading chipmaker, may feel understandable French anger notwithstanding that there is too much political risk in objecting, particularly with some members nervous about the extent of President Joe Bidens commitment to Nato.

Then, some of the more notable consequences may be for the global research infrastructure, one that had become increasingly freewheeling since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Some familiar voices are already proclaiming Aukus as evidence of the Brexit dividend. Never mind the facts that technological collaboration between the three members is already taking place through the Five Eyes intelligence alliance (with New Zealand and Canada, both not part of this agreement); that the US and UK have been sharing the nuclear propulsion research covered since 1958 and already overlap hugely in defence research (e.g., BAE Systems); and that the technological and national security trends in AI and quantum have only surfaced since the referendum vote (Lets spend 250m a week on R&D, anyone? Anyone?)

That said, as emerging technologies are considered more sensitive, governments are going to reconsider how far they can go in undertaking certain types of cutting-edge work through multinational economic bodies like the EU and other civil partnerships rather than military alliances operating under strict secrecy. Just how open exchanges in technical conferences covering those areas can be in future is also now even more up for debate.

These issues have always been there. And they have always been tricky. But are we at a point where they are about to be as tricky as they were half a century ago, and when those who knew how to navigate such territory have either retired or passed away? And, of course, we do not yet know where any boundaries are going to be set.

Many in the UK technology sector will see Aukus as a great opportunity. They are probably right to do so. But, even if not entirely in public view, the three powers involved need to communicate how they expect commercial and academic collaboration to work clearly and, given the alliance positions the areas within its scope as pressing and serious, quickly. Submarines may look like item one on the agenda, but everything else is equally immediate.

Once youve shook things up, you must still reorder them. Ad hoc simply isnt an option. The months ahead will be busy ones. Well, they better had be.

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View from Washington: Aukus looms over AI and quantum - E&T Magazine

Ohio State-led QuSTEAM initiative awarded $5 million from NSF – The Ohio State University News

A multidisciplinary, multi-institutional program led by The Ohio State University is taking the next step in its aim to develop a diverse, effective and contemporary quantum-ready workforce by revolutionizing and creating more equitable pathways to quantum science education.

QuSTEAM: Convergence Undergraduate Education in Quantum Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics, was awarded a $5 million cooperative agreement over a two-year period from the National Science Foundations (NSF) Convergence Accelerator. Following QuSTEAMs initial assessment period, Phase I, the award will fund Phase IIs objective to build transformative, modular quantum science degree and certification programs.

I know from personal experience that collaboration is the key to scientific success. Working across disciplines especially when it comes to the highly complex and multidisciplinary world of quantum science research will help us more quickly harness the enormous power of this emerging field and deliver real-world results more quickly and efficiently, said Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson. As an added bonus, this project enables Ohio State to further part of its core mission, which is to educate the next generation of researchers through educational opportunities that advance diversity and workforce development.

The rapidly evolving field of quantum information science will enable technological breakthroughs and have far-reaching economic and societal impacts what researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology refer to as the second quantum revolution. Ohio State is emerging as a key leader in pushing the field forward, recently joining the Chicago Quantum Exchange, a growing intellectual hub for the research and development of quantum technology, as its first regional partner.

NSFs Convergence Accelerator is focused on accelerating solutions toward societal impact. Within three years, funded teams are to deliver high-impact results, which is fast for product development, said Douglas Maughan, head of the NSF Convergence Accelerator program. During Phase II, QuSTEAM and nine other 2020 cohort teams will participate in an Idea-to-Market curriculum to assist them in developing their solution further and to create a sustainability plan to ensure the effort provides a positive impact beyond NSF funding.

QuSTEAM is a great example of how universities and industry can work together to build the foundation for a strong, diverse workforce, said David Awschalom, the director of the Chicago Quantum Exchange andLiew Family Professor in Molecular Engineering and Physics at the University of Chicago. Innovations in this field require us to provide broadly accessible quantum education, and QuSTEAM represents an ambitious approach to training in quantum engineering.

Unlocking that potential, however, also requires a foundational shift in teaching and growing a quantum-literate workforce. QuSTEAM brings together scientists and educators from over 20 universities, national laboratories, community colleges, and historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to develop a research-based quantum education curriculum and prepare the next generation of quantum information scientists and engineers. The initiative also has over 14 industrial partners, including GE Research, Honda and JPMorgan Chase, and collaborates with leading national research centers to help provide a holistic portrait of future workforce needs.

