Here's Where It Gets Interesting - The DNA of America with David Rubenstein

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

In this episode, Sharon is joined by David Rubenstein, successful businessman, philanthropist and lover of American history. Sharon and David discuss the core beliefs that make up America’s DNA as mentioned in David’s most recent book “The American Experiment.” David shares tips for becoming a better leader and reminds us of the importance of giving back to our communities. As well, David explains how he acquired multiple original copies of some of the most famous historical documents in the world (Oh hello, Declaration of Independence). Join David and Sharon as they unpack everything that makes America, America and provide a look ahead into a brighter American Dream. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, hello. Welcome to this episode in which I am sharing a very interesting conversation with somebody who owns multiple copies of the Declaration of Independence. And I don't mean the kind you buy on Amazon, y'all. I mean like the kind from 1776. He has purchased them, put them on display in museums all over the world. He's a billionaire philanthropist. And we had so many interesting things to talk about. Today I'm chatting with author David Rubenstein. I'm Sharon McMahon. And welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. And welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. Thank you so much for joining me.

I am really grateful for your time today, and I absolutely loved your new book. So can you give everybody just a little overview of what it's about, and then we'll kind of dive into some of the really interesting topics you discussed. Thank you very much for inviting me. The book is called The American Experiment, and it's about the effort over the last 230 years or so for America to live up to the rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, where we guaranteed people certain rights and so forth. And we have these rights as part of our, I would say, DNA.

There are certain things that are part of our DNA in this country, the right to equality, the belief in separation of powers, the belief in the importance of voting. And we've tried to live up to those rights over the years, that DNA, but we have not always completely succeeded in doing so. And this book talks about, through the voices of other people, how we've struggled to live up to these DNA pieces of our body. I really liked how you said that in the introduction, like this analogy of the earth would not be what it was if we were not precisely in our position in the universe. We were closer to the sun, farther away from the sun. So many factors coalesced to make up the American DNA. And if anything had changed, we would not be who we are.

Can you tell us more about what you think is in America's gene pool? What is in our DNA? Well, just like humans have millions of genes, we have millions of genes in our DNA pool. But I try to cite 13 of them, which are the ones that people would probably know, but the ones that people might not think about as much are the belief in the American dream that you can rise up from the bottom and come to the top, or the belief in diversity, which increasingly is an important part of our gene, or the belief in the separation of powers, or the belief in the civilian control of the government, and belief in the peaceful

transfer of power. And those are the kind of things that are really part of our DNA. And I do say in the beginning of the book, as you probably know, that had we not had all these pieces of our DNA, the events of the election and January 6th could have turned out differently. It wasn't a foregone conclusion that it would come out this way, but probably because the DNA we have is such that people didn't really want to have a military takeover. People wanted a peaceful transfer of power. People believe in the rights of people to vote and have their votes counted. I loved the people you collaborated with on this book. This is not just a soliloquy of your own,

of like, here's what I think about America. You really consulted with such a unique and fascinating array of people, all the way from renowned historians to actors to artists to a Supreme Court justice. How did you choose who to include in your book? I have to be careful because I interviewed a lot of people that didn't get in the book. The publisher that made the the final decisions because there were some people who I wanted to have in the book and I just, for space reasons, couldn't. But these are people that generally I knew or generally I knew of and people that I thought would engage in a good conversation with me and the people that reflected the kind of things that I was trying to focus on. people that reflected the kind of things that I was trying to focus on. So, for example, Jill Lepore is the first American woman to write an American history textbook, and she really covers the entire history of our country, but focusing a lot on women's history, which we usually don't see in American history textbooks, as you probably know as a teacher. Or Ken Burns, who did a

terrific film on Vietnam. And I lived through the Vietnam War, and I know how terrible that period of time was. And he kind of explains it in much better terms. So those are the kind of people that I interviewed. What made you want to write this? Because frankly, you could do anything you wanted, right? Well, I would say that I work in the White House as a young man. I worked in Congress.

