The Anti-Billionaire Billionaire Running for California Governor: Tom Steyer Interview

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Listen up. I got an announcement. I want to shout out the Webby Awards. We've been nominated for two Webby Awards this year for All the Smoke, the Show and then also All the Smoke Socials. So we appreciate all the love. Stay tuned, man, We're just getting started. Welcome back to All the Smoke today. We're taking a little different angle and approach with our conversation. Prolific businessman, philanthropist, climate advocate and leader, and potentially we will see the next governor of California. Welcome to show. Tom Styre, appreciate having me, Thanks for coming. You know what was really cool before we even started this is he brought his we Believe shirt. You can show him from two thousand and seven. That's a real one too. You can tell by the yellow he had one. It's had some wares. But what do you let's start with it. What do you remember about that time in Warrior basketball?

00:01:06
Speaker 2: So the thing about Warrior basketball for so long was that the city of Oakland supported those teams in good times and bad. That was kind of the Baron Davis years. Yeah he was a great player, but there was never an empty Seaton yep, Oakland calsme. Yeah, And you know, Oakland was such a great is such a great sports town, both in terms of producing amazing athletes, and for a while they had some of the best teams in the world, you know, the Raiders and the Warriors, and so what I remember about that was going to those didn't really matter how the team was doing. That was always full. The people were always into it and they love.

00:01:49
Speaker 1: Who Yeah, that's what I tell people, I mean, And I think you spoke perfectly to it. No matter where the team was at the top of the standard, were at the bottom of the standing, it was rocking everything all night, really would die hard. The workers at at Oracle were always in a good mood and just the energy around that arena was something. And I was someone who got to play for a handful of teams that was just like you never forget how you feel when you go to Oracle or get to play in Oracle.

00:02:19
Speaker 2: You know, It's funny because when I was growing up in New York, we had some great Knicks teams and everybody in New York thought basketball was invented in New York, was played in New York. Now, you know, the Garden was like totally crazy, and everybody thought. Everybody thought they knew how to play hoop, and everybody thought that they were great analysts of what was going.

00:02:38
Speaker 1: On in the right No, I mean that's definitely, but I mean I feel like to that point as well, I feel like basketball is better when the Knicks are relevant in the game.

00:02:49
Speaker 2: And look, they have a great team right now. Yeah, they had a really good team, and so.

00:02:52
Speaker 1: I'm interested to see the jury's out. I said something I like Mike Brown, and I said something early on to this season, and I hope that I hope that I'm because again, I like when the NBA is rocking on all cylinders and all the major teams from the Lakers to the Celtics to the Knicks, to me, those are the kind of the pillars in the league. When all those teams are good, I just feel like the NBA moves better, oht.

00:03:14
Speaker 2: No question, you know. And then it's like a cultural phenomenon and it's just exciting, beautiful, beautiful. And then the game itself you can appreciate, you know, you can appreciate the game, but it becomes more than even the game.

00:03:26
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Obviously, Oakland is near and dear. I was born in San Jose and grew up in Sacramento, so, you know, getting a chance to play for the Warriors for two different spins, and getting a chance to win a championship with something that I hold close to my heart with the only city that I can recall to ever lose three major sports teams. How do you replace the economic hit that a city like Oakland takes.

00:03:54
Speaker 2: I don't know how you do it, Matt. And you know it is really everybody of those teams, the owners of those teams, could have made a perfectly decent living, you know, return living in Oakland, and they all had their eyes on Bucks. And you know, sports teams are really funny because at some level they're owned by the fans, and they're owned by the community, but legally they're owned by somebody who paid cash money and that person sometimes like the Rooney's in Pittsburgh, it's like, well, Pittsburgh kind of does own the Steelers, and they'd never do anything to screw that up. But some of the people are sitting there and they're basically trying to monetize the love and the passion and the loyalty that fans have. And when that happens.

00:04:44
Speaker 1: I just hate it. Just it on your campaign website it says you're running for affordability, and people may see and look at your background and like, well, this guy is a billionaire and what does he know about affordability? Or how can you even utter those words when you have as you're a slogan? Explain what that means to someone who doesn't know.

00:05:04
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I'll talk about affordability, and then I'll talk about me. I mean, affordability everybody in California knows it starts with your house. You know, renting is incredibly expensive in California, and the ability to buy a house is running away from so many people. The average first time home buyer twenty years ago was twenty eight years old, and now it's forty two years old, and that means people are waiting fourteen more years. And one of the things about housing, I mean, I'll get to all the other things that are too expensive, like healthcare right now, like gasoline, like food, like electricity. But I remember when I bought my first house. I called my mom and I said, you know, it's California, and I was like, this is just ridiculous. This price is ridiculous, Mom, we should keep renting, And she said, shut up, Sonny. You know you're building a life. This isn't money, this isn't an asset. You're building a life with your family. What the hell are you talking about. Of course, you have to buy a house if you can afford to, and that's true of everybody in California. You want to have a life. You know, it's different if you can build a family in a place that's yours. And so you know, and I'll tell you too. I was a week ago I was talking to someone who'd worked for UC. I know, you went to UCLA, and this guy was a someone who worked not as a professor, but someone who was a janitor and he had worked for twenty years for UC and he was living in his car. WHOA, So this guy fully employed, very hard worker. I talked to him. Seemed like a fantastic guy. And he's living in his car after twenty years. And so, you know, to a very large extent, what's going on is that working people really are living. I mean, the cliche is paycheck to paycheck, but the truth is people can't make ends me and that's what affordability is. You know, affordability is a teacher who can't make their healthcare payments. Fully employed, doing a really important job, working their ass off, probably taking money out of their pocket for school supplies, and they can't afford their health care.