We have leaders in quantum information and STEM education, and both of these groups independently do good work building undergraduate curriculum, but they actually work together surprisingly rarely, said QuSTEAM lead investigator Ezekiel Johnston-Halperin, professor in the Department of Physics at Ohio State. We are talking to people in industry and academia about what aspects of quantum information are most critical, what skills are needed, what workforce training looks like today and what they expect it to look like a couple years from now.

We feel strongly about the need for redesigning quantum science education, which is the objective of QuSTEAM, said Marco Pistoia, head of the Future Lab for Applied Research and Engineering (FLARE) at JPMorgan Chase. The complexity of the quantum computing stack is enabling the creation of many new job opportunities. It is crucial for quantum curricula nationwide to collectively support this multiplicity of needs, but for this to happen, quantum scientists and engineers must have the proper training. We are very excited to see the impact of QuSTEAMs work in the near and long term, considering finance is predicted to be the first industry sector to start realizing significant value from quantum computing.

QuSTEAM is headed by five Midwestern universities: lead institution Ohio State, the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, all of which have partnered with local community colleges and regional partners with established transfer pipelines to engage underrepresented student populations.

The group is also collaborating with the IBM-HBCU Quantum Center to recruit faculty from its network of over 20 partner colleges and universities, as well as Argonne National Laboratory. In all, the QuSTEAM team comprises 66 faculty who share expertise in quantum information science and engineering, creative arts and social sciences, and education research.

To best develop a quantum-ready workforce, QuSTEAM identified the establishment of a common template for an undergraduate minor and associate certificate programs as the near-term priority. The team will build curricula consisting of in-person, online and hybrid courses for these degree and certification programs including initial offerings of the critical classes and modules at the respective universities while continuing to assess evolving workforce needs.

QuSTEAM plans to begin offering classes in spring 2022, with a full slate of core classes for a minor during the 2022-2023 academic year. The modular QuSTEAM curriculum will provide educational opportunities for two- and four-year institutions, minority-serving institutions and industry, while confronting and dismantling longstanding biases in STEM education.

If we want to increase diversity in quantum science, we need to really engage meaningfully with community colleges, minority-serving institutions and other small colleges and universities, Johnston-Halperin said. The traditional STEM model builds a program at an elite, R1 university and then allows the content to diffuse out from there. But historically this means designing it for a specific subset of students, and everything else is going to be a retrofit. Thats just never as effective.

QuSTEAM leverages integrated university support from faculty and staff from the Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning, the Institute for Materials Research, the Department of Physics and the Ohio State Office of Research.

Johnston-Halperin is joined at Ohio State by QuSTEAM co-PI Andrew Heckler, professor of physics and physics education research specialist. Other Ohio State faculty included on QuSTEAM are Daniel Gauthier, professor in the Department of Physics; Christopher Porter, postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Physics; David Penneys, associate professor in the Department of Mathematics; Zahra Atiq, assistant professor of practice of computer science and engineering in the College of Engineering; David Delaine and Emily Dringenberg, assistant professors of engineering education in the College of Engineering; and Edward Fletcher, associate professor of educational studies in the College of Education and Human Ecology.

QuSTEAM is one of 10 teams selected for two-year, $5 million Phase II funding as part the NSF Convergence Accelerator 2020 Cohort, which supports efforts to fast-track transitions from basic research and discovery into practice, and seeks to address national-scale societal challenges. With this funding, QuSTEAM will address the challenge of developing a strong national quantum workforce by instituting high-quality, engaging courses and educational tracks that allow for students of all backgrounds and interests to choose multiple paths of scholarship.

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Ohio State-led QuSTEAM initiative awarded $5 million from NSF - The Ohio State University News

Salter: The constitution and the concept of liberty – LubbockOnline.com

ALEXANDER SALTER| Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

In a democracy, public policy rests on the consent of the governed. The great economist James Buchanan, who won the Nobel Prize in 1986, wrote that the status quo matters in a democracy because its from that point--wherever we happen to be--that the conversation about policy change begins. Our starting point, here and now, is the U.S. Constitution: its text, duly ratified amendments, and judicially interpreted meaning.

For lovers of liberty, the Constitution is an impressive document. Although lacking in some ways compared to the Articles of Confederation, our current national charter has the clear benefit of durability. The Constitution has been the basic law of the land for 232 years. Many of those years were prosperous. Some were tumultuous and destructive. The Constitution endured it all. It provides the basic backdrop of order against which liberty finds its meaning.

