Hi, everyone. Welcome to the A6 and Z podcast. I'm Sonal and we're here today. Our special guest is Tyler Cohen, who is a professor of economics. How should I describe you? There's so many things I could say about you. I sometimes say I specialize in being a generalist. Oh, I love it. So he specializes in being a generalist. You generalize in being a specialist. That's Alex Rampel, our general partner, who covers FinTech and many other things as well.

And we're here to talk about Tyler's new book, The Complacent Class.

And the subhead is a self-defeating quest for the American dream.

I think the best way to kind of kick it off, Tyler, is if you could tell us what is the primary thesis of your book.

Individual American lives have become better in so many ways. Our lives are safer. We're more

comfortable, and we've all sought that. But there's a problem at the collective level.

There are more barriers to entry in our economy than ever before. Productivity is slower.

We're taking fewer risks. We're more concerned about

burrowing inside and matching with people like us and less about doing something grand and external.

So in the long run, as our productivity and mobility slows down, at some point we just can't pay the

bills anymore. So this is a story about why things have gone wrong, but at the same time, it's trying

to explain, well, we are the problem, but they've gone wrong precisely because in some ways

we've been doing well by ourselves. That's almost counterintuitive. Where would you say technology

plays a role in that, in that sort of specifically? And the reason I bring it up is because

I've been thinking for a long time about the simplest definition of technology is. Like, can I do it in three words? It's tools for change.

And that is essentially the opposite of any kind of complacency. But yet you argue in your book

that technology is actually a driver for some of that complacency, that in fact, some of the very

algorithms that we use for matching, for instance, are helping to create this.

A lot of the biggest advances in technology lately have been about our leisure time.

They've made us happier, but they're not necessarily generating that much in terms of jobs

or in terms of revenue.

We've become phenomenally productive, manipulating information in different ways.

...