00:07:16
Speaker 1: I know, obviously we could probably talk the entire episode about affordabilion and how we get there, so we won't.

00:07:22
Speaker 2: I'll talk about them. How can I feel it? Yes, there's an assumption somehow I started a business. I'm the only person in my family who's ever started a business, you know, everybody in my family. I asked my mom one time, who are and she said, I'll tell you exactly who we are. We've never been rich or famous, but we've always tried to participate in our community. That's what your family does. And my grandfather was a research doctor who never made more than twenty eight hundred bucks in a year, and my grandmother hated them for it. She wanted them to make some serious money. They were, you know, very far from being well off. My mom was a teacher in public schools and then in prison. She went to the toughest public schools to try and help kids, and when she retired, she taught in prison for ten years. My dad was a Navy vet who prosecuted the Nazis after the war at the Nuremberg Tross. My brother has been a children's advocate at risk kids advocate since he graduated early from high school to work in the public schools with my mom and teach. My wife has done this. Everybody in my family has been about what do you give back? Not what do you take, but at the end of the day, what did you do? And so they didn't understand that I started a business. I it was one room, no partners, no employees, no windows, it was an inner room, a box. Yeah, and I built a pretty big business and I ran away from it. People say I left, I mean I left billions of dollars on the table intentionally because I really didn't want that life. And I realized I wanted to be more like my family, like those are their values, those are my values. I felt like I don't want to die, and I feel like I had.

00:09:05
Speaker 1: No inn How long into the process of establishing your company and getting the wheels turning and making great money, did you realize, Okay, this is amazing and I could be leaving billions on the table, but this isn't for me.

00:09:21
Speaker 2: Realistically. Probably, let's see, I'm doing the math in my head. I did it for twenty seven years, and probably for the last ten years I was trying to get out. It's not trivial to leave a business that you've built for a whole bunch of reasons. You have customers who think that the business will fall apart if you're not there. You have partners who think the business will fall apart if you're not there, and you have people who are employees, all of whom were the people who paid for everything for their family. And I felt like, I cannot screw up this business because all of the people who I've recruited I'll be scoring so if I don't do this. It took me forever, and in the middle of it was the financial meltdown of two thousand and eight.

00:10:07
Speaker 1: Advice I could have a little earlier. What was the final day? What was it? Was it a build up or was it was it just amber sudden? I'm done.

00:10:15
Speaker 2: December thirty first, twenty twelve, I basically said to my partners, like in somewhere maybe June, I said, look, not one more day after that. I'm not gonna say one more day and I'm gone, so you better be ready. And because I refuse to do the same.

00:10:31
Speaker 1: Way, people of color have been under attack through this latest administration, and it has become a target of the Trump administration in particular. What is your message to the people who are just scared to live? Come outside? I mean, we have ice at airports now because we can't find funding for tsa like people who are scared to just live, which is everyone's obligation and freedom to do.

00:10:59
Speaker 2: Well. My feeling about this, the way that everybody wins and the people win in this, The way that we overcome this, in my mind is we channel the civil rights movement, and that's a movement with a vision of what was trying to be accomplished. And you know, it was the last time we had a corrupt, violent, illegal government action against Americans. And how did they win by basically showing and I would say this, but true. Do you want to be on the side of the people who murder for little girls in church? Or do you want to be on the side of for the little girls? And that's kind of our point has got to be, how can people feel safe because they're with everybody else the group, and that everybody's standing up together and showing the world we're the law abiding, open minded, democracy loving, freedom loving people persisting succeeding together. Or do you want to be with these guys in the masks and the assault rifles and the terror and the stupidity and the violence and the cruelty. I mean, it's the exact same question.

00:12:12
Speaker 1: And it shouldn't be a hard choice.

00:12:14
Speaker 2: It's a but the hard part is for us to stick together through together. It was an incredible accomplishment because people really did hang in. Yeah, and I think that that's what we're gonna have to do, and we're going to have to I mean, there were famously some unbelievable visionaries and speakers to explain to everybody what the difference was and to make it clear. Yes, and that was a huge part of that was so successful.

00:12:47
Speaker 1: Thoughts on Gavin Newsom's tenure. Are there some policies if you were able to become governor that you will move forward with and policies you look to improve on?