I got a sense of history more than I did from just reading about it. And then I lived in Washington for the last number of decades. And then I've been involved in helping to restore buildings like the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, or buying historic documents like the Declaration of Independence. And it's given me a sense of history and more and more the importance of history that we should learn more about it. And this is an important point as a former teacher, you would certainly appreciate. If I show you the text of the Declaration of Independence, you can show that text on a computer slide to any of your students. Right. And they can learn about it. You can teach them. But why is it that we should preserve the original copies of the

Declaration? Well, it's really because the human brain is such that if you have an original, you tend to study it more. You'll think more about it, it'll be a greater experience to see the original decoration, the original Magna Carta, than just reading the text. And the same is true of historic buildings. We can see pictures of the Lincoln Memorial, but if you actually visit it and we preserve it, you're going to learn more about it because the brain is more likely to be excited about seeing it or learning more about it. So that's why we preserve things. And that's why I'm trying to do things that excite people about American history. So they'll go visit monuments, memorials, read about history. And hopefully the theory is a more informed citizenry would make a better democracy. I don't even think that's a theory. I think that's a fact. I would love to hear more about the process of acquiring historic documents because you have acquired a number of them that are now on loan to the Smithsonian, etc. Tell us more about the acquisition of stuff like that.

One night I happened to go to an auction. They were auctioning off the Magna Carta. And I realized quickly as listening to people that this was the only copy in private hands, the only one that would be in the United States. So I decided to keep it in the United States. And then I decided to buy other historic documents that might be lost or leave this country, the Declaration of Independence, the 13th Amendment that freed the slaves, the Emancipation Proclamation, and so forth. And then I just basically decided to put them on display so people can see them. There's no point having any of these documents in my home. What good is that going to do? Every document I have is on display. I own a large number of copies of Declaration of Independence all on display in various places. For example, I'm the chairman of the Kennedy Center in Washington, and I put a copy on display

there so people, when they go to the Kennedy Center, can see it. I've lent one of my rare copies to the National Archives. They didn't actually have one of the copies that I have, and I've lent them to the Constitution Center and other places. So I've done these kind of things that people can be educated and hopefully do something useful. You know, we're only on this earth for a short period of time, and we have to feel that we're doing something useful with our time on this earth, I think, to be happy. And when I do things to try to give back to this country, it makes me happier. That is fascinating. Do you buy all these things? Okay, so let's say you're like, hmm, Declaration of Independence copy is available.

Are they all at auctions? How would one even go about finding one of these things? Well, some things are an auction. Sometimes they're private dealers. And sometimes if you're well-known in the area, people will call you up and say, I have this. So it's a combination of things. I'm much better known than I was 20 years ago in this area. For example, I now own more than a dozen rare copies of the Declaration of Independence all on display. But many of them I acquired through people calling me. For example, one person called me and came to me and said that he owned a copy of the Declaration of Independence that was owned by James Madison.

said that he owned a copy of the Declaration of Independence that was owned by James Madison. Now, of course, people exaggerate, but I did the checking and he actually was a descendant of James Madison. And it appears for all the experts that I had look at it, that this was one of the copies that was given to James Madison, the copy of the Declaration of Independence. So I bought it and it's now on display. That is fascinating. I love the Constitution. It's definitely one of my favorite things to teach about, learn about. To be able to see a copy of the Declaration of Independence that was perhaps in the home of James and Dolly would be fascinating. Well, it's an interesting thing that if you don't remember history, you're condemned to relive it. And so that's why it's important to learn history so we can avoid the mistakes of the past.