Libertarians like me admire the Constitution. We just wish our fellow citizens admired it as much as we do! While the Constitution isnt a fully libertarian document, its arguably the most pro-freedom compact in existence. When libertarians have a problem with the Constitution, its usually because too many politicians, bureaucrats, and sadly even voters ignore parts of the text they dont like.

The ways in which the Constitution protects freedom are obvious. Separation of powers and checks and balances are built into our governance system. This makes it incredibly difficult for political coalitions to seize absolute control of the government. And even if they do, the Bill of Rights, buttressed by the courts, stand guard over the citizenry. We Americans cherish our rights to speak freely, assemble freely, worship freely. We take pride in our protections against arbitrary seizure of property. And we know that these rights are natural rights, given to us by God. The Constitution recognizes them, but does not establish them.

In fact, the 9th Amendment explicitly says this: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. In other words, the rights of the people are far too numerous to list. Just because the Framers didnt write down a specific right doesnt mean we dont have that right. The Constitution is meant to limit the government, not the citizens.

Another support for liberty is the 10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. While libertarians lament the omission of the word expressly from this amendment, its nonetheless a demonstration of the Founders fondness for federalism. That government which governs best governs closest to the citizens themselves.

What parts of the Constitution do libertarians dislike? There are a few: the Necessary and Proper Clause, the Commerce Clause, and an unlimited power of taxation are the most obvious cases. The Necessary and Proper Clause, unless carefully interpreted, could easily result in an almost-unlimited federal government. Likewise, the Commerce Clause has been used to justify federal meddling in any situation which could conceivably--not even actually!--affect trade across the United States. The lack of strict controls on the taxing power has resulted in tax rates that are downright confiscatory. All of these yield a government that is too big, too intrusive, and too powerful.

But we oughtnt throw the baby out with the bathwater. The Constitution remains a respectable governance framework for a free and virtuous people. We can work within the Constitutional system to preserve its strengths and shore up its weaknesses. Unfortunately, the greatest obstacle to Constitutional renewal is the mass of politicians who are sworn to uphold it.

Republicans and Democrats are quick to praise the Constitution on the campaign trail or at a fundraiser. But when it comes to governing, their policies are a Constitutional disgrace. One is reminded of the prophecy of Isaiah: These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. The sad reality is that government-run-amok is a bipartisan consensus. No party believes in keeping Washington, DC within the bounds of the Constitution. Many libertarians became libertarian because theyve had enough of our political duopolys two-step between Constitutional rhetoric and un-Constitutional policy.

The Constitution isnt perfect. No governing document is. But thanks to the Constitution, life, liberty, and property have been reasonably secure in the United States for more than two centuries. Libertarians seek to rein in the federal government by forcing it to follow the law of the land. While we can be reformist in our political programs, we must be radical in our aims.

American exceptionalism comes down to the rule of law: the idea that governed and governors alike must play by the same rules. Libertarians demand, as a matter of natural right, nothing less than the restoration of the rule of law. A crucial first step is to reinstate Constitutional constraints on government. Any other way of governing is profoundly un-American.

Alexander William Salter is the Georgie G. Snyder Associate Professor of Economics in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University and the Comparative Economics Research Fellow at TTUs Free Market Institute.

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Salter: The constitution and the concept of liberty - LubbockOnline.com

Larry Elder Speaks to Newsweek on Why He Lost to Gavin Newsom and What He May Do Next – Newsweek

It was a landslide victory for Governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday when a large majority of Californians voted against his recall. Had that not been the case, conservative talk-show host Larry Elder would have been elected the first Black governor in the state's history, as he easily beat the more than three dozen others on the ballot seeking to replace Newsom.

In a 32-minute post-election interview, Newsweek got Elder's thoughts on what went wrong, what went right and what comes next, and the media-savvy former candidate didn't pull any punches.

Newsweek: Are you still a Libertarian or are you now a Republican?

Larry Elder: I was always both. I was always a small "L" libertarian and registered Republican, just like Milton Friedman.

Newsweek: Has the Republican party made you an offer to head the RNC in California or nationally?

Elder: Has anybody called me and said, 'Hey, do you want a job?' No. But have I gotten support from Republicans up and down the state and nationally? Yes. I haven't gotten an offer to head the RNC, nor would I expect one.

Newsweek: So you'll be getting your own TV show?

Elder: I have no idea. I was not running to get a TV show. I've been on television many, many times. By the way, I started out in television, even though people call me a radio host. When offers come, I'll consider them. But right now, I'm just chilling, figuring out what to do with my new-found footprint that I didn't have before.