00:12:56
Speaker 2: Well, oh, my god, we definitely need some change in California. And you know, I think Gavin and I probably share an awful lot of values, and I think we have a different style. We have a very different style, and you know, I think he'd face you know, it was a different time and he was facing somewhat different circumstances. But I think we're at a point where we need real change in this state because I think this state is incredible and I think the people of California are amazing in the fact that we're such a rainbow coalition is a gigantic advantage and blessing. And we're the most in some ways, we're the most successful state, but we're also the state with the highest percentage of people living in poverty, the highest inequality, and there's so many things we can be doing so much better because this state should be the state that shows the rest of the country and the rest of the world model supposed to work. The model, yes, and that I call it shared process. We're prosperous, but it's not being shared and not twelve trillionaires and forty million people who can't make rent is not success. It's got to be shared prosperity. And that is clearly. We have a long way to go in that. We have a long way to go on education, We have a long way to go in terms of breaking down. What I think of is the special corporate special interests that are you know, in my mind, have way too much power in this state over working people and working and that's why working people are suffering so much.

00:14:33
Speaker 1: Do you feel that the Democratic Party as a whole lacks unity and messaging.

00:14:39
Speaker 2: Carew ow, mad Well, let me put it this way. The Democratic Party for a long time has basically said we're not Donald Trump. It's like, Okay, that's true. That's the good thing. That's a very good thing about what are you? And I will say this, I don't think we're coming out of this the way we came in. We're not going back to twenty twelve.

00:15:01
Speaker 1: No, Okay.

00:15:02
Speaker 2: It's like I mean, we're watching our society, society be destroyed by President Trump. He's doing it, and we're going to have to remake it. Yes, and that is both extremely traumatizing but a gigantic opportunity if we in fact can come together with the vision because it's not like we were perfect, no, And this is a chance for us to really invent the twenty first century in California, goddamnit. And yeah it's a challenge, but yeah, it's an amazing opportunity.

00:15:34
Speaker 1: And I think too. And you know, as a former professional athlete, you know, getting into this space, I realized, obviously stuff doesn't happen like this. And I feel like everything we fight for now and changes we make or things that our children and our grandchildren are going to reap the benefits of. And I think it's hard for people presently to understand that kind of commitment, that it's not overnight change. This is a long haul change.

00:15:58
Speaker 2: I completely, and it's structural, it's like real change. But you know, I think I always say to people, it's hard to convince people in California wearing a crisis because you're sitting outside on a beautiful day and you're eating some really good food and the wind is wafting over the.

00:16:22
Speaker 1: Mountains. You can be in a lot of different beautiful places, but very true to your point.

00:16:27
Speaker 2: It feels like it's all good, just chill out. But actually what we're seeing is a guy who is screwing us seventeen ways from Sunday. And you know, we can sit there. You can only take it so long. Look, I don't think this this war to me is the perfect the perfect symbol of the stupidity and the cruelty and the shortsightedness of Donald Trump. I mean, we don't know why we're in it. It's costing US two hundred billion dollars, which is going to education, healthcare, senior care, childcare. We're blowing literally taking two hundred million dollars and blowing it up somewhere half a world away for reasons no one understands. The price of gasoline is going up a lot, so everybody who still drives an internal combustion car is getting screwed to the wall. I don't think people have figured it out yet. But the price of food, yes, is going to go up a lot based on this, And basically he's taking heart and we're going broke. You know, we have this gigantic national debt that keeps growing. So here is a guy who is incredibly reckless, incredibly foolish, taking American society and just classically destroying all the best parts of it, including UCLA, going after UCLA because it's so great. Therefore, let's distill.

00:17:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's take it. But like I said, everything happens for a reason, and it's a tremendous opportunity to build from the ground.

00:17:59
Speaker 2: Up and for people to understand no one is going to do this. We are all going to union. Know you're saying, how can people feel safe? No one is going to do this. Either we're all going to do this or ain't going to happen. And that's our chance. And it's kind of like, Okay, we get a chance to do something. You know, it's kind of like we get to play for the championship. So it's like it's hard, but really, get isn't that an opportunity? We get to play for the champions You're ready.

00:18:26
Speaker 1: I think it's hard to singularly point out any one particular person, but in fairness to be able to criticize California, I mean, you look at Oakland in the devastation they've been through, San Francisco, LA and this homelessness. How, in your opinion, do we fix this? If starting day one tomorrow you are the new governor, what is the first kind of call to action.

00:18:49
Speaker 2: We'll tell you one thing that I would do on day one. I would call a special election to revoke a corporate real estate loophole tax loophole. It's worth twenty two billion dollars and we can take that twenty two billion dollars and use it for two big things at least. One is to make our schools better and one is to make our healthcare better. And we need the money. And so, you know, people never like to talk about taxes because it's like, you know, there's who likes to pay taxes, they're super unpopular. But in this case, it's a loophole. There's no reason for it to exist.

00:19:28
Speaker 1: Can you explain to those because I don't know the loophole you speak of, to those that don't understand them, kind of give us the cliff notes of what you're talking about.

00:19:35
Speaker 2: It's basically that corporate big corporations pay real estate taxes based on the value of their real estate every year one percent, and the value of their real estate is being kept at nineteen seventies level. So, for instance, Disney is paying real estate taxes on Disneyland at nineteen seventies level. It's like, do they not have enough money to pay actual taxes? Like, is there some reason they shouldn't be paying tax on Disneyland. I don't know what it is. And you know, people who own huge skyscrapers, is there some reason they need a tax break? I didn't understand you know, because obviously those are money generating assets, and they're more valuable because they're making much more money. So why wouldn't they pay their normal tax rate. There's no reason other than they don't have to, and who likes to pay taxes? So if you had a twenty two billion dollar tax break, you'd be like, it seems fair to be right, I agree, and that's what they say. So, but that's I mean, there are a lot of things I want to do ones, but you know that getting money here so we can go after education, so we can pay for our health care is a first step. There's a lot of other things I want to do in terms of housing and all this junk. But I have a plan on all these things. We've spent a ton of time on it.

