Welcome to the Axis ProRata podcast, where we usually take 10 minutes to get you smarter

on the intersection of tech business and politics.

But today is a special, even shorter weekend edition, just ahead of the midterm elections on Tuesday.

So I recently was in Columbus, Ohio, to visit local startups, including robotics companies and new age insurance companies, and also to do some moderating at an event on automation.

Now, one of the other people on stage with me was Governor John Kasich, the former Republican presidential nominee who will be leaving office early next year due to term limits.

So he and I discussed a bunch of things, issues like autonomous vehicles, political backlash

against technology, and yes, of course, the midterms.

So what follows is five minutes of my conversation with a man who might not yet see a path

to a successful presidential run in 2020, but who really does sound like he's trying to figure

one out.

You made the comment when it came to autonomous vehicles at one point that you wanted Ohio to be

the Wild West and then said, well, maybe the Wild West with a few rules after the person died in

Tucson. How do you view the role of government, whether that be local, state, federal, in some of

those rules, particularly when it comes to emerging technologies that are moving so fast.

Well, look, I got a guy that is here today with me, Spencer Wood.

Now, he's been, like, undercover here for a big, sharp chunk of my administration, kind of

held down, which really upsets me.

It's really, really smart.

I've got a group of people around who are, they're

entrepreneurial thinking. What has to happen is the leader has to get it, but then people

throughout the organization have to understand the importance of change and the moral imperative

of change and the willing to take a risk. When we think about Bezos, right,

...