And trying to excite people about learning about history is one of the things I've tried to do. So one of my interests in life now is trying to give back to society. I got very lucky in my business career, and now I'm going to basically give away all my money. And part of it, I'm giving away to remind people about American history. I love that you signed the Giving Pledge for somebody who is not familiar with that. What is it and why did you decide to sign it? Bill Gates and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett came together more than a dozen years ago and said that wealthy people, people they defined as having a billion dollars or more of net worth, should give away 50 percent of their net worth

upon their death or during their lifetime. Bill Gates came to see me. I talked about it with him and I agreed to do it because I was going to do it anyway. Probably it wasn't something I hadn't thought of. And I did it because I came from very modest circumstances and I thought that I should be giving back to the country, which enabled me to make the kind of money I did and have the kind of life I did. So I view this as a way to give back to my country. And I encourage other people, whether you have a high net worth or a low net worth, to give back to your country. And the most valuable thing you can give is not your money, but it's your time. You can always make more money if you need to make money, but you can't make more time. That's the most

valuable thing we have. And as you know, from being a history teacher, when de Tocqueville came to this country and wrote his famous book, he said that the thing that surprised him the most about the United States was everybody was spending time volunteering for things. They're all running around volunteering. They were giving back their time. That's still a great thing for people to be able to do. And I encourage people to do that. I have raised money and given away millions of dollars. And I'm certainly not in the same position that you are, but I also have a small taste of the amount of work that it is to actually responsibly give away money. People think that it's just like standing on a street corner and making it rain and just throwing $100 bills out the window.

And it's actually a tremendous amount of work to responsibly give away your money. Have you found that to be the case? Well, of course, anybody will laugh and say, oh, sure, it's easy to give away money. And of course, you can always give it away tomorrow. Anybody will be happy to take all your money if you want to give it to somebody. But if you want to do it in an intelligent way that has some impact to actually make a difference, it takes time because every project that might come to your attention isn't going to work. You have to make certain you're passionate about it as well, and we'll stay involved to make sure it's done properly.

So yeah, I do give away a fair amount of money, and I try to stay on top of it. But I don't do it just lightly. I try to spend a lot of time studying something. And before I give it away, the money, I want to make sure that the value is going to be received for it. Right. I can't pretend to know what it's like to give away hundreds of millions of dollars, but even just giving away a couple of million dollars, it takes just a tremendous amount of effort. I would love to know what kinds of projects make you the

happiest to give money to. I know that you have been very generous in terms of our national monuments. Is that at the top of your list or is it something else that maybe I'm not thinking of? Well, think about it. Probably 5% of the money I've given away relates to fixing national monuments, memorials, or documents. But most of my money goes to education and medical research, which is true of many people in my position. I was chairman of the board of Duke University. I'm on the board of University of Chicago. I'm on the board of Harvard. I was on the board of Johns Hopkins, so four major universities. So if you're on the board of Duke University. I'm on the board of University of Chicago. I'm on the board of Harvard. I was on the board of Johns Hopkins, so four major universities.

So if you're on a board of a university, they probably expect, if you have my kind of financial situation, to give money, and I've tried to do that and try to help them improve those universities a bit. I also give away scholarships to people in high school in Washington, D.C., and other kind of scholarship programs that I have.

In medical research, I'm very deeply involved in Sloan Kettering Memorial Cancer Center or Johns Hopkins Hospital. And so those are the things I give away money to. And also the Chairman of the Kennedy Center, I'm involved with cultural kinds of things there. My mother, when she was alive, she passed away a few years ago, she used to say, I didn't care about all the money you're making, but I do care that you're giving it away. That's something useful. And so she was more proud of my giving away the money than making the money. And when she passed away, I went through her items and she had copies of the articles about my gifts,

but none of the copies of the articles about my financial success, because she didn't care about that. She only cared that I was doing something useful, giving away the money. And maybe that got that from her. Like, how can you make your mom proud? Give away all the money you've earned

to really valuable causes and organizations? I think everybody wants to feel they've done something useful with their time on the earth. And if you can please your mother, that's a good thing. It's easier to please your mother than please your children. But pleasing your mother, you know, it's a good thing to do. I would love to hear from you more about leadership. You have interviewed many leaders, learned a lot about leadership yourself. What kind of advice would you have for somebody who is interested in being a better leader?