00:21:00
Speaker 1: You know.

00:21:01
Speaker 2: I think I'm the only person running for governor who has an AI plan, an artificial intelligence plan, which is a gigantic thing that is happening right now. It's not going to happen, and if we're not prepared for it, then, you know, shame on us.

00:21:14
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Billionaires of late have become villains of the modern time. Their net worths have doubled and tripled in the past five years. But on the flip side, the regular American is struggling to make ends meet, middle classes shrinking. You say that fellow billionaires are gonna hate you and you don't care. Bring it on. What did you mean by that?

00:21:36
Speaker 2: They got to pay their For sure, it's unfair. The game is way too brigged. And you know what, people come to California to make big bucks. And they come here because there are a lot of industries here where you can start a business and create enormous wealth if it goes well. And you can't do it elsewhere. I mean, you can't go to Acron and do it. You can't go to you know, there are very very few places. They come from all over the world to do it. And they feel like they made that money on their own and they should be able to keep it all. And I think that's complete bullshit because this is a system that it's taken hundreds of years to build, that working people have built, that working people sustain, and people have died for you know, they come here because of rule of law, freedom, democracy, great education systems. They didn't just happen. People went and died in the mud for hundreds of years, mostly illiterate poor kids so that that system could live, and they come here and think, okay, I'm just going to rip that off. Not even close to fair in my opinion, And for all the working people here. If you get around the state and see how hard people work, how sincere they are, how much integrity they have, and how much they're struggling, and you put those two things together, it doesn't make any sense. And it's I'm totally in favor of people succeeding, totally great, But you know what, you belong to a community in a state. You belong you know, community with a bunch of other people who are also working their wrastle and those people there's got to be a way that that all works. We're not going back to the lords of the castle and the surfs. And it's really important and somebody's got to say that, and they don't want to hear it. And that's why I said, they can hate me all they want, That's okay.

00:23:31
Speaker 1: Climate is one thing we're greed particularly right now, is winning. We know the fossil fuels are destroying the earth, and yet the administration has rolled back to.

00:23:42
Speaker 2: Talk about sports.

00:23:44
Speaker 1: We can get there. This is obviously climate is something that is near and dear to your heart, speak to that.

00:23:52
Speaker 2: I mean, we don't want to destroy the planet. And I want to say what I want to clear up one thing that not everybody knows. Everybody thinks that environmentalists are white people driving foremost. It's not what people think.

00:24:05
Speaker 1: And why is there that stigma though? What do you mean, why is there the stigma that's actually reversed? Is it true?

00:24:12
Speaker 2: I don't. It's because people aren't paying attention. And the closer you are to the natural world, the more in tune you are with the natural world, the more you want to preserve it. And I think there's also, to be fair a big correlation between whether you're a Republican honestly, which is a pretty white party, and so but my you know, I look at it and I think, I just don't want to be part of the generation that ruins it for all the other generations. And I don't want to be one of those people who, you know, there's a huge generational divide now in the United States, with young people just so angry about getting screwed over, and I don't want to be one of the people who's sitting there selfishly screwing over young people, selfishly screwing over all the generations to come, and not stepping up. It's like not, I just feel like we have an obligation to be responsible to the rest of the world, and why would we not want take pride? You know, one of my big things is when you're on a team, you take pride in doing things well. You do take pride in living up to the standards of the team and making those standards really high so you can excel. Don't we want to take pride in our state? Don't we want to take pride in what we accomplish. Don't we want to take pride all of us in what we show the world about our values and our integrity. I mean, we can do this. And the other thing that's great about it is fossil fuels are the most expensive way to do everything, not even including all the pollutionists. I said, it's so much. This war is driving up oil prices, it's driving up heating prices, it's driving up food prices. And you know what, it's a great chance for everybody to change because it's way cheaper to be clean. People think it's sort of like it's totally expensive to do it that way. It's like bullshit, man, It is way cheaper, and that is the rest of the world is moving so fast towards clean electricity and way for fossil fuels. There are African countries that every year increase their electric generation by fifty percent in a year.

00:26:33
Speaker 1: Wow.

00:26:35
Speaker 2: And they do it without telling the government, without telling the electric company. They just do it. Put solar panels on the top of their houses and light their houses and heat their house, probably cool, their house cool. But it's all over the world and it's happening. The price of clean electricity, of solar power and wind power is going Solar wind go down eighty percent a decade. Fossil fuels get more expensive, so it's crossed over for the rest of the world. Why do you want to be in fossil fuels? What is good about a really expensive thing where you're subject to the whims of a war all the time and then everything goes bad.

00:27:18
Speaker 1: AI data centers are popping up pretty much everywhere. Most of the time they're in poor minority communities. Utilities go up, health goes down. Why are minority neighborhoods paying more to get worse?