Newsweek: But you said you're not going back to your radio show.

Elder: I didn't say that.

Newsweek: At your election party you referred to yourself as a 'former radio host.'

Elder: That was tongue in cheek. My goodness. I wasn't hosting radio during my campaign, but I didn't mean I'd never go back to radio. Really, Paul, look into my baby brown libertarian eyeballs I honestly don't know what I'll do next.

Newsweek: Why did you lose to Gavin Newsom?

Elder: Because he outspent me five to one and we're outnumbered two-to-one Democrat compared to Republican. Even independents outnumber Republicans in California, and Newsom was successfully able to scare people into thinking I'd do everything but reenact slavery. The only actual issue he discussed was that I am anti-vax, which I'm not. I would have had a very different approach to coronavirus, and that's accurate. He never defended his record on crime, homelessness, how he shut down the economy or how he shut down schools while his kids were enjoying in-person private education and he was yucking it up at the French Laundry while incurring a $12,000 wine tab. I don't know what he was drinking, but it sure wasn't Mad Dog 2020. He didn't mention wildfires and how he mismanaged forests, or a water shortage, or rolling brownouts, or how people are leaving California for the first time. All he did was say "Republican takeover" over and over and show Larry Elder and Donald Trump side-by-side, and it worked, because 83 percent of Democrats believe Trump is a racist, and 61 percent believe all Republicans are racist slash sexist slash bigoted.

Newsweek: The ad with you and Trump was funded by Netflix founder Reed Hastings, and it claimed it was a matter of life and death that you be defeated. Did that surprise you?

Elder: Nothing surprised me. I've been critical of the media for a long time. When I decided to run, I knew that the wrath of God was going to come down on me. The flat-out lies didn't surprise me, like "Larry Elder is anti-vax." I'm vaccinated and I encourage people to get vaccinated, but I also encourage freedom.

Newsweek: I spoke to celebrities who supported you and they told me that the ad from Hastings sent a chill through conservative Hollywood, as if to say, 'if you want a relationship with Netflix, you'd better not support Elder.' Does that make sense to you?

Elder: Of course it does. Two high-profile Hollywood people who support me, Clint Eastwood and Jon Voight, said that I could say they support me but that they wouldn't put out a statement. Voight later allowed me to post a picture of me and him. And I'm not mad about them not giving a statement, I'm just telling you that this is how it rolls in this state and in this open-minded, tolerant industry.

Newsweek: So you're saying the media didn't cover you fairly?

Elder: I put a tweet out, Paul, saying that only in America could a Black man become president and be called the Black face of white supremacy. And not one reporter has said to me, 'well, Larry, you got smoked on the recall, but, my God, you smoked all these Republicans. You got 47 percent and the next Republican got nine or 10, and you were only campaigning for seven weeks!' Paul, it is stunning what I have done. I am actually stunned by the margin of my victory.

Newsweek: So then you have further political aspirations, perhaps nationally?

Elder: Stay tuned.

Newsweek: What's the biggest problem in California and how should Newsom solve it?

Elder: Crime, the fact that people are leaving because they can't afford a house, and homelessness. I have no idea what he'll do about those because if he did, he would have mentioned it in his commercials. He didn't. He's clueless. He lives in a $5 million house in a gated community. He got attacked during his campaign by a mentally ill homeless person and his security crew took care of it. The things that working-class people have to deal with don't affect him at all. I believe it will take California hitting rock bottom, like an alcoholic, before we turn this around, because all he had to say was 'Trump' and 'Republican takeover,' and people got scared and pulled the lever for him. They hate Republicans more than the rise in crime, rise in cost of living, rise of homelessness, rolling brownouts and wildfires. It's a remarkable achievement by the left and they did it with the complicity of the media.

Newsweek: Was it a fair election with no irregularities?