Well, in a leader, and I interviewed in my leadership book, people like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Colin Powell, Jim Baker, Melinda Gates, Phoebe Novakovic. I just interviewed her for a TV show. She's the head of General Dynamics. Or Condi Rice or Madeleine Albright. All leaders basically would say there's some luck to getting where they are. So you can't make luck, but you can help yourself make luck by being in the right position. The key things are hard work, sharing the credit, learning how to communicate with your followers. You can't be a leader if you don't have followers. Learning how to write well, learning how to speak reasonably well, and learning how to lead by example. Also, rising to the occasion. When a crisis occurs,

you've got to prepare to rise to the occasion and meet the leadership challenge there. Being ethical helps a great deal, too. So there are many different qualities, but I think one of the things that you would probably appreciate, particularly given your background, is read. You can't read too much. I go to commencement speeches and give a commencement speech. I always try to remind people commencement means beginning, not the end. And it's not the end of your education, it's the beginning. And you can't read too much because when you read, you learn much more, you have ideas that will blossom, and you'll be more informed about how you can take advantage of opportunities that might come to your way.

And I think reading books is better than reading almost anything else because a book focuses the brain in a way that a tweet doesn't or a way that a memo doesn't. And so if you go back and look at some of the great people in our country's history, they were great readers. For example, David McCullough, I interviewed him for the book. He wrote a book about the Wright brothers. And he said, the Wright brothers, neither of them went to college. They had this audacious idea of flying. Why did they think they could do it? And how did they get so prepared to be able to do it, even though they had no college degrees, no engineering backgrounds? Because they had read books. They were big believers in books. And they really got a lot out of their book reading as a young people. And you can't overlook the fact that in this country, sadly,

14% of the people in this country are functionally illiterate, which means that 14% of the people in this country cannot read past a fourth grade level. Those people are not going to enjoy life very much. They're not going to succeed as much. We also have a lot of people that don't read books very much, even though they can read. More than 50% of the people in this country have not bought a book or been in a bookstore in the last five years. That is terrible. I love to read. And my mom has always said to me, my mom has said to me literally my entire life, if you are a reader, you will never be uneducated. And I love that. So I created literacy awards at the Library of Congress, where we give out a fair amount of cash each year to nonprofit organizations that are promoting

literacy, because that's a very, very important thing to do. And if we don't have people that can read, we aren't going to be a very successful country. Right now, 80% of the people in our juvenile delinquency system are functionally illiterate. Two-thirds of the people in the federal prison system are functionally illiterate. So that is one of the big problems of social inequity in this country and income inequality. We have people at the bottom that are not going to ever advance because they can't read. And it's a solvable problem, right? It can be solved. One of the problems is if you can't read, your child is going to have a problem reading as well, because very often people learn how to read from their parents. And if your parents can't read, you know, you may have a harder time reading.

So we need to get everybody to read, not just young people, but adults can learn how to read, too. And there are many programs to get adults to learn how to read so they can ultimately teach their children how to read or also have a better life themselves. So they can ultimately teach their children how to read or also have a better life themselves. Yeah. I mean, like just from a statistical perspective, the two greatest determinants of a student's success are the parent's income and parent's education level. Those are the two things. And so if you want to have a chance at a better income level, how about you try being a reader that you can also be better educated and educate your own children

I think reading is one of the great things in my life when I was young my parents didn't really have the money to buy books but there was a library nearby they would walk me to it we didn't have a car at the time and take two miles I get there and you can check out 12 books when you're six years old I would take out the 12 books I'd read in one day, and then I'd have to wait a week before I could take out another 12 books. I love reading, and I love the library that I had available to me. Now I am a book collector myself.

I have an extensive rare book collection because I just love what these books have meant to our country. I grew up about a half a block from a library, and then when that one would only be open every other week, I would take the bus to the big library downtown. And my mom's role was always, you can only check out as many as you can carry home. Like no one is coming with a car to get you. So bring a backpack. If you could lift it, you could bring it home. Then you have to be in charge of them and

return them obviously. But libraries had a very significant impact on my childhood as well. I can relate to that. Well, whether you read online or you read a hardcover book the traditional way, which I'm old enough, I prefer that. I still think reading focuses your brain in ways that virtually nothing else does. So if you want to improve your brain, probably the best way to do so on a regular basis is just read, read, read. Approved. I approve this advice. As though you were looking for my approval. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It is my girl in the studio.