00:27:33
Speaker 2: So let's be clear, that is a gross structural racial injustice. That is crazy for that to happen. The companies building data centers are the richest companies in the world. There is no way it's fair for anyone's electricity prices to go up because they come into it. If you look at the history of pollution and toxicity in California and the United States, there's gigantic structural racism. They have always put the dirtiest roads, the dirtiest plants, all of the dirtiest manufacturing and industrial places in low income black and brown communities. And you can go I remember going to Fresno ten years ago and a poor part of Fresno, two miles away from a well to do part of Fresno, had a twenty two year lower life expectancy, really twenty two years per miles two miles. And it's the roads, and it's the plants, and it's you know, the manufacturer. And we went in there and people are just crying because it was so obvious and so gross. And it's been structural. And that's why when I talk about climate or the environment, I have a very straightforward plan of how to solve it. But one of the there are only four rules, and one of the rules is everything has to include environmental justice at the get go. If it doesn't, it's you've got to name it, you've got to analyze it, and you've got to intentionally redress it. Because it's been a structural injustice for as long as there's been in California for so long, and so if you don't need you know, I think that whole idea. Now we'll start afresh. That's ridiculous. You know, we're going to start a race. You're going to start fifty yards ahead of me. It's like a centa fair race. And so there's you know when you look at that, and I didn't know that about data centers, but for the idea for that to be possible, it's just wrong.

00:29:42
Speaker 1: Give me the other three. Just give me one.

00:29:44
Speaker 2: Okay, here the four runs the polluter pace like you want to pollute, pay me, Like you don't pollute for free. You know you're gonna dump stuff into the air, the water or whatever. No, you're going to make the climate so hot that people lose their houses in Altadena and Pacific Palisades. Pay me, polluter pays environmental justice. We have the technology deploy the shit out of it. It's here, it's cheaper. You know, there is a twenty six thousand dollars evy that goes four hundred miles in China. It's cheaper than American cars, and it's way cheaper to run it. I think at this point you say somewhere between at these gas prices, you say between ten and twenty thousand dollars per car over the life of the car by not having to put in gasoline. So I'm just saying, so, deploy it. We have the technology. There's no reason for us ever to build another fossil fuel plant. We should be getting off this stuff as fast as possible. And the last one is we are going to have to suck This is you know, people don't think this way, but we're going to have. What we're basically doing is building a layer of carbon dioxide in the planet that warms us up, and we're gonna have to suck that carbon dioxide back into the ground or back into the ocean. And it's actually not that hard to do because we just use photosynthesis, the natural way of building trees and plants. We're going to have, but there's a lot of technology to make it work, and it's here, and it's invented in California, and they're huge businesses and the farmers and ranchers can make a lot of money off it, So why don't we just do That's my fourth roll is like, let's do that as fast as possible because otherwise we're screwed, So why not not be screwed?

00:31:36
Speaker 1: I hear that. Let's take it back a little bit. New York guy that came to beautiful, sunny California. Your brother didn't give you a choice to go to Stanford Business School when you first got here. What were your thoughts?

00:31:51
Speaker 2: Well, for someone who likes to play sports and likes the out of doors, it's like a dream. Wow, Oh this is great. It really was. It was one of those things where I felt like I rode my bike to school, I got to do ever whatever I wanted to do every single day outdoors. And it was kind of hard to believe, to be honest. And I felt like the other thing that's true about California that people don't talk about, and it is traditionally we're so much more optimistic. Yes, you get out here and people are like, it's a great day, let's do something and people and you say, well this is a problem, They're like, great, because there's an easy fix for that. We can do that. And I really appreciated. You know, in the there's a financial famous financial meltdown in two thousand and eight whatever, they call it, the Great Financial Crisis. And this guy calls me up from New York who's working at JP Morgan, who went to Stanford Business School, and he said to me, how's everybody on the West Coast? And I go, well, you know, David, on the West Coast, if it's a nice day and you own a bicycle, it can be a really good day. And he goes, no, No, I'm talking about the financial crisis time. And he said, yeah, I'm talking about the financial crisis too, because there's just a different value structure in terms of what matters the most. And I think that, you know, I really value the idea on the West Coast of your whole life, like how your family is, how your health is, you know, what you're doing that's fun, being open to new experiences. It's very different.

00:33:38
Speaker 1: I agree, what's your hoop game? Like?

00:33:42
Speaker 2: Listen, it's very embarrassing to talk about hoop in front of someone who played in the NBA. But I'm from New York. So New Yorkers have a big mouth, and they believe and a lot of pride, and they believe they're good at hoop. So I will say this, I played hoop my whole life. I was the most valuable player on my high school basketball team, which had something like two hundred and fifty boys in my senior class, So I like to play hoop. My freshman year in college, I played JV soccer, JV basketball, and JV tennis, and I thought I can play all these sports at the D one level. And then I realized I'm not even even got a chance to play these sports at the D one level because they won't let me. You know, I can't start playing basketball after the soccer season. Everybody in the basketball team starts the first day of school, and so I'm going to pay three months and then I'm going to walk on. If you're Bo Jackson, you can do that, but it have to be you walk on. You're so clearly the best person on the team to coach. Whatever you say, Bo, that works for us. I'm not Bo Jackson. So I felt like, if I'm going to start on any of these teams, I gotta choose one, and I chose soccer because I can play ten positions. I can play two positions in hoop. The tennis team I didn't want to play on, so I played soccer my four years and that's captain of my college soccer team I loved. I also love soccer. I love basketball and soccer.

