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Ep 53: What it takes to lobby for Apple, Google & Intel with Matt Tanielian
114 Plays2 months ago
What do you need to know if you're ready to launch a government affairs strategy? How do you find the right lobbyist? And how has lobbying for tech companies changed over the last decade?
Join Matt Tanielian, Co-founder of Franklin Square Group, a bipartisan government relations, as he shares key insights from his decades of experience advocating for tech companies and bridging the gap between Silicon Valley and Washington. D.C. From advising senators on foundation internet legislation like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Microsoft antitrust investigation, to lobbying for Apple as it launched its first iPhone in 2008, Matt has been instrumental to tech firms as they navigate the intricacies of Capitol Hill.
Listen as Matt discusses how to work with politicians and government relations consultants, the value of joining coalitions and trade associations, the future of AI policy, and much more.
Read detailed summary: https://www.spotdraft.com/podcast/episode-53
Topics:
Introduction: 0:00
Attending law school in Washington, D.C.: 3:51
Working for a committee vs. working for a congressperson: 5:05
Questioning whether policy work requires a law degree: 7:12
Launching your own government relations firm: 10:17
Analyzing the evolving conversation around around tech in Washington: 13:15
Hiring your company’s first government relations consultant: 15:35
Joining and organizing coalitions and industry organizations: 20:58
Choosing who will represent your company in D.C.: 26:20
Avoiding common mistakes: 28:30
Envisioning the future of AI policy: 30:32
Advising companies during an election year: 34:42
Tracking the changing nature of lobbying: 36:09
Book recommendations: 38:14
Lobbying vs. government relations: 40:23
What you wish you’d known as a young lawyer: 42:47
Connect with us:
Matt Tanielian - https://www.linkedin.com/in/matttanielian/
Tyler Finn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerhfinn
SpotDraft - https://www.linkedin.com/company/spotdraft
SpotDraft is a leading contract lifecycle management platform that solves your end-to-end contract management issues.
Visit https://www.spotdraft.com to learn more.
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Transcript
How Apple Became Their First Client
00:00:00
Speaker
Our first client was Apple, and this was iPhone 1, so we quit our jobs by myself and my business partner. Started a firm, we had one client, it was Apple. And the iPhone turned out to be a big deal. But you know at the time, you know Nokia and Motorola were much bigger companies. And we were working on issues like disability issues around access to the iPhone, which you know hadn't quite been figured out yet.
00:00:25
Speaker
And I like to say that you take the risk. On the other hand, the first client could have turned out to be a dud. And it turned out that our first client was Apple. So there's a little luck involved.
Launching a Government Affairs Strategy
00:00:42
Speaker
What do you need to know if you're ready to launch a government affairs strategy? How do you find the right lobbyist? And how has the practice of lobbying changed over the past decade? Today, I am joined on the abstract with my friend Matt Tenelian. Matt is the co-founder of Franklin Square Group, a boutique bipartisan government relations agency focused on bridging the gap between Silicon Valley and Washington DC. So perfect for a lot of our listeners who tend to be lawyers in the tech space in-house. Before starting FSG, he was a director in Cisco's Washington office, and he also spent time on the Hill as counsel to a US Senator from New Jersey. He worked there on key issues shaping the future of the internet, like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Inbox Privacy Act, also known as the SPAM Act, the Microsoft Antitrust Investigation, something that a lot of folks continue to talk about in DC, as well as several major telecom
Matt Tenelian's Career Beginnings
00:01:46
Speaker
mergers. Matt, thanks so much for joining me today for this episode of The Abstract.
00:01:50
Speaker
ah Thanks for having me. This is a great opportunity. Really appreciate it. You've got a lot of practical advice to share with our listeners today. But before we get started, I was reading your bio. I did not know this about you. Before you came to DC, you actually spent time as a car salesman.
00:02:08
Speaker
Tell us about that and what you learned from that experience, maybe things that you still apply today in your your lobbying and government affairs work. Yes, that's a true story. Selling cars in the 90s in Boston, you can only imagine some of the characters that I worked But it was a really good experience. you know It was really valuable invaluable to me in my career, oddly enough, looking back, because ability to interact with people, learning how to interact with people, learning how to get people to trust you and and want to listen to you, and selling whatever you're selling. Cars, selling whatever services, whatever it is, that's a skill and it's something that I picked up there.