in the studio. Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag

to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Lady 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit

all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. I would love to know more about what you want people to take away from your book, because we're going to convince everybody to become a reader. Hopefully they will read your book. What do you want people to take away after they're done? I hope that people will take away the idea that this is a unique country. We're an experiment, really, to try to build a representative democracy from whole cloth. We've had a lot of challenges. We've had some fatal flaws, which was slavery, for example, which almost tore this country completely apart. And we obviously came together eventually.

rights in this country that people have struggled to get. We're still not there. But you should look at this country as one which is an evolving country, which has certain DNA that makes it strong, but that is still evolving. And we should work towards evolving so that we can actually have all people being equal and all people have the right to vote and all people can participate in our democracy the way the founding fathers more or less intended. Do people often ask you this question because they often ask this of me. They often want to know, who is your favorite president? I get asked that for many times. I would say there's no doubt that Abraham Lincoln is our greatest president. Abraham Lincoln held the country together. It would be so easy for a president at that time to say, the South,

you want to go away? Goodbye. You be your own country. I'm just going to be the president of the North. That's what probably I would have done. I would have probably said, OK, I don't want to go away? Goodbye. You be your own country. I'm just going to be the president of the North. That's what probably I would have done. I would have probably said, OK, I don't want to get in a war over this. But he he fought for it. Many people died, obviously, for it. But ultimately, the country is better off for it. And we ultimately eliminated slavery as a result of the war. So he was the greatest president without any doubt. And his eloquence in the way he wrote and spoke. It just speaks volumes about the kind of person he was. George Washington, I would say, is the second greatest president because he built the country, really.

He presided over the Constitutional Convention. He won the war. And in many ways, he set the tone for what a president should be. I've been inspired, of course, as a young man by John Kennedy. I share the Kennedy Center in Washington, and that's probably due in part because I really admired him as a young person. I admired his charisma and his youth and his dynamism. Those are some presidents I do admire, but I worked for President Carter. And while he didn't get reelected, I do admire the kind of ambitious program he had. George Herbert Walker Bush was an advisor in my firm for many

years. And while he also didn't get reelected, he was an incredibly humane person and he had a really successful presidency, but for the reelection part. Presidency is such a unique job. There's literally nothing else like it in the world. If somebody wanted to hand you the presidency, be like, David, you are now the president. Would you take it? Well, it's a great job. And when you work in the White House and you're an advisor to president, very often you say, well, geez, I can do this job. And that's why many people work for the White House say, hey, I can do this. But the truth is, I'm too young. I'm only 72 years old and too young. Too young. I got to wait till I'm 78 or something. Yeah. Like maybe 15 more years. Why not set a record? Why not be the first 90-year-old president?

Why not? This is something that I hear from a lot of people who follow me. Why is the country still being run by a bunch of old white guys? Is that a fair criticism or not? It's an interesting question. Let me answer it this way. Think about the Constitution. That was put together by old white men, not so much old, at that time they were in their 30s and 40s probably, some in their 20s, but all white Christian property owners. It's often wondered what would the country be like today if we had women and minorities in that Constitutional Convention? Would we have a much different constitution? Obviously, we would, but we have what we have. Yes, you're correct.

While the average age in this country is now 38. So why are people who are in their 70s still running the country? It's a fair question. I think that you would expect more and more young people to start taking greater and greater leadership. But for whatever reason, people are living longer and are healthier as they live longer. So if you were born in 1900, your life expectancy was 49. If you're born today, your life expectancy is probably close to 80. So we're living longer. And therefore, these people are doing things they wouldn't have done before. So for example, it used to be that retirement was at 60 for many people. And the Social Security age was 65.