Elder: We know that a bunch of people in Republican districts tried to vote and were told they already voted. It was investigated, and they eventually were able to vote, but if that's not an irregularity, I don't know what is. When all is said and done, with the margin of victory, whatever shenanigans there may or may not have been won't matter, but we all should have an interest in making sure the election was handled with integrity. I'll tell you one thing more, Paul; I was asked repeatedly by reporters if I thought Joe Biden won the 2020 election fair and square. I told several reporters, and none of them did anything with it, that just once I'd like them to ask Newsom if Trump won the 2016 election fair and square, because for four years Hilary Clinton said the election was stolen from her and that Trump was illegitimate, and the result is that 66 percent of Democrats, according to a YouGov poll, believe that Russians changed vote tallies. Never mind a 1,000-page report that said the Russians did not change a single vote tally ... a greater percentage of Democrats believe the 2016 election was stolen than Republicans believe the 2020 election was stolen. Even if Newsom said he believed Trump won in 2016, the next question should be whether Hillary Clinton should have her social media platform shut down for pushing the big lie the way Trump has had his shut down. Nobody ever asked him. Nobody. One reporter said, 'well, that's what-aboutism.' I said, 'no, it's called consistency and being fair.'

Newsweek: Do you regret your decision to run?

Elder: Not for one moment. Nor am I surprised about anything. I complained about being called 'the Black face of white supremacy and 'the Black David Duke,' but I certainly anticipated it, because I have zero respect for the media. They are the public relations bureau for the Democrats. They long stopped even trying to be objective. I just hope that now people are seeing what I've been seeing for decades. I know that even people at the L.A. Times were embarrassed about a columnist calling me 'the Black face of white supremacy,' because they told me they were. But not only was she not fired, she was on PBS, so our taxpayer dollars were hosting a woman who said that about me. Scottie, beam me the hell up.

Newsweek: So at your election night party, your handlers told you not to talk to me. Did you like having handlers?

Elder: Every candidate has handlers. It didn't bother me. But ultimately the candidate decides what to do. I got advice I didn't follow, and was happy I didn't. I also got advice I didn't follow and later regretted it. Most candidates have been at it for years and have relationships, but I had to do it on the fly with people I didn't know. I went through a few campaign managers before finding the right one.

Newsweek: What's an example of you not taking advice, or taking it and regretting you did?

Elder: I did an interview with the L.A. Times where I jumped all over them for calling me 'the Black face of white supremacy,' and my communications manager was not happy with how combative I was. But she soon learned that that's why people like me, because I'm authentic and I fight back, so she began to tailor her advice to my personality. Another time, the Today Show asked me if I'd appoint a Republican to replace Sen. Dianne Feinstein. I knew it was a question designed to upset Democrats, so I didn't answer it directly. Afterwards, one of my handlers told me I should have just said, 'yes,' and I should have. I regret fumbling around and not being myself.

Newsweek: You did sound a little more stifled on the campaign trail than on radio, no?

Elder: Oh come on. It's a different thing. On the radio I'm taking calls and giving my opinion on events of that day; on the campaign trail I was discussing issues.

Newsweek: At your party, there was a guy dancing around with a giant cutout of your head. Is that sort of adulation giving you a big head?

Elder: No, but there definitely was adulation. There's no question. I was treated like a rock star; like a Beatle. Experienced people told me they've never seen anything like it. I thought I'd have a connection, but, my goodness, middle-age men, forget about women, came up to me crying because they were thinking of leaving California until I entered the race. I did not expect that.

Newsweek: Well, you've painted a grim picture of California. Are people right to be moving out?

Elder: Do you think things are going to get better? I don't see any evidence of that. Just recently at a restaurant on Melrose that I've eaten at, people in masks held up diners at gunpoint and took their purses and watches, and Newsom has released 20,000 convicted felons early, even though studies say the majority of them are likely to re-offend. We have a law that allows people to steal up to $950, not just a day, but at multiple stores in a day, without any fear of going to prison because they're not a felon, and we have district attorneys who are soft on crime and support cashless bail, and there's no consequences if they simply don't show up to court. You tell me if people should leave. It's bleak in California. I wasn't kidding when I said it's got great resources where else can you go surfing in the ocean and skiing in the mountains in one day? but it's being ruined by horrible leadership.

Newsweek: The accusation I have heard that hurt you most were reports saying you wanted former slaveholders to get reparations. Is that the case?

Elder: Oh good grief. No one on the campaign trail ever asked me about that, just members of the media. I was being interviewed by Candace Owens, and I said that reparations is the extraction of money from people who were never slaveholders to people who were never slaves. If you really want to play this game, the Dred Scott decision called slaves property. It was vulgar, but that's what the Supreme Court said. But people always leave this part out; the slave trade could have never existed without African chieftains selling people to Arab and European slavers. Should we get reparations from them? It was a long conversation that was boiled down to, 'Elder believes white slave owners should get reparations.' It's totally unfair.

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Larry Elder Speaks to Newsweek on Why He Lost to Gavin Newsom and What He May Do Next - Newsweek