00:02:52
Speaker
you Looking back on it, it's only three months. It was a summer job. I did not tell that to the sales manager who hired this. When I went into day in August and said, hey, I'm leaving, he said, I thought you said that you needed money so that you could go back and afford to continue your your school. and I said, no. I made that up and he goes, oh man.
00:03:15
Speaker
Maybe you'll fit in here after all. I feel like if there's any profession, where it's okay to tell that story. Yeah. Yeah. um What was your biggest sale? oh um I sold a lease on a Honda Prelude that was the hottest you know souped up sport version of it. It was a particularly hard to get color and somebody just wanted it so bad and they came in. That was so easy. there other There were other sales that were really hard, but you find somebody who just really wants one thing and you've got it, it's easy to do.
00:03:51
Speaker
So you end up in in DC and and you go to law school. At the time, did you know that you wanted to work in government, you wanted to work in policy, or did you just sort of end up in Washington by happenstance?
Transition to Washington, DC
00:04:04
Speaker
I did not. It was really the opposite. My father was a trial lawyer. My mom thought I'd be a law professor. I ended up in DC ah just because that's where I had some friends after college and applied here and got in. Once you're here, there is an attraction to politics. I did practice for a couple years, but wasn't enjoying it all that much. And a friend of mine was a campaign manager for a senator who, when he won, ah was put on the Senate Judiciary Committee and called me and said, hey, you know,
00:04:34
Speaker
Bob is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, or is going to be, he's going to need a couple of lawyers, would you be interested? And after two years of being a real lawyer, I thought, wow, that sounds like a really, really interesting opportunity. Senate Judiciary Committee is in a place, look around, Pat Leahy at the time, ah Senator Biden, yeah Kennedy. It was a pretty ah heady place to to go spend your early years as a lawyer. And it was was quite an honor to work there. So this is a little bit of a a sort of like Government 101, Government Relations 102 podcast. And we're also going to talk about how government affairs and lobbying has changed
Committee vs. Congress Work
00:05:15
Speaker
over time. Just as a background question for folks, you know, what's the difference between working for a committee versus working directly for a member of Congress?
00:05:24
Speaker
Right. It's a good question. If you look at the Senate Judiciary Committee, the chairman of the committee today, Dick Durbin from Illinois, probably has about 25 or 30 lawyers and then some more staffers working for him. They've got a lawyer that does just immigration. They've got several lawyers that do judges. They've got people who are expert at criminal law or antitrust. And so it's a huge staff.
00:05:48
Speaker
And many of them have been around for a very long time. They are political, but not so much, and they are really truly experts. Whereas working for a member of the committee, my boss, who was a freshman member of the committee, there were two lawyers. We had to cover every issue at the Senate Judiciary Committee and then a bunch of other stuff that we were handed by our bosses, and it was a lot.
00:06:11
Speaker
You couldn't be expert on any one thing. As you noted, I happen to be there at sort of the beginnings of the internet know structure. At the end of the 1990s, we did the CDA 230, Digital Millennium Copyright Act, electronic signatures bills, all these sort of core components.
00:06:31
Speaker
of the internet. I liked working on that stuff. I also did about 12 other issues. You know, I worked with antitrust and telecom and antitrust and and Microsoft. I worked on immigration issues, a whole host of other things that happened in the Judiciary Committee that just had nothing to do with tech issues whatsoever.
00:06:49
Speaker
It was the tech that I kind of got interested in, and I had no idea that that's what I'd find in the thing when I got to the Hill. yeah I was a campaign finance lawyer. I no longer found that that interesting. So I find something else, and that's how I sort of gravitated towards tech, being there on sort of the ground floor of some of that early legal structure stuff that was was passed.
00:07:11
Speaker
And do you feel like having, and this is sort of a two-part question, I suppose, both for folks who might want to get into policy work, but also for those folks who might be looking for people to help them navigate the landscape that's DC.
The Value of a Law Degree in Policy Work
00:07:25
Speaker
Do you feel like you need a law degree? Like what's the right sort of path in DC that involves a law degree versus just a background in policy or public affairs. And similarly, for companies that are looking for help, when do they need a lawyer involved versus when does someone who just has many years of experience, say, on the Hill or in the White House or in the agencies write? Yeah, I get this question a lot, especially from folks who are trying to get into Washington or trying to decide whether government affairs is something they'd be interested in doing. It's been great having a law degree. It's important, but it's not required. There's a lot of people who do my job who don't. Now I work on the Senate Judiciary Committee, as you can guess by its name. There's a lot of lawyers there, um but there are other committees you know where the where the expertise isn't as much around legal issues and you don't have as many lawyers, although you certainly have some. So I would say it's it's great, not required. For my business,
00:08:28
Speaker
Franklin Square Group is a boutique technology lobbying firm. We pride ourselves on not just being door openers, and there are a lot of good lobbying firms in Washington. that's ah That's what they do. They do the politics piece. They do the door opening piece, but then you're kind of on your own. As specialists, we can't really do just that. We have to be strong enough on the policy, on the technology to be able to walk the walk and talk to talk if we're going to be specialists. um Being a lawyer um has helped me with that.
00:08:57
Speaker
melding that together, melding the politics and the policy together into a strategic thought, sometimes really on the fly, sometimes with a plan, being able to think on your feet, analyze a situation, analyze, give context to some things for your clients. To me, that's the piece that the law, the experience, I don't know if degree, but the experience of being in law school ah helped me a lot in being able to meld policy and politics together.
Founding Franklin Square Group
00:09:26
Speaker
Yeah, I mean there is a parallel there too in that a lot of the really good lawyers that I've worked with have the ability to spin up and become an expert on something very quickly. And that's not only helpful for understanding the law or understanding you know a new reg or policy proposal or I mean, you really understand the business too and what are the drivers of the business and where is revenue going to come from and how is the product going to evolve? And then where does that meet the market? I mean, I feel like there's there's a similar sort of learning curve in spinning up on a law as there is in spinning up on how a business is is planning to grow. I think that's absolutely right. um And having a law degree and having that background,
00:10:08
Speaker
helped me sort of think critically about things um and analyze them and pull that all together in a way that I think is valuable. What was launching your own firm like? And take us sort of also back to the time that that you launched it. like What was the environment around tech policy? Was it scary to go out and and hang a proverbial shingle or did you feel like this was a well-worn path? but Take us back there.
00:10:34
Speaker
Yeah, I mentioned my dad was a trial lawyer. I always had this sort of entrepreneurial bent. I wasn't really sure when it would come out, but this is when it did. So yeah, it was scary. I'd spent five years at Cisco. It was a great job. I had a lot of stock options. It was a good place that I could have spent many more years, but I had that sort of itch.
00:10:57
Speaker
Um, and thought, you know, there's a real opportunity here because at Cisco and before that a trade association I worked for, you know, I'd hired consultants. Um, this is in the mid 2000, 2004, five, six, seven, eight, and you hire and they they were door openers.
00:11:14
Speaker
Yeah, computer chips, potato chips, they didn't care. I didn't understand the culture of the industry. And I hired them and they got me in the doors I needed to get into. But my thought was, there's probably a better way to do this.
00:11:30
Speaker
There's probably an opportunity for a firm that specializes in tech that understands the culture of Silicon Valley, that understands the innovative drive of these companies and that they're different than, you know, ExxonMobil or Walmart, and that that difference is a value and something that you could present as an attribute. And so that was sort of the the light bulb that went off. I think we could do this. And, you know, I knew it was a risk, but I knew it was sort of the risk that I wanted as an entrepreneur. And the time we were doing it it was, you know, an interesting time. This was 2008 and a financial crisis.
00:12:09
Speaker
hu yeah Not an awesome time to, hey, let's start a new business. What we had was a client. Our first client was Apple. oh and This was iPhone 1. We quit our jobs, but myself and my business partner. Quit our jobs, started a firm. We had one client. It was Apple. The iPhone turned out to be a big deal.
00:12:31
Speaker
yeah That all worked out. But you know at the time, you know Nokia and Motorola were much bigger companies. And nobody was sure that the iPhone would be a hit. when We were working on issues like disability issues around access to the iPhone, um which you know hadn't quite been figured out yet.
00:12:51
Speaker
But it, you know, it was ah it was a different time. And I like to say that you take the risk. And I'd like to take credit for taking the risk. On the other hand, the first client could have turned out to be a dud. And right it turned out that our first time was Apple. So ah there's a little luck involved to place at the right time you got on the right elevator and the rest is history.
00:13:15
Speaker
How do you feel like having seen that whole sort of evolution, Apple, Google, others really growing up in DC and building out huge practices, and how do you feel like the tenor of the conversation has changed over, say, the past 15 years around tech?
Tech Industry's Evolving Role in Washington
00:13:33
Speaker
Yeah. and And that's the timeline for the firm, right? 15 years now. And if you go back, it's iPhone 1, Facebook had 50, 80, 100 million subscribers. I think maybe one or two tech companies were in the top 10 market cap companies in the world. Right. It was just a very different time. Tech was still new. And in Washington,
00:13:57
Speaker
you know, there was a there's definitely a shine on the tech industry. Yeah, and people want it to talk to us. And that's a real advantage when you're in Washington, because I've worked with other people subsequent to that, that it's a little harder to get Now, that all came with a cost. That's success. Top five companies in the world are now all tech companies and they've all grown up and Facebook doesn't have 100 million subscribers. It has 3 billion subscribers. Big has definitely become what?
00:14:31
Speaker
industry is and that has consequences and the consequences in Washington. A lot of people took to the opportunity to criticize the industry for this or that or the other and so it's been a lot more defense than offense in the last five or six or seven years.
00:14:48
Speaker
For our part, you know, Franklin Square Group's clientele has kind of evolved too. We started off with Apple, Google, early days of Google and Washington was one of our very first clients, Intel, Cisco, big companies. But as time went on, it got much more diverse. We started representing smaller and smaller companies. Today we don't represent Apple or Google. after having done it for about 12 or 13 years, it represent a lot of startups. And that's a different dynamics and different lobbying muscles that you use. um But I think it's been an interesting evolution. And those were startups or at least smaller companies when we started with them. And now we're back to representing some of the smaller companies, which is, I think, really fascinating.
00:15:35
Speaker
Let's say that I am one of those startups. you know I'm VC backed. I'm looking to hire my first GR consultant or consulting firm in in DC. How do you recommend folks approach that process? And and is there sort of leg work that needs to be put in ahead of time or work that needs to be done internally for that relationship to be successful? Or is your advice generally go and find the firm and they'll guide you through it?
00:16:03
Speaker
yeah well I wouldn't give that advice. um The main piece of advice I would give is take a step back. Think about why you're doing this. Decide what your goal is in Washington. It's the mistake I see more often than anything else, which is folks just rush into it and they talk to some As you said, a lobbying firm that's like, hey, great, we'll set up a bunch of meetings. And they run up on the Hill and they talk to a bunch of people and they're not really sure what they're trying to do, but it's more like a good exercise. And they come back and they're like, I don't understand what the point of that was.
00:16:40
Speaker
yeah It kind of sours the whole thing. um And so ah when folks come to to me, I kind of encourage them to take that step back. Let's define your goals. And then we can build out the strategy and the tactics. If you go directly to tactics and just start doing meetings, as you know any lobbying firm in Washington can help set up meetings for you. But it's going to sit down and come up with a strategy that fits your company, fits what you're trying to do, and out is there to achieve an actual goal.
00:17:09
Speaker
as opposed to just, let's come to Washington because it might be interesting and fun. um and hey There are companies that want to do that too, and you know that's great. um but But that would be my advice, take a step back, think about why you're doing this, and then thing go on and and work it out from there. and A good firm can help you do that if you decide to figure out what it is that I'm actually trying to do here. Think around strategies and set up more meetings is not a strategy.
00:17:39
Speaker
right ah so ah but ah A good firm can can help you do that. and I'd say on the and ah question of the legwork, talk to Humpel. Washington is a very unique place, and what we do is not the same as any other part of the law. but You talk to people like you.
00:17:55
Speaker
And I'm always happy to talk to people. I have a ah big network of folks that that I talk to, not just clients or people that I want to be clients, but just because as somebody who's represented the industry for the last 15 years, I think that's helpful. there are other folks, whether they're your your VC, or, you know, maybe some other corporate mentors that you have, talk to them. um and See what see how they did it. Because I don't, I don't think there's any one way to do it. But I do think it ought to be deliberate.
00:18:26
Speaker
yeah reactive I'm sure you also are are sort of the first hire, we'll call it quote unquote, for a lot of these startups in DC. In other words, maybe you know you're working with the GC or you're working even sometimes directly with the CEO um and they haven't hired a full-time lobbyist or government affairs person internally. How do you counsel clients on leveraging firms, outside resources, consultants, as opposed to making their first full-time hire or making additional full-time hires themselves? That's a good question. And there's no perfect way to do this. Each company is going to have its own set of problems and and challenges. I've represented over 100 companies.
00:19:12
Speaker
The majority of them, we were their first people in Washington. and Sometimes it's they hired their first government affairs person and then they hired us. Sometimes we were hired by the GC or even the CEO. and We helped guide them through, okay, here's how you set up an office. We've done this with a lot of startups that are are doing that.
00:19:33
Speaker
There's no perfect way to do it. Sometimes it depends on the issues that the company's facing you and the and the and how fast that is that is developing.
00:19:44
Speaker
yeah but but i i do think We could either help supplement and build a team, or we can help you you know help a GC or a CEO who's thinking, what do I do in Washington? How do I set one of these up? um And we've seen them all, some set up not that great, um some that that really do work well.
00:20:10
Speaker
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Speaker
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Engaging with DC Coalitions
00:21:21
Speaker
How do you counsel clients on on getting the most out of
00:21:25
Speaker
coalitions or or industry orgs, because I'm sure a number of your clients per retain Franklin Square Group alongside being members of a whole host of of different other um industry orgs. Yeah. I mean, it's it's a big part of what goes on in Washington, the trade associations, the coalitions. We've seen coalitions grow even more so in Washington around the tech industry because it's such a diverse set of issues.
00:21:51
Speaker
So I'm like, there is this isn't the you know in the motion picture industry association representing movie studios and there's you know eight movie studios or six and there's one association and they all work in the same place. Tech is just so much more diverse um and so and so much bigger um that that you have multiple associations and then literally there's probably a dozen different spin-off coalitions on a particular issue.
00:22:18
Speaker
um more or many issues. um It's hard to get the value out of those groups. And that's one of the things, having worked at a trade association, most of my team has has either worked at companies or trade associations or both. um it's It's really important to get your value out of those. In order to do that, you have to understand how they're working and why they're doing what they're doing. ah The flip side of it is,
00:22:40
Speaker
As great as belonging to an association can be, or a coalition sort of helping you be part of a particular advocacy issue, or you mean for getting your toes wet in Washington, um you know they don't represent you.
00:22:55
Speaker
yeah represent the group and you shouldn't take that as representing you. um So if you need to build your brand or you have a particular issue or particular take on an issue or want to sell to the government um what your product is, ah you're going to need to do it on your own and you can't really rely on the coalition to do that.
00:23:17
Speaker
um Like I said, good place to dip your toes in. And if you're going to do it, you should manage it and get the most out of it. um Because you can get more or less out of belonging to a group like that. um But, you know, at the end of the day, the, you know, the representation is as of the group, not you individually.
00:23:38
Speaker
and There's always usually somebody bigger in the group than you yes who gets the most attention. I've experienced that before. um and It's not in a not in a malicious way or anything. It's just one large company, maybe be a more important financial backer for the industry org, um or the industry org may realize that if they lost,
00:23:57
Speaker
that member that then their views and access would dwindle on the hill and and elsewhere. um you know you You need to be mindful of of sort of who else is in the room and and whose opinions matter a lot.
00:24:13
Speaker
um The one advantage, though, I would say, of of working with industry orgs is it doesn't always mean that you need to stick your neck out. right and I'm sure that you've you've experienced that as well. um and First of all, it it's better to it's better to have a whole host of friends who are all saying the same thing, um but but sometimes you don't even need to take a public position at all because your group is going to take one for you.
00:24:38
Speaker
Yeah, and safety in numbers is ah is a strategy sometimes. yeah And it's a good one. It also can be um working with others can be a valuable thing. The teamwork of it, the understanding, especially for smaller companies, once you get in the room, then you realize how many other people are in the room and go, Oh, wow. I have a lot more fellow travelers than I might have been able to figure out on my own. um you know I had one company that looks pretty much like mine that I i had worked with, but I didn't realize there were 12 others. um and I think that that is is out not always is often a very good experience for companies to come to Washington and realize, okay,
00:25:23
Speaker
I'm not alone. um and um Together, we have a voice. and Especially as you as you talked about with some of the bigger players, I think that's a really important dynamic, especially in tech, especially in the startup world in Washington, which is the bigger players are going to have a seat at the table. If you want to see the table, you're going to have to go in and insist that you get one.
00:25:46
Speaker
And sometimes times that's belonging to a group that gives critical mass to your issue or your part of the industry um to get to get there. um But you will not get there unless you ask and push your way in. And other bigger companies, the names of which we all know, they are they already have a seat at the table. They have 100 people in Washington.
00:26:11
Speaker
um that's going to be a easy for them to accomplish. um You're going to have to work at it. Who should the face of your company be in in DC? I think this is a really interesting question. Is it the GC? Is it the CEO? Is it situational? Obviously, a potentially adversarial hearing on the Hill looks different than you know a friendly roundtable or meeting at the White House.
00:26:42
Speaker
Talk us through how how you counsel companies on on who the face of the company should be. yeah i mean we've got it's very fact specificific but you know if you're betting the company ceo ought to be here yeah that's not That's not usually the case. um Sometimes it is. And if it is the case, the CEO needs to be the face. um If it's not the case, having the the general counsel, I think, is ah is a really good option. I mean, looking at somebody like a Brad Smith or somebody, they they feel like a CEO in Washington. Yeah.
00:27:18
Speaker
and And that was even before he got to where he is today. 10 years ago, it was the same way. A very active a person who understands policy, who's coming here and engaging with policymakers on a regular basis. that And that's what I would say is probably the most important thing. um It doesn't necessarily matter who the face is, um but the face has to be here.
00:27:45
Speaker
and yeah You have to um engage with with policymakers. um You have to do it on a regular basis. You have to follow up. That's something that we really pride ourselves on doing. um I think maybe the Valley had a little bit of a bad rap 15 years ago. You know, CEOs would come flying in and then they'd be gone and you would hear from them for another year.
00:28:11
Speaker
ba And that follow-up is really important. And making it um systematic and strategic is the real value add. um And I think that some companies have gotten that and others have not.
00:28:29
Speaker
That's a great reminder. Are there other common mistakes that you see? Let's say startups, right? I mean, not the Googles of the world, but startups or smaller companies that may be just engaging a firm or may have one person on the ground in DC. Mistakes that you see them make sort of time and time again that are more easily avoided.
00:28:51
Speaker
Well, i I think I mentioned this earlier, not coming in with a ah plan, coming in with a goal, ah just showing up and doing a bunch of meetings. And, you know, policymakers talk to people all the time. They see right through it. They're like, what was the point of that? Were they just like,
00:29:09
Speaker
They just wanted to talk to me. It's political tourism. and i think I think a lot of companies make that mistake. you know They talk to somebody in California or Washington and they go, let's go do a bunch of meetings. They either hire a firm or they set up some meetings and then they're gone.
00:29:31
Speaker
And there's no strategy, there's no goal behind it. um And I think that's the the biggest thing because I think policymakers, while they may not be that smart on on the law or the policy or the technology certainly, they get people. That's what their profession is, is understanding people. um And they can see right through sort of the the the fake nature of some of that. and I think that's something you want to avoid because it's hard to get that aye ah capital back. I love that phrase, political tourism. That's funny. Yeah, we we see we see it occasionally. There's nothing wrong with it. um
00:30:21
Speaker
but you need You need to have a follow-up. Yeah. If you're really going to engage here, you need to have a reason better than it seemed like it was going to be fun. I want to ask you a couple of questions about sort of what's coming in the fall and and more topical questions.
AI Policy and Small Company Engagement
00:30:39
Speaker
and Of course, AI is on everyone's mind right now. And area where you're seeing a ton of engagement from from your clients and and new clients that you're picking up,
00:30:52
Speaker
Where do you see this sort of conversation around AI heading into the fall and into the next administration, whoever ends up ah being the next president? Yeah, I mean, the the activity around AI, the policy activity around AI has been at the highest level you can imagine, um as active as anything I've ever seen in 25 years here.
00:31:17
Speaker
It's been a little unfocused. um Everybody's trying to get in on the game. um And that's led to a lot of noise and not a lot of progress. But I think there's still a lot more to come. I think what's gonna happen is we're gonna go from this sort of general debate around AI, is it good or is it bad? Is it dangerous? Is it risky? to What does it mean for healthcare?
00:31:43
Speaker
How's it going to transform the transportation industry? um and Those are much more concrete and you start to get into these individual sectors um and you start to get some real questions. Risk is a pretty general concept, but risk in housing is a more narrowly defined question.
00:32:03
Speaker
Here's AI, what are the risks for for housing policy? um and so I think as we get as we start to narrow those down, as we start to break into sector-specific discussions, it gets a lot more concrete. In some of those places, you're going to see some some real progress. um and you know The big AI players, to to harp on another point that I made earlier, they're here. They have a seat at the table.
00:32:32
Speaker
And they're going to shape those discussions, those policy discussions in ways that are most advantageous to them. And so smaller players, they need to get on the field and get engaged. um And I think when it breaks into these individual policy areas, that creates more of an opportunity to do that. I think there's a lot more to come.
00:32:54
Speaker
Whoever is the president in in six months, um I think this is going to be a big issue and certainly Congress will be engaged. Whoever's in charge of Congress, I just think it's it is a coming issue and it will continue to be extremely active.
00:33:12
Speaker
Would it be fair to say that your advice even to smaller companies would be to start engaging now as opposed to wait and see for another six months, or is is that right? Yeah, and this isn't a ah business pitch, but yeah I firmly believe in in laying groundwork for this stuff. You do not want your first meeting with somebody to be an ask.
00:33:35
Speaker
yeah or or a help me. ah you need to You need to lay the groundwork for people, build these relationships. There's a handful, not a handful, it's a little bit more than a handful, 20, 30, 40 members of Congress that are really involved in AI policy. You don't have to meet all 535 of them.
00:33:54
Speaker
for You can need a good handful of them and lay some groundwork, and then when push starts to come to shove at some point, you're you're there. um You can build that relationship. I like to call it the trusted advisor model.
00:34:10
Speaker
awesome and you know our are you know The value of a firm like mine is we plugged into the tech industry constantly on every issue. It could kind of plug you into that.
00:34:22
Speaker
and but And the familiarity of of a company with policymakers, when you have to go back in, because there is a problem, ah right where you need something, or you want something, or you want to make sure that you have a seat at the table, but it's good to have laid a little groundwork. The investment is well worth the return.
00:34:42
Speaker
How are you advising companies, maybe with that in mind too, to prepare for for this election year, position themselves for success in DC, irrespective of whether or not there's another Biden administration or or a Trump administration? Yeah, I guess this is showing my gray hair a little bit. and I've been through five presidential transitions since I started here. um ah My advice would be don't get distracted by that.
00:35:13
Speaker
stick to your name, what you need to do. Congress is still going to be here. The administration, while it may be run by somebody else, is going to be tackling many of the same issues. um And increasingly, there's some weird and um new alignments in in politics today. Pop tourism that has sort of bubbled up in the Republican Party and has always been sort of bubbling in the Democratic side has created some strange bedfellows when it comes to some public policies. And the hands off the internet ideas of 10 years ago just don't exist the same way they did
00:35:53
Speaker
and um And so it is more challenging and it's on both sides of the aisle. So I would say don't get distracted. Focus on what your policy issue is and the best way to push that forward. Most of these issues are going to be taken up regardless of who's in charge.
00:36:09
Speaker
Just a few more questions
Modern Lobbying Practices
00:36:11
Speaker
for you, Matt. um Have you seen sort of the nature of of lobbying or or the tactics that lobbyists use change over the course of of your career? like Are there things that are really critical today, like a social media strategy or something that were not so critical 15 years ago?
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah, this is a this is a good question because I think there's been a lot written about how that has changed. And I'm sure there's a lot of folks on the the PR and communications side that would sort of roll out this whole, it's all different now.
00:36:44
Speaker
and For a handful of issues in Washington each year, it is pretty different. These are run like campaigns now. And there's media, social media and grassroots and grass tops and all of the different facets poured into sort of a campaign around an issue. here But for that's like a very tip of the iceberg.
00:37:09
Speaker
Yeah. for For the rest of it, it's still done pretty much the same way. Come up with a good policy idea, go sell it to members of Congress or the administration or an agency, or you know if you have a if there's a problem, address that problem.
00:37:25
Speaker
and and do it in a and a smart and policy-oriented way. ah And that's how most business is still done here. You don't see it. It's not that popular, but that's 95% of what goes on here. Little issues that are not anything you're going to read about in the in the New York Times.
00:37:48
Speaker
um that you know some company wants to push or to defend themselves on. And those issues are run more traditionally than you'd think without sort of the big campaign multi-million dollar or even tens or hundreds of millions of dollar ah campaign budgets. Most of them are done on a much smaller scale and more of traditionally like we've always done.
'The Wolves of K Street' and Lobbying History
00:38:14
Speaker
Usually I ask our guests at this point in time for a book recommendation. You actually gave me one a few weeks back when we were preparing for this and I read it partially on the train to DC called The Wolves of K Street by I believe it's the Mullins Brothers, one of whom reports for Politico, the other for the Wall Street Journal.
00:38:35
Speaker
I found it very entertaining. As someone who generally likes history and was interested in sort of the history of lobbying and Tommy Boggs, who's not someone who I had ever met, but is very famous in DC, the history of lobbying that's this presented it it is is very interesting. you know They also lay a lot of societal problems at the foot of the emergence of sort of modern lobbying and a lot of the money that flows around DC. Probably partially true, probably a little bit overblown and and not the that the only cause of maybe what ails the government today and and some of the other problems that we see in society. What did you think of the the wolves of K Street?
00:39:21
Speaker
I thought it was incredibly entertaining. Folks are interesting when the when the story and sort of intersects with your own life. um And many of the the characters in the book or the the people in the book are folks who I've known. yeah and the Many of the issues and companies that are talked about are things that i I've worked on. so It was kind of fascinating to see it's packaged and and put into this analysis. yeah I hit it a little close to home.
00:39:55
Speaker
Again, though, this this is sort of a tiny sliver of what goes on in Washington. A lot of it is not that exciting. A little bit more boring. um and And it keeps ah keeps Washington moving forward. um But yeah, Brody Mullins from the Wall Street Journal wrote an excellent book. um I encourage people to read it. um But don't think that that's everything that happens in Washington. That's just the highlight reel.
00:40:23
Speaker
I've been saving ah maybe my hardest question for the second to last. They talk about it. You, I notice, are perfectly comfortable using the word lobbying. I've also met people before who are adamant that it needs to be referred to as government affairs or government relations. What's your take on what you should sort of call this profession and and what you do? Good question.
Pride in Lobbying and Government Affairs
00:40:50
Speaker
you know I'm proud of what I do. um yeah I think I represent great companies and I'm proud to have created a firm in Washington here to to do that. um So I don't take it as a negative at all. And I am happy to call myself a lobbyist. i get And government affairs is probably bigger than that. right It's not just lobbying, it's it's policy analysis and and you know corporate strategy. And and we you know hope we can be very helpful on those parts of it as well. um Advocacy is just one part of what I help a company with when I represent them. But I don't shy away from from the lobbyist piece at all.
00:41:34
Speaker
i did I did want to go back to the book piece, though, because yeah I watched a bunch of your podcasts, and so I was ready for it. And I did have another book, so I'll give ah ah give an honorable mention. um The book that I just finished is the autobiography of Lenny Bruce.
00:41:53
Speaker
It's called How to Talk Dirty and Influence People. I just thought it was the most lobbyist thing i could I could possibly do. It is also an excellent law book. um Lenny Bruce was arrested a lot. um and As a First Amendment, ah sort of it's not exactly a legal treatise. but But it is incredibly entertaining and to hear him describe his arrests for all sorts of lewd activities that he participated in, at least at the time. Today they would seem like not the coolest to be illegal. It was quite the interesting law books. so So for all the lawyers listening, I'd recommend so go read Lenny Bruce's autograph auto ah autobiography. it is
00:42:41
Speaker
quite entertaining and a good legal read. I love that. I'll add it to my Amazon cart. All right, as we start to wrap up, I've got a sort of traditional closing question that I like to ask guests. And and that's if you could look back on your days of being a young lawyer. um I'll use that term in your case broadly because what you do is much more than than just the law. Just getting started, ah what's something that you know now that you wish that you'd known back then? It's really the value of time. um not And not just as a lawyer, but as ah as a person. Time is your biggest asset, how you use it, and who you work with. You don't get to go back on these things. And pretty soon it runs out. um And so don't waste it. um Time is your your biggest asset. Think of it that way.
00:43:32
Speaker
How am I using my time? Who am I using it to be with? and you know For my example, I started the firm when I was 38 years old. I didn't really think about it at the time. But if I had waited another five or six or seven years, it probably wouldn't have happened.
00:43:49
Speaker
And so timing is important. When you see the time, do it. um The other thing, you know, advice I'd give to people is really learn to follow your instincts. It's the real value you can add. Really hone those. um And if you can trust your instinct, you you can be very valuable to people.
00:44:11
Speaker
And if you're second guessing yourself, you won ultimately your value is not as high. um So learn to trust your instincts, learn to hone those instincts, they'll be really valuable to you. So those are the two things I'd say, time and instincts. That's great advice. Matt, thanks so much for joining me for this episode of The Abstract. This has been a lot of fun. Tyler, thank you for having me. And to all of our listeners, thanks so much for tuning in and we hope to see you next time.