But now, you know, people work longer, they live longer. And so many people work much longer than they used to. I remember when I was working in the White House for President Carter, I said, President Carter, you have no chance of losing this election to Ronald Reagan. He's 69 years old. He's so old he can't get out of bed in the morning at 69. Now I'm 72 and it doesn't seem so old to to me. So yes, we have changed our views. I would say that women are taking a greater role than they used to in government. When I worked in Capitol Hill, there were hardly any women in Congress now, not 50%, but a larger percentage than used to be the case are women. Women have major positions in the cabinet. We have a woman vice president. There are not as many female CEOs as I would have thought there would be by now, but there are some. Women are playing a greater role than they have

played before. It's amazing, though, that it wasn't until 1920 that women had the right to vote. And as I point out in my book, in one of the interviews, some prominent women like Eleanor Roosevelt initially opposed the right to vote because many women didn't think it was something they could really do or it was appropriate for them. So women's rights have come a fair bit from where they were in the beginning of this country. In the beginning of this country, if you were married, you weren't even allowed to own property. Abigail Adams wrote a famous letter to John Adams saying, when you're coming up with how to fix this country, please remember the women. Don't forget the women. Of course, he said, well, I don't have to worry about the women. You just take care of

what you take care of. We'll take care of the government. So it was a typical answer at that time. The world has obviously changed. There are more women living in this country than there are men. And I know that there are more women who vote than there are men who vote. I suspect at times you will see more and more women taking more and more leadership positions. And that would be a good thing for the country. What are the reasons that I give when people ask me that question? Like, why is it a bunch of 70 year old men who are in charge for everything? And I'm like, because people vote for them. That's the answer.

It is surprising that you don't have younger people getting some of these positions. Like John Kennedy was elected president when he was 43. Barack Obama, 47. Bill Clinton, 46. Now we have somebody elected when he was 78. And Donald Trump was 70, 71 when he was elected. So I guess it's because people are living longer. People are still ambitious. People don't want to get off the stage. I'm a baby boomer.

And for baby boomers, we've been the center of attention for the country for our entire lives because we were the biggest part of the population. And now I guess my view is that baby boomers are saying, we don't want to get off the stage. We're staying here. Don't push us off the stage. We're still here. So you have a lot of people who are now running major organizations and their 70s major government figures in the House of Representatives. I think that the leadership is now probably, you know, the Democratic leadership is probably in its 80s. Yeah, I think Nancy Pelosi is over 80 now.

Yes. And the other two senior leaders are, I think, also at this point. You know, obviously I'm biased because I'm now 72 and I don't want to be off the stage myself. But I do recognize that some people who are younger like you and female like you might say, what are these old white men doing? But what answer can I give other than, you know, please let us hold on a that some people who are younger like you and female like you might say, what are these old white men doing? But what answer can I give other than, you know, please let us hold on a little bit longer, but we try not to do any more damage. That's such a good point. We're not ready to get off the stage. That's a great way to put it. Like we still have a lot to offer and we have things we want to do. Well, I guess that's the only way you can look at it. I mean, I don't want

to shuffleboard and I don't want to just sit on a beach. So I'm trying to do things. And somebody who is a well-known person who was in our firm for a long time said, when you get older, what you want more than anything else is to be relevant. And because you've been relevant your whole life and whatever you're doing now, all of a sudden you're irrelevant. And so I guess in many ways, people like me are trying to be relevant still and do whatever we can to be relevant and add some value to society before our time has come. I would say buying copies of the Declaration of Independence and displaying them. I will give you a free relevance pass. Thank you very much. I guess that's better than a get out of jail free card.

Free relevance pass, something you never knew you wanted. Thank you. I would. I need that. Yeah. I would love to know, what does the American dream mean to you? The phrase the American dream was invented by somebody in in 1936. And it was designed to convey the idea that in America, you could start at the bottom and you could believe that you could get to the top. And in fact, there were instances of people doing that. The famous stories of Horatio Alger were stories about these people who would rise from the bottom and come to the top, all of whom were boys becoming men, except for one woman he wrote about. But today, interestingly, the American dream is a dream not that many Americans have to the same extent as people who come to this country

as immigrants. Immigrants often come, they're very ambitious, they're hardworking, and they want to make a new life for themselves. They often believe in the American dream in a greater extent than some people who live in this country. Now, many people who live in this country have lots of challenges, racial discrimination and economic hardship. They often don't believe in the American dream as much as people who come to this country. That's why they come to the country, because they believe that there is a chance to rise up.