00:35:04
Speaker 1: Where is your best position in soccer? You know much about soccer?

00:35:09
Speaker 2: Okay? I played basically center back, and if you play center back, you get to play quarterback, which means you can see the whole field. You can distribute to the whole It's it's not quite like playing point guard because you're playing d but when the ball moves actually are so and we had it so that I could run up, so you could really kind of play point and you could you know, Okay.

00:35:35
Speaker 1: What drove you to get involved in politics? You know you worked on a campaign in eighty three supported Bill Bradley and John Kerry. What what got you kind of going that direction?

00:35:45
Speaker 2: I feel as if we need a change. I feel like there are some real challenges for us, and I feel like those every one of those challenges. Just as I was saying about high er prices. It's a huge opportunity for us. It's a huge opportunity if you know what you're doing and you can make it happen. It's but it's a real ass challenge. And if you don't know what you're doing and you don't have a plan, then it's just a pain.

00:36:16
Speaker 1: Then you look like the president.

00:36:17
Speaker 2: Yes, well he creates the problems.

00:36:20
Speaker 1: He's even worse, doesn't know what he's doing, doesn't have a plan. You look like president.

00:36:23
Speaker 2: You know, we have a chance that we really need. You know, it's sort of like the Civil rights movement, if you excuse my sayings, like how did that work? People really organized, they were really smart, they were really disciplined, and they had a plan and they stuck together and made it happen. If we do that, we can turn the disaster which was southern criminal behavior towards black people into something glorious. That's what they did. Well, we have a chance to do that, And it's like, why do I want to do that? You know, why are we on the planet earth to do stuff like that? Don't you think?

00:37:03
Speaker 1: I agree? Make it better than when you have it, better when you.

00:37:07
Speaker 2: Leave the campsite, better than you found it there you go. But it's really true to feel like we made our contribute. You know, it's a link in a chain. You know. One of my friends at his memorial service, someone stood up and said, he's proof that if you solve the problems during your life, you're not thinking big enough. And so we're a link in a chain. If we think we're going to solve justice. People very great people have been working on justice. People are going to be working on justice. We better be working on our part. You know. In every one of these people have been thinking about the natural world. People are going to be thinking about the natural world. In every one of these. It's a link in a chain, and we should be make sure that we're not the weak link, that in fact we're powerful possible.

00:37:57
Speaker 1: The state of media, Ellison and Trump are rolling up on everything, the independent outlets on social media like what we do over here and others. How can we fight back? They're monopolizing mainstream media. But I feel like now more than ever, individual independent outlets are as strong as they've ever been, and people are tuning into these individual outlets to get their daily source of information. How do we fight back?

00:38:28
Speaker 2: Well, you're probably smarter about this than I am Matt. I mean the way that I would think we you know, media, it traditionally was like these very straightforward channels, and then it was a lot you know, then it was five hundred straightforward channels. But now it's like whoever is interesting? And so the question is are they buying the old stuff? And can we be the people who are making the interesting true stuff so that people say, I'm not going to go listen to that jackass. I can go listen to Matt Barnes and I can find the truth in a fun way, and I'm going to do that. You know, my kids never I never watched TV news ever. Ever, I'm and my kids don't ever watch TV period. Right, you know, they get all of their news online. They get all their news from sources that they consider to be entertaining and funny. And you know it's so the answer is, if we can be smart enough, we can kick their ass. But it's but they are buying all of the straightforward media outlets. They got no question. And you know what I saw that they got rid of CBS News Radio that's been working for one hundred years. You know what, too liberal. We should shut that down and you know they're about CNN. You know they're going to but CNN was only invented in like nineteen eighty by Ted Turner. You know, we need a new Turner, Matt.

00:40:03
Speaker 1: But isn't as long as you're my partner?

00:40:06
Speaker 2: Isn't that? But isn't that the point about telling the truth? I mean, look, these guys are lying their ass. They're professional liars. They're good at it, they're consistent at it. We have to make the truth, you know popular again, fun, interesting and right, because I do think people are watching this, you know, the old saying who you're going to believe me or you're lying eyes? Well, you know, it's like at this point, the cost price of gasoline is a thing. All the bullshit they're pulling sucks and the and it's like the news is coming in and it's hard to They are denying it and it's not credible.

00:40:45
Speaker 1: You say it, and that you say a lie enough, it starts becoming the truth.

00:40:48
Speaker 2: That's the Hitler move. Yeah, the big lie. You just keep repeating the big lie. But I also think it's start of fun. You guys, you watch you watch Donald Trump, and you can see this man has lost the threat he has really lost because it's like, at some point you can go home and tell your mom, you know, I got an A on the task. What could I see your report card? I lost it. You can pull that for a couple of times. But mom's not that stupid, and he's telling people I've lost my report card.

00:41:20
Speaker 1: Now so long day. I'm ending wars, but I haven't talked to you.

00:41:24
Speaker 2: I want the peace price. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

00:41:28
Speaker 1: Unbelievable outside of work in business and and and stuff. That has gotten to you to this point. What kind of guy are you?

00:41:37
Speaker 2: Well, I am somebody who really needs to play sports every day.

00:41:40
Speaker 1: Okay, what is your what is your sport of choice at this time?

00:41:43
Speaker 2: The things I do these days are tennis, okay, because you'll need one other person to play tennis.

00:41:50
Speaker 1: Because you're a tennis guy. I thought it's on paddleball or excuse me, pick a ball.

00:41:54
Speaker 2: How could you be against Americans outside doing something.

00:41:57
Speaker 1: Fun, so you don't you don't hold the grudge to that, Okay, Americans need to be more active.

00:42:02
Speaker 2: You want to play pickleball.

00:42:03
Speaker 1: Do something?

00:42:04
Speaker 2: Do it.

00:42:05
Speaker 1: That's a real workout too, by the way, or those of you turning your nose up to it, go ahead, am I No, no, no, I'm talking about others.

00:42:10
Speaker 2: Oh no. I love still love to I play any ballsport. I'll play any ballsport because that's fun.

00:42:19
Speaker 1: You golf at all?

00:42:20
Speaker 2: You know, I have this problem with golf, which is I played golf when I was a kid, and I've gotten fist fights on the court two competitive course, and I decided, you know what, maybe it's not people don't like it when you do that in golf, fist fights on the eighteenth green or not.

00:42:35
Speaker 1: I mean happy Gilmour's okay with it. But outside of that.

00:42:38
Speaker 2: Have you ever seen someone getting a fist right on the golf course.

00:42:40
Speaker 1: No, I've seen it online, I've never seen it personally.

00:42:42
Speaker 2: I had to stop. I literally was like, I'm not going to play this sport anymore.

00:42:46
Speaker 1: Mean you need might need to start hanging out because I got your bat exactly. I got you.

00:42:51
Speaker 2: We're a forceome and those two guys are going down who wants it? But I will play any ballsport. I also love being in what's okay? I mean, I love to be on whitewater. I love to climb out and I'm trying to climb all the fourteen thousand foot peaks in California. I like to be in the woods.

00:43:10
Speaker 1: I really dig that outside. Here's your thing.

00:43:13
Speaker 2: I love it.

00:43:14
Speaker 1: So one message to Californians when it comes time, why should they vote for you?

00:43:24
Speaker 2: I am the most prepared person here and I will never ever not stand up for working people. Ever. I will die on that hill.

00:43:37
Speaker 1: I love it. You heard it all right, quick hitters. First thing to come to mind. Let us know what California city, other than La and San Francisco, will grow the most in the next we grow the most, will grow the most in the next twenty years in your opinion?

00:43:54
Speaker 2: Well, the place is going to grow the most is Riverside.

00:43:56
Speaker 1: Riverside.

00:43:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, it's true. A lot of space out there. Fastest growing can.

00:44:03
Speaker 1: Last album you listen to front to back, harder they come. You know who's that boy?

00:44:11
Speaker 2: Jimmy Cliff.

00:44:12
Speaker 1: You shut up, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta put me on Jimmy Cliff orating it.

00:44:19
Speaker 2: You've never heard it.

00:44:22
Speaker 1: I need to hear it.

00:44:23
Speaker 2: It's like the original reggae. Before Bob Marley, someone spoke of Jimmy Cliff.

00:44:31
Speaker 1: But you're the second person that I think told me that I don't remember where the first person, but now I have to listen. Oh my god, and I'll.

00:44:38
Speaker 2: Get there's and there's a good movie.

00:44:39
Speaker 1: I'll give my materials. Okay, what's the movie called.

00:44:42
Speaker 2: Harder They Come? Okay, it's about a guy who is a he comes to town. He becomes a reggae star and he murders somebody. It's about the murder and then him fleeing the cons and it is I remember the first time I saw it, I was like, oh my god, you just slash that kind of face. It's like.

00:45:03
Speaker 1: I need to check that out.

00:45:04
Speaker 2: Oh it's incredible and the music is incredible.

00:45:08
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm on it. Next time we talk, I'm gonna have a little breakdown for you. Favorite restaurant in California.

00:45:17
Speaker 2: Favorite restaurant in California, favorite restaurant. I'm running them through my head. I went to my favorite recent restaurant. I was in Salinas and I went to an amazing.

00:45:38
Speaker 1: Burrito Oh really, holding the all.

00:45:41
Speaker 2: El cherito that the family makes their own tortillas. Yeah, and they've been doing this for fifty one years, and it's like every generation is back there rolling tortillas. Roll me one, I'll roll you one.

00:46:01
Speaker 1: You heard it here first, Tell me about I try to tell people because I've only been a handful of times, but I love it. Sauce Alito, I.

00:46:09
Speaker 2: Mean Sauce Alito is right on the bank. So if you want to take your boat out, which if you want to go eat some really clean food, if you want some fresh air, or if you just want to wander, is beautiful.

00:46:21
Speaker 1: I've been there like twice. It's just beautiful.

00:46:23
Speaker 2: Look, the Bay Area is gorgeous. Yeah, it's people. The New York Times were saying, you know, we live in a hell hole, and it was like, really.

00:46:30
Speaker 1: Have you looked out to you?

00:46:33
Speaker 2: Come on? Okay, I would say, look, the California Sauce leaders on the California Cuss. There's no part of the California cust it's not beautiful. I mean there is no part where you couldn't go like, yeah, that works for me.

00:46:45
Speaker 1: What are we doing here? Yeah? All right, I'm gonna put you on the spot. Top five NBA players in your opinion of all time.

00:46:55
Speaker 2: Kareem okay, Wilt okay, Jordan okay, Lebron, step you gotta say, Steph I'm not mad at that at all. It's not just because I live in the Bay Area.

00:47:10
Speaker 1: I'm not mad at that.

00:47:10
Speaker 2: I mean, if you look at those five, which of those, I mean.

00:47:13
Speaker 1: Who's changed the game the most? It could be the last person you said.

00:47:16
Speaker 2: Most recently Steph changed, will change it completely. The person who I left off? Who is I did that off at the top of my head, just going for chronologically, Bill Russell Man, I mean for somebody and first coach usf too, didn't he us from Oakland went to Oakland Tech.

00:47:39
Speaker 1: Hmm.

00:47:41
Speaker 2: But I'm just saying, I mean in terms of being a spokesperson outside the game as well. Bill Russell's kind of all.

00:47:51
Speaker 1: Right, this isn't on the board. But since you are such a Warrior fan and you do like Steph as much as the rest of he's.

00:47:56
Speaker 2: Just really good.

00:47:57
Speaker 1: He's incredible.

00:47:58
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I mean, how about them he won the Olympics.

00:48:03
Speaker 1: You're saying about stuff. I love stuff. Where do the Warriors go from here?

00:48:08
Speaker 2: So I agree because you look at that team and they've been incredible the whole time he's been there. Would they what would they have been without him? I mean the hole in the wall, mediocre, yea, at best. Honestly, I mean the really great players in who make everybody better. Yeah, you know, you look at all those people on the Bulls who played with Jordan, and they're like great players without Michael. Yeah, I mean you'll never know. Yeah, you'll never know. But Steph. When Steph's in the game, all.

00:48:39
Speaker 1: Of a sudden, everybody plays it.

00:48:41
Speaker 2: Everybody's you know, going into the Hall of Fame seriously literally, yeah, you know, it's like you don't replace, it replaces Steph. He's he's a generational player. And not just that he's such a great team player. He's a great leader, he's a great per It's like, give me a break, Like, there's so much good about him being on a team in addition to the fact that he's this phenomenal player.

00:49:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we live in a in a society now in sports where the greats don't stay, the greats jump around and try to maybe go do. I feel like Steph is going to be a throwback from that standpoint, and I think he's.

00:49:24
Speaker 2: Gonna he's just assumed, like saying we're going to get rid of the Golden Gate Bridge.

00:49:29
Speaker 1: It's like, what, that's stupid possible, right, I mean you see, I mean Joe Montana left the Niners, you know what I mean. So you never think that stuff like another one happened.

00:49:36
Speaker 2: A heartbreaker for me as a Warriors fan, Kevin Durant. If he stays with the Warriors and we do nothing but celebrate.

00:49:44
Speaker 1: Another two or three rings, don't you think? No question?

00:49:47
Speaker 2: It was like, and he's a great player, and he seems like a really good guy. I don't obviously don't know him. It's like, come on, that was a big please.

00:49:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, some internal ship went on over there. Anyways, So you're hoping that he rides until the sunset as a Warrior.

00:50:04
Speaker 2: Well, you know, really great athletes do it on their own schedule. And you know, you can't tell that Jim Brown leaves early. And you know some people play till their Gordie Howe plays untill he's fifty six years old or something, so I can't tell. I don't think that Steph Curry will be playing if he can't be, you know, top top tier.

00:50:26
Speaker 1: Last question, one guest you would like to see on All the Smoke.

00:50:32
Speaker 2: That I'd like to watch or who I think it's important for you to talk.

00:50:35
Speaker 1: To whatever you want important for me to talk to.

00:50:41
Speaker 2: You know, I think you'd really get a who should come on here, an older person, Jane Fonda, because you know she's a rebel. Yeah, she's willing to take a stand in a good way. She's super smart and very articulate, you know, clever the way, but also somebody who's taken real shots. You know people, you know, people used to just hate Jane, just hate her, and she throw right through it and she's done. You know, I wrote a book and Jane did a It was the best seller, by the way, it was, but graduation that's not that big. But I was gonna say, so, Jane did a book talk with me to sell books. You know, you got a bunch of people in the auditorium and they come to see Jane and they hopefully buy my And so Jane is so polite, She's like, you're a New York Times bestseller. Jane find his book was number one on the New York Times Bestseller for so long that they had to redefine best sellers so someone else could be number one. She never said that. I mean, she had completely crushed it. You know, she's got oscars. She invented sort of the fitness revolution, all these things. She never says anything about it. It's always about the next thing. I think.

00:52:04
Speaker 1: I like that. Well, Tom, thank you for your time. That's a wrap.

00:52:07
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.

00:52:08
Speaker 1: Tom starrs catch. Is this the next governor of California. It's up to you. But thank you for your time. Man, appreciate you. That was good.