Hi, everyone. Welcome to the A6 and Z podcast. I'm Sonal. And today's conversation features U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Penny Pritzker, in conversation with A16 and Z's Ted Oliott, who heads up our Policy and Regulatory Affairs Group. The conversation took place recently in Washington, D.C. as part of our inaugural event bringing together Silicon Valley and D.C. technology and policymakers to talk all things,

tech and more. Join me and welcoming to the stage, Secretary Penny Pritzker.

Thank you. Thank you. Great to have you here. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Thank you. Do you mind, by the way, if I call you Penny? No, I wish you would. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Thank you.

Do you mind, by the way, if I call you Penny?

No, I wish you would.

Yeah.

You know, I'm a formal guy, so I would have said Madam Secretary through the whole interview,

which would have gotten tedious, I think, for most people here.

Right.

Doesn't feel appropriate for the venue, does it? Exactly.

A Silicon Valley thing that feels a little formal. Right. Plus, I think it sounds like the title of a TV show or something like that. Right.

So Secretary Pritzker needs a little introduction to this crowd, either to those of you from Silicon Valley or those of you from Washington, D.C.

She is, of course, an accomplished triathlete. This is a very, you know, fascinating, great piece of her bio, I think.

She actually has completed a full Ironman triathlon, and that was actually before Ironman was

cool. She was what a terrible entrepreneur was. I didn't think, oh, man, this is a big brand.

I had to look at investing in that, right? Instead. And the other stupid thing I think about that race was there were no clothes back then.

I mean, in other words, I remember you had to have your bike shorts made and stuff for women.

And I was like, okay, wait a second.

Now there's Nike.

There's good.

There's all these.

...