So America is very unique in that respect. You don't hear about the Bolivian dream, the Greek dream, the Yugoslavian dream, whatever it might be, because in other countries, you very often don't dream that you can rise to the top. It's not part of the ethos. In this country, it is. Do you think the American dream, like what that means, is that going to evolve over time? Is that going to be something different in 2060? Well, I think it probably will be in this sense.

For one thing, the American dream is often probably pictured about young boys becoming men who then conquer the world or become famous or rich or something. And increasingly, it will be seen as including women. Increasingly, it will be seen as including more minorities than it has historically done. But also, the American dream as defined by the original people that came up with it was you become successful as measured by political power or business power, economic power, wealth. But I think increasingly it will be you achieve the American dream if you help other people. If you're a philanthropic leader, you're a social entrepreneur, you're doing something useful for society, even if you're not politically powerful

or you're not rich. That was how the American dream will likely evolve. I love that. One of the things that I get asked literally every day by dozens and dozens of people is after watching the news, they feel this sense of despondency, like they're in this pit of despair, like this is the worst this country has ever been. Look around. It is all going to hell in a handbasket. That is how they feel. I would love to hear from you as a student of history, as a lover of history. Do you think the country has been worse in the past than it is now? Or do you agree with them that this truly is the worst it's ever been? Well, the worst it's ever been was a civil war when we lost roughly 3% of our population and the country was torn apart. We've had great periods of distress, the Great Depression, for example. But since 1870, we've been the richest economy in the world. Not everybody

has benefited from it, but largely the country has become the wealthiest country in the world. Not everybody has benefited from it, but largely the country has become the wealthiest country in the world. And I would say it's not the worst of times, not the best of times. I would say we are becoming a country of a tale of two cities. If you are poor, you are a minority, you are homeless, you're not educated, it's a terrible place to live and not a good time because we are accepting homelessness. If you see a homeless person, what do you do now? You just go about your business. If you have a panhandler come up with you, you generally walk past the panhandler. Most people do.

So we have a lot of panhandlers, a lot of people begging for money, a lot of people who are homeless. And it's a sad situation. It's embarrassing for a wealthy country to have that. On the other hand, you have people who are creating great companies out of whole cloth, Amazon, Netflix, Apple. A lot of great entrepreneurs have created great companies, created a lot of wealth for people. And so there's an opportunity to create great wealth and to get some of the benefits of it and to give away money. So it's a tale of two cities in the sense that I'm afraid that the wealthier are getting wealthier

and the poor are getting poorer. And as a result of that, we are becoming a country which is divided by economic class much more than we ever were before. If you had the chance to amend the Constitution, you get one David Rubenstein amendment, what would the 28th Amendment be? Well, I think we've had only 27 amendments when you point that out, really, the 28th Amendment. I think it would probably be the ERA. The Equal Rights Amendment came within one state of becoming an amendment, but there became a big effort against it. At this point, I think we have greater equality than we had when the ERA was being conceived of, but I do think that it would be a good statement for the country to actually finally pass the ERA.

What do you feel like that would do? Would it be mostly just like a, hey, we truly believe that everyone has equal rights and we're just going to put it in the document? Remember, what we do in this country has influence all over the world. And if the United States were to do this, I think it would have an impact on people around the world. While the situation for women is not as bad in this country as it is in other countries, if the United States were to pass an ERA, I think it would be taken as a sign around the world that it's a time to do this in all constitutions and do a better job that we are doing around the world in having all people be truly equal in terms of their rights and opportunities. That's a great point, too, that we can serve as an example for others. Even if we feel like it's not making a massive difference in our societal structure,

we have the ability to be an example for other people. Do you view America as that kind of proverbial city on the hill? I think America is for many people, the city on the hill, but we should recognize that it's not a perfect city and it's not a perfect hill. And therefore we have to improve it. No country's perfect. If you want to live in a perfect country with no challenges, I suspect you can find some small country somewhere in Europe that has no racial minorities, has everything working well, and there's no internal fights and political schisms. I suppose there are some countries like that. And there are countries that have higher degree of happiness than we allegedly do. Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, other places, sometimes people say they are happier than we are. It's hard to really know

how to measure that. But I would say the United States is an ideal, and we're struggling to get to that ideal. And my book, to some extent, talks about some of the struggles to get to that ideal. What is one thing that you feel like people misunderstand about America, either through history, government, our current situation? What do you think the American population, as you mentioned, so many people are functionally illiterate, don't read books. What is something you wish more people would understand? I wish more people would understand that people in our government are trying, honestly, to do something useful and productive, but the system now really makes it much more difficult. And I think the biggest problem we have is money,

because politicians need so much money to get elected or for whatever reason to stay in office. If we had a system with less money being involved and shorter campaigns, I think that would be a good thing. Yes. Why is this campaign season two and a half years long? You need hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars to win a presidential election now. The next presidential election usually begins the day after the last one. It's so long. I absolutely love what Sonia Sotomayor had to say at the conclusion of your book. When you said, my final question is this, suppose somebody says, I want to be a Sonia Sotomayor when I grow up. I want to be a leader.

I want to be a great justice. And if anyone's listening, doesn't know who she is, she is a current Supreme Court justice. You asked her, what are the one or two attributes that you would recommend to young women and young men that they develop if they really want to become a leader when they get older? And I love what she had to say. She said, passion. That is the first quality. To become a leader, you have to show people that you care deeply about things. People only follow those they think are passionate. So you have to possess passion. And second, commitment driven by dedication and hard work. And you do not get anywhere unless you work hard. Do you think that perseverance, dedication, commitment to working hard,

do you think that is what is needed to achieve success in America? Well, success in anything in any country, it is hard work and perseverance. It's easy to say, well, just sit around. Some good things will happen to you. But the truth is, don't take no for an answer. Persevere. Fail a little bit. Pick yourself up.

Get back in the fight. And you will persevere. I mean, nobody thought that what Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs wanted to do made sense. People made fun of them, but they persevered. The same is true with political leaders. Many times, people that thought they were not having a chance of getting elected, Joe Biden, people thought couldn't have a chance. Donald Trump, people didn't think I have a chance. They persevered. And if you persevere and you're really hardworking and you also treat other

people with respect, I think you generally can get ahead in life and be successful. I follow another writer who says it this way. Maybe it's time to stop knocking on doors and it's time to just kick the door down. Well, some cases that's necessary to get people to pay attention to you because if you're too polite, you won't get anything done. If you accept no, and every time somebody tells you no, you'll never get a job. You'll never do anything. So I'm sure when you started this podcast, did people tell you you were going to be successful? They said, oh yes, you're going to be very successful. Probably people said, well, you know what you're doing?

A lot of people were like, well, we'll see how it goes. And I had a different attitude, which is it will be successful because I will make it thus. When somebody says to you, we'll see how it goes, that's not generally that encouraging. No, no. Somebody's like, we'll see how it goes, that's not generally that encouraging. No, no. Somebody's like, we'll see how it goes. And my response is usually, we will, won't we?

Well, obviously, you've done very well. And I can see why. You read the books. You're obviously very articulate. You have very good questions. You should have your own TV talk show. Someday I will. We'll see how that goes. Someday I will. Probably replace me. Okay.

I'm sure any day. I'm coming for you and your baby boomer job. All right. Have a tune. Tell everybody one last time what your book is called. Called The American Experiment. And it's published by Simon & Schuster. And it's really a third of my kind of books on American Experiment, and it's published by Simon & Schuster. And it's really a third of my kind of books on American history, what leadership and history is all about. David Rubenstein, thank you so much for your time. I absolutely loved this conversation. My pleasure. Thank you very much.

Bye-bye. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or a review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. I cannot wait to have another mind moment with you next episode. Thanks again for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast.