November with this wonderful new title. Thank you for being late finding a job, running the country, and keeping your head in an age of acceleration. Tom friedman the title comes from meeting people at breakfast in washington, d. C. , over the past couple of years, and theyre 15 or 20 minutes late, they say, i am sorry, it was the traffic. One day, i spontaneously said to them, actually, charlie, thank you for being late. Because you were late, i was eavesdropping on their conversation. I have been peoplewatching the lobby. I connected two ideas that i was struggling with, thank you for being late. People start to get into it and they say, you are welcome. And what i was sort of doing was , giving myself and them permission to be late, to slow down, sit back and reflect. Charlie this is a brief against speed. Tom friedman it really is, but in an age of acceleration. The sort of core theme of the book is that we are in the middle of three nonlinear accelerations, all at the same time, the three largest forces on the planet, which i call the market, Mother Nature, and moores law. Moores law says microchips will double every 20 months, we put it on a graph, we know what it looks like. It looks like that, it looks like a hockey stick. Mother nature, that is Climate Change. We put it on it graph, it looks like a hockey stick. And trade, not just trade, that is actually down. But the globalization of flows. But it is facebook, twitter, whatsapp, these things are flowing. You put them on a graph, it looks like a hockey stick. So my argument is that we are in the middle of actually three accelerations all a time, each feeding off the other. Globalization, globalization drives Climate Change, and more solutions to both of them. And i believe these three accelerations are changing the world. Transforming and reshaping everything. Theyre reshaping politics, geopolitics, theyre reshaping the workplace, and theyre reshaping our ethical and moral choices. Charlie that gives me a great context. The table asked me to invite you to come here, once the book was published. Tom friedman the table said, i will be here, ok . There is only one place to come talk about a book seriously, and that is the table. Charlie you hear that table . Put that in the context, because it is a big idea, starting with the 2016 election. Tom friedman lets talk about the gao and geopolitical impact. With these accelerations, they are actually exploding these states, and exploding the politics. What do i mean . There is a whole set of states whose borders are primarily Straight Lines. In my view these are deeply artificial states and they were propped up by the cold war. You had two world powers throw money at them. There was no china, no robots. The cold war was a good time to be a kind of flimsy little state. Now you take all of that away, Climate Change is here, much more population, china can take all your lowwage labor. What you see is a lot of these states cant make it. Some we have tipped over. In the case of iraq, they took themselves over. The borders with Straight Lines are artificial. They are like caravan homes in a trailer park. They are built on a slab of cement with no foundation. No basement. Accelerations are, they are like a hurricane going through a trailer park. I have been to niger and senegal. All these weak states, they are basically being exploded by these forces. What they are doing is charlie they have no institution of government, no rule of law. Tom friedman very thin. But they get by through the cold war. They send them money, that is all gone. What is gone on the one hand, that is changing the geopolitics. So the new divide in the world, because of these collapsing states, is no longer eastwest, northsouth. It is now the border of order and disorder. The dividing line is the mediterranean. You have tens of thousands of people trying to get out of the world of disorder stretching from afghanistan basically to mali, across the mediterranean into the nearest world of order, which is europe. So that is one trend going on right now i believe. What it is doing to strong states is it is stressing out their politics, because their Political Parties, everyone their Political Parties are designed to answer questions of the cold war, industrial revolution, and the new deal. But the questions of the day are, how do you respond to these accelerations, what they are doing to your climate, globalization, trade impact, and your workplace . Because these parties really cant answer those questions in the way they are presently constructed, they are blowing up. Republicans went first, because they were the least realitybased. They have gotten the most distant from reality on things like climate and whatnot. You see what is going on. Both british parties are blowing up, because, i think, let me connect this to another point i make. When you are in the middle of Climate Change, you want resilience. That is what you want, resilience and propulsion. So really as i thought about thought whatook, i do you do about resilience in the face of Climate Change . Then i realized, i know a woman. She is 3. 8 million years old, her name is Mother Nature, and she has dealt with more Climate Changes than anyone. So i interview Mother Nature. I say, how do you do with Climate Change . She says, tom, i am incredibly adaptive. In a brutal way, through natural selection. I am an incredibly i believe in diversity. I love pluralism. 20 different species. I am incredibly sustainable, everything is food, eat, poop, eight, food. Whereever i see an opening, where plant or animal is perfectly adapted, i believe in ownership. When an ecosystem is in balance, it owns that space. Highly resilient to Invasive Species. Trump is an Invasive Species, by the way, into the Republican Party because they let the garden go. And she says, i believe in bankruptcy. My argument is that parties that mirror those attributes, they are the ones that will thrive in the age of acceleration. What does it mean politically . That is why my own politics, i know we talked about once, i am a nonpartisan extremist. What i mean by that is, i am not for a third party. Who wants to be a third party between these day old parties . Im a fourth party. What is a fourth party . I think my own politics, i am to the left of Bernie Sanders on a lot of issues. In this age of acceleration, we need to strengthen safety nets, but to pay for it under i get rid of all corporate taxes, and i would really change the whole tax structure and replace it with a carbon tax, a tax on sugar, and small financial transactions. We got to get radically entrepreneurial over here in order to pay for, i think we have to have Better Safety nets and trampolines in this age of acceleration over here. Now, why cant the parties get this . You have to be really paradox, hybrid, agile. What does Mother Nature do . She lets things coevolve that should coevolve. Certain bees and flowers. These parties cannot do that. So if youre in Bernie Sanders party, you can never before unleashing entrepreneurship. If you are the wall street editorial page, you are only interested in unleashing entrepreneurship. These things should coevolve. They are only interested in raising money. They have these very defined features that cannot let dings coevolve the way nature does. Which is what we have to do to manage the acceleration. Charlie we have gridlock. Tom friedman we have gridlock, and worse than that, we see parties collapse, basically. Charlie the republican and the credit party. Tom friedman the republicans went first because they were like an untended garden, basically. And donald trump was an Invasive Species that came in, because the gardens went fallow. Basically they rented out themselves to whomever could energize their base. So sarah palin or whoever came along to energize their base so they could get elected in order to be in power to get elected. They completely lost their way, in my view. If a party could declare moral bankruptcy, they would be chapter 11, there is no question in my mind. The democrats are broken up in a certain way too. Bernie sanders, remember, it is an independent. He basically made off with half of the party. Now we see the British Labour party and the tories both blowing up. I think we are at the beginning of an incredible reshaping. Charlie you think the reshaping will lead to fourth parties, people who try to build a new constituency . Tom friedman i think we are in the beginning of that. These accelerations are the heart of what is going on now. If you dont design policies that to get the best out of them and cushion the worst, you will not survive. Charlie who is going to do what, who is in fact in touch with the age of acceleration . You suggested people get it. Tom friedman what i did, it has been fun and talking to mutual friends of ours. Going back. To Mother Nature. Charlie Mother Nature is one. Tom friedman she is a good friend of both of ours. I talked about the universal law chapter, i took the computer, and i basically said, the computer has five hearts. Storage,microchip, sensors, a camera. It has got networking, software. What i want to do is really go through, and i kind of built each section around a person. So the moors law section i built around one, the storage at built a prime mover of big data. Software round bill gates. One open source and one commercial software. The network is built around irwin jacobs, and the storage, the sensing was built around general electric. And my view is, all five of these, charlie, kind of melded together, right around 2007 into something we call i never use the term cloud because it sounds so soft, so be nine. Something like a Joni Mitchell psalm song. This is what microsoft calls a supernova. It is an incredibly big release of energy. Energy in the hands of human beings, it is one of the greatest energy releases ever. Power. Changed it has changed the power of one. One person can do now to make things or break things like never before. Charlie like orlando. Tom friedman they changed the machine. It changed the power of many. We, as a collective, are now a force of and in nature. Charlie, we have a geological prophecy being named after us. A manmade geological era, because we are defining it so much. And the power flows, ideas now flow and circulate at a pace and scale we have never seen before. Barack obama was elected, he was elected running saying marriage is between a man and a woman. He will leave office is saying marriage is between any two human beings who love it each other. So, ideas that were solid for so long are now melting at a pace we have never seen before. Charlie i think about that statement by ash carter, transgenders in the military. Somehow they are rebuilding the body of politics. That forces politicians. Tom friedman you know the Confederate Flag . Flying over North Carolina for so many years, and one guy shoots up a black church, and it is gone. Just gone. This new kind of power, they are really reshaping the world. And it is going to require us to , reshape laws, regulations. Attitudes, everything. Charlie the age of acceleration is happening. On the other hand, you have conflict in the middle east, which is as old as time itself. And you are suggesting that it is not so much over there. It is not so much all the institutional divides. It is saudi versus iran. It is sunni versus shia. Tom friedman the old conflicts are not going away at all. They will get sharper because these people are fighting over a shrinking pie. When fast gets faster, slow is really slow. Flow is moving, you start to move behind, you really fall behind. So that is what is terrifying to me. Think of the tragedy of syria has so many dimensions to it, but when its simply, syria kids have not been in school for five years. In an age where there are already two iterations of how we manage this see, one of the big dilemmas we have is this widening world of disorder. We have it in terms of latin america. They are not usually one that got refugees. Remember we have 52,000 orphans. , over 50,000 are from honduras and guatemala, where parents just sent their kids out of their world of disorder to our island of order. We got over 50,000 refugees who basically walked, biked, hiked from eritrea and ethiopia. And southern sudan to israel. It is a big problem. They dont know what to do with them. They cross into sinai. They come in, they are trying to pay them to leave. But wherever there is an island of order, people from the world of disorder are coming. This is the great migration. In an earlier period of history, material power would have come in. Ottomans. Alexander the great, the british, the french. But today, no one wants to come in. There was a time so we are in a time where we have never been. This widening disorder, a highly interdependent world, nobody wants to come in and lay hands on it. Charlie because they are also finding limits to their own power. Nationbuilding is not something we you or other people do well. Tom friedman exactly. That is why i said the central, and what about in the chapter on geopolitics, the central geopolitical question of our time is, what do you do when the necessary is impossible, the impossible is necessary . We have learned that nation building is impossible. We dont know how to do it. If you dont do it, in the old days, what would happen . Somebody would get a live concert in the park, they say, we took care of the profits. I have been on the migration and refugee trail. Two months ago, they dont want any live concerts. And they have a cell phone. They are in desperate straits, and they are going to come. It is a big problem. Charlie it also propelled the arab spring. Tom friedman all these same forces. Charlie they knew there was a better life somewhere. They wonder why the government stood in the way of a better life. Tom friedman these are young people who realize they live in the context or they could not live their full potential. Charlie that is a very big picture. We will go straight to american politics and then back to the middle east. Donald trump, how do you explain the phenomenon . Notwithstanding he had a bad month, look at the polls. Tom friedman polls tell us a couple things. One is a deep divide. Charlie one National Poll had it at 4240. Tom friedman that tells you the deep polarization in our country between democrats and republicans, no matter who runs. So donald trump it is benefiting from that. It is just a deep polarization. And i will never have my kid marry a republican, that is crazy. That is where it has come to and obviously he benefits from that. Obviously, there are a number of people who, in this age of acceleration, are finding it hard to keep up. They feel deeply let down by politics. Politicians have not told them the truth and they have not come up with the right to remedies. Charlie and they think politicians are taking care of everybody but them, in terms of finding opportunities, giving them a sense of participation in the country. Tom friedman i reflected a lot about this personally. I always been for free trade, more trade agreements. But i was deeply impacted by a study that came out last year and others that really showed how china, they tried to join the wto in 2001. There are a certain very specific set of communities in the country. They were really devastated by that. People like me were saying, you have to have retraining programs, help for these people. But it didnt, we did not really deliver. Charlie we did not retrain, we did not do a range of things. There was no commitment in washington. Gridlock. Tom friedman so what happens, basically, there is a giant acceleration around 2007, and then 2008 came along, we were looking the other way. Got the great recession, washington went into total gridlock. So the Conveyor Belt suddenly sped up. In that disjunction, you have a lot of trouble. Charlie as technology has moved forward on them, taken from you, politics, technology has moved forward in the age of acceleration. The government has not been able to keep up. We are in this place where this is going here and government, for all kinds of reasons, whether it is gridlock, new dilemmas and problem solving necessary, has not addressed some of the moral and ethical questions as well as the reality of a whole new range of people who have new powers. And including them is productivity and efficiency, which means there is a digital disruption in communities around the world. Tom friedman a hand it is going on everywhere. We also know, just under 5 of Unemployed People are getting work. There are people who have dropped out of the workforce, we know that as well. I was just at the world advertising conference. With the new york times. Charlie selling the times. Yes, i will do anything to sell our paper. It was so interesting to me, all this talk was about how to do it, blend Virtual Reality into advertising. So now, if you want to be a marketer, one of the first question is, if you apply for a job in the new york times, they will say, are you up to speed on Virtual Reality. Charlie i know what Virtual Reality is. Tom friedman the point is, new jobs are being spun off all the time. But there is one common denominator, they all require more skill. Ok . And they all require you to learn and relearn. And that is really [speaking simultaneously] charlie it is harder the older you are. Tom friedman a lot of people are caught in that dilemma. Charlie is that is what is propelling the trump tom friedman it is all part of it. It is not any one thing. It is a reaction to the Political Correctness trend. We see it on college campuses. Anything as big as trump that comes out of leftfield has to be fed in many ways. Economic disruption, Political Correctness, frustration. Charlie and with the brexit, he has made it an antiglobalization crusade as well. Tom friedman which is crazy. My friend and i used to say, in a connected world, the dumbest thing you can do is disconnect. The connection is not going to go away. You know if you google , globalization is dead, that is globalization is dead since 2001 these things are going to keep going, whether a change will be done. The question is, do you mock work for make this you . Are you going to stop his book from adding more users . Are you going to stop twitter . Stop google . I do not think so. These things will drive the flow. The question is, how do we make them work for us . Charlie are the people that work google and amazon and microsoft and apple, the most powerful people in the world . Tom friedman they are pretty powerful. Charlie they are at the center of change. Tom friedman day or at the center of change. They have these giant platforms where, if you want to have a skill for your voice, you need to leverage it. Charlie you learned to leverage or not. Let me go you learn how to leverage or not. Let me go to donald trump. Whatever the forces that put him in the position, he is one of the two people most likely to be president of the United States, a very powerful job. Do you find him prepared, equipped . Would he handle the job, all that . Tom friedman from every thing i have heard him say, i would say hes the least prepared person to run for president in my lifetime. In this sense, charlie, you could have any position you want in globalization. I have no problem with that. Before whatever you want. But just tell me you did your homework. Just tell me you actually studied the issues, you really understood them. Talk about china raping us, we tested that out in a focus group. Charlie make sure your focus group doesnt stand in contrast to your practice. Tom friedman and also, just the facts. And so this is my you know, i bernie problem with sanders being a skeptic on globalization. I feel like he has earned it. A lifelong position. He studied the issues from his point of view, whatever. He is not a billionaire who has actually been buying the lowest cost global producer for every one of his hotels. Exactly. That is troubling, i think. Charlie where are you to the left of Bernie Sanders . Health care . Tom friedman i would have Single Payer Health care. I would expand the earned income tax credit. I would have wage insurance. I think if you lose your job to trade, funded through the government. They would pay in. Charlie people with insurance can figure that out. No corporate tax. Tom friedman i would also shift our medicare tax to vat. I would pay for medicare out of vat. Charlie valueadded tax . Tom friedman it yes. I really think there should be, not the idea original to me, but people should see if you have a vat, and this goes to medicare. People understand there is a connection between them. I would keep Social Security, that payroll, because it is important people feel like they paid the in. Charlie donald trump shows some flexibility with certain areas, and Social Security is one of them. Tom friedman where he has been a pioneer, he said the old mix of what is meant to be a republican is no longer serving our party. No longer relevant. Deck. Mixup the the way he did it was simply one of the biggest hot buttons. Up to get rather than speaking strategically. This is what is troubling about the Republican Party in general. They are all of our party to some degree. What world am i living in . In my view, i am living in a world defined by accelerations. How do i get the most academic push from the worst . You dont have that feeling from this Republican Party. They have been giving the same answer. The same thing. Cut taxes. Charlie the democrats have been best at it. Tom friedman on climate, they have been much better. Totally. Charlie is that the biggest threat to humankind . Or is it nuclear tom friedman the biggest threat to humankind today is the growing power of one. You know . One person with an assault rifle. Just one person with a suitcase with a little bit of radioactive or some virus. What worries me is the growing power of one. And that is why i have been worried about isis from the very beginning. I never thought they were the jv team as president obama said. They were wickedly smart, a bad combination. These are guys that if they can get their hands on something, a terrible virus, people would burn a pilot a live in a cage, systematically rape women, they would do anything. That is scary. Charlie no sense of consequence. Tom friedman none whatsoever. That is true. Charlie why is it, and i have a couple answers, if that is true, why is it not imperative for the World Community whether it is russia, america, arab, muslim, to see this danger for what it is, and if they say, well, put 250,000 troops on the ground to do it. You have to because she is if you do it, you have to know what comes next. Youve got to have the whole answer to those questions. But is that a reasonable question to ask . Tom friedman yes. Because you see, i think what you are touching on, and i find myself, i find myself moving toward that in my own position. Charlie moving to where . Tom friedman moving to what you are talking about, let me explain. Seven months ago, i started to look at this isis thing. I had supported the president on syria, not to get involved. Ok . Because i did not see a pathway or a partner or whatever. Seven months ago, i changed in this sense that i dont know what the right answer is, but all i know is, and what i argued was, what is happening in syria, that this hemorrhaging of so many refugees, not only to the neighboring states but to europe, is going to destroy the eu. And the eu is a huge strategic not only the tragedy of these refugees, but the eu is another great center of Democratic Capitalism in the world. It is our wingman in the room. If the eu fractures, america will be less strong. Charlie are we beginning to see that . Tom friedman yes. Charlie what other countries might fall, and after that the eu . Tom friedman the eu was the other United States. It is a horrifying thought. It is United States in europe. They share values. They believe in liberty and civil rights and human rights, on free markets and free people, and they export those of values. So you lose the eu, americans, latin america, people do anything if they read about it. Americans will do anything for the eu except read about it. I wrote a column about it six months ago, i said, maybe we should call it trumps European Union so i could pull on the search engine. So are you still reading or listening to me talk about the eu . The eu is really important. You do not want to see it unravel. So i dont have answers, i am totally humble about that. But it seems to me we should be putting more effort in to finding some way to stanch that wound. Now we are coming to it. Im dissolving in my own head. It we have got this widening world of disorder, libya, syria, yemen, we have got to get the world of order to collaborate. You know, that means china, russia, the europeans, and u. S. In particular, canada i do not know what the answers are. I am not ready to call for some kind of invasion. Because we have to do something. This isis thing is metastasizing in ways that these people will not stop. Charlie, at just the suicide vests. It is not morals that are stopping them, it is simply access to bigger weapons. Charlie we are living in an ideal, ideology, whatever it is, that they are willing to not only do anything but sacrifice their lives in the process. Tom friedman you go back to, what do you do when the necessary is impossible and the impossible is necessary . That is the central issue that to the next president will face. I think it is the worst time in the world to be doing Foreign Policy. I pity anyone doing this. Charlie when you look back at israel, the defense minister came here. I thought he was at the very right of israeli politics. He is left. The stinging rebuke of the Prime Minister. Tom friedman the whole spectrum has moved there. Charlie what is happening . Tom friedman because, well i can only speak for myself. Charlie you read about the affairs of Marine Le Pen . Tom friedman i would never tell the israelis, you know youve got to get out of the west bank tomorrow. What is totally missing for friends of israel in this country, two things. Where the creativity, where the imagination to how to find a way to work. Charlie they are developing their own tech community, health care. There was a whole range of things. Pioneering creativity they have shown. Tom friedman what is unconscionable is an Israeli Government that continues to build settlements in the areas that, if there is ever to be a palestinian state, that is where it would be. You want to build more settlements in those areas that people think israel retains . Not my cup of tea, but people will understand it. But when you continue to build settlements that will make a twostate solution impossible, then you really ask, what are you doing . Charlie netanyahu really wants to stay in power as long as he can stay in power. Tom friedman the man who is forever dog paddling in the middle of the stream. Charlie, i am coming, i am coming. I am coming to your side. But he is just dog paddling. I think it is just important that we should start referring to him as the Prime Minister of israelpalestine, because that is what he is. That is he is the Prime Minister , of a de facto united state. Binational state. And that is bad for apartheid. Charlie is that apartheid . It is a bad word, but tom friedman whatever it is, if you care about a democratic yes, israel, it has a jewish character and israel that is in its ancient homeland. It is bad news. It will have a bad end. Charlie what should we expect from the arab world, what should we expect from the muslim world . When they look around, all those problems. Having to do with, everyone does not have to do this, but there is a multiplicity of opinion in the muslim world, the multiplicity of the opinion in the christian world and hindu world and other places. Tom friedman look, isis is an ideology. It is not exactly eight total outlier from what a lot of people call the ideology. They have to come to terms with this is denial that somehow some freak thing. It comes out of some very central tenets believed by some people. It is in extreme version, but it is not an extreme outlier. There are two trends going on in saudi arabia and one is very healthy. That is the new deputy crown prince, mohammed bin salman. I think he is a real reformer. I think the guy is for real. He understands that have gone through a fifth of their financial reserves in one year. I mean, they need privatization, they need to create jobs, they need to get their budget under control. That is a good friend. And they are no longer saying we are reforming, going five miles per hour. Charlie like singapore . Tom friedman what he is trying to do is a good thing, and you no longer feel it is the place that is dead in the water. Charlie can he win that battle . Tom friedman that is the challenge. Can he deliver, is the challenge. But they also have to deal with the religious side of this thing. The religious establishment there has traditionally promoted ideas that are deeply intolerant. Intolerant of women, other faiths, other forms of islam. Charlie there was a bargain between the royal family and tom friedman yes. You know, the iranians dont help. The iranians are mucking around in beirut, and damascus, and in baghdad. There are saudis who would tell you, are we invading are we effectively running this government . It is not like they have clean hands either. All i know is, charlie, if they dont get to their act together, the iranians and the saudis, find some way to stop fighting over who will be the heir to the thehet muhammad from seventh century, Mother Nature will kill them all. Charlie isnt that what obama suggested to them . Tom friedman there was tough love by obama, and he is right. He is absolutely right on that. Charlie what is your idea on his Foreign Policy . He has got less than six months. Tom friedman in general, i think he has navigated a really difficult time pretty well. Charlie but you now believe . Tom friedman on syria, he has not shown enough imagination. Charlie is it because he he has learned a lesson he thinks that he knows better, because of the experience he has seen, because of perhaps the advice he is getting from his military, wherever it might be . Notwithstanding other people toome forward to alter offer criticism, but constructive criticism of what he has been doing, he seems to be maintaining a hardline against those arguments, whether it is the red line or whether it is tom friedman i have enormous empathy with obama on Foreign Policy. But my sympathy stops when he tells me he is a genius and everybody else is an idiot. Charlie is that what he said . Tom friedman no. That Foreign Policy blog on the atlantic times. Charlie i know he was talking about the eu. Tom friedman i am actually very humble now to these challenges. I think he should be too. I really respect that when he is. This is hard. There are no good choices. Where i have come to, there are no good choices. It is not like there is a good option he has ignored. I dont believe that. Where i am coming through because of the threat of isis and the expanding threat of isis, i am coming to a point where we have to make a bad choice. A least bad choice. Find some way to galvanize a coalition here, because this is going to be a problem. Is metastasizing in ways that we dont seem to have the answer for. Charlie because of the power of one, driven by tom friedman religious ideology. And i worry. These guys are wicked. And they are weakening. Charlie thank you for coming. We cannot wait for the book, can we . It will be out november 22. Thank you for being late finding a job, running a country, and keeping your head in an age of acceleration. You better get your order in now. Charlie Kara Medoff Barnett began ballet lessons at just three years old and her native North Carolina, and she is so and we are so proud about that. She left for Duke University on a scholarship. We are proud about that. She received her mba from Harvard Business school. We are even proud about that. For nearly a decade, she served as Senior Executive at Lincoln Center for the performing arts. She was appointed executive director of american ballet theater in january. Last year, the company celebrated its 75th anniversary and made history with the promotion of the first africanamerican female dancer. I am pleased to have her at the table the very first time. She will be here many times, because she will teach me not how to dannce but had to how to appreciate dance. Kara thank you very much, thrilled to be here. Charlie how is abt . Kara abt is phenomenal. It is a dream job for me, but just the most remarkable Arts Organization on the planet. Charlie why is that . Kara many reasons, we have so artists. T i am in our of the 90 dancers that i have the privilege to work for in support what they do every day. Misty is one, as you mentioned. Charlie she was at the table, and made believers out of everybody. Kara there are so many incredible stories in the company, and incredible artists on that stage. They have been working since they were three, far more talented than i in that art form. So anything that i get to do, every single day, to just elevate what they do, amplified what they do, is my privilege. Charlie but you had an interesting kind of experience. Lets talk about some of it. But why do you think you are the right person at the time for them . Kara i think a few reasons. As the american ballet theatre celebrates the 75th and turns its sights to the future, i think that future has many different facets to it. And, it certainly builds on this tradition, but what is next . What is next for the art form, what is next for this company . I think having been not just at Lincoln Center, which is a tremendous arts institution, but my last role at Lincoln Center was building out the multiinternational Lincoln Center, and what does it mean to the american ballet theater to be cultural ambassadors, to represent the country . Ballet, not relying on language, just the language of human bodies moving through space, that really can translate across borders and boundaries here in this country and around the world. Charlie we always ask this about classical music, with jazz, with ballet. We ask this about certain art forms. What is the trend . How many young people are attracted to be enthusiastic about ballet . Kara the trend seems to be very positive in ballet. We have younger audiences than many other classical art forms. And i think part of that is because you have a lot of young people who train in ballet. So they show up for the performances with their parents. They drag them along, they say, i want to see pros. And social media and some of the following that we have with the misty phenomenon is bringing younger audiences. And bringing in audiences who are not traditionally ballet audiences. Theink misty has brought ballet conversation into the mainstream. Brought it a seat at the table in that conversation. When was the last time a ballet dancer sat down with the president of the United States . Charlie exactly. At the same time, she has shared her struggles. It was not easy. Kara for many dancers, mistys story is so inspirational, not only for dancers, for anyone who wants to achieve something that perhaps seems out of reach or they are told is out of reach or seems like a distant possibility. In fact, talent plus hard work, grit, determination, all of that can add up to a Success Story like that, it is not just resonant in the ballet world, it is resonant with no matter what you want to achieve. Charlie there is this performance clip, this is a clip of misty dancing in romeo and juliet. Here it is. Charlie how could you not love that . Kara clearly, clearly i do. It is probably my favorite ballet. So, i am glad you selected that. Charlie why . Because of the love . Kara there is something that is just, so youthful, the exhilaration of romeo and juliet in the first act when they first meet, love at first sight. Which in shakespeares iambic iambic pen pentameter isbic one thing, the poetry we all know by heart. To see it play out on their faces, and the arch of a foot, there is Something Else that makes me catch my breath every time. Charlie pretty good ambassador for ballet. At the same time, the open would have been a glaring minutia of africanamerican dancers. This is a positive role model to influence people. Kara i could not agree more. She is a tremendous role model. And i think that trying to address diversity in classical ballet is something that my predecessor was very focused on, Kevin Mckenzie the artistic company, in the entire we are very committed to it. We are committed to it at all levels. The youngest kids in the Childrens Division and across the country, working with boys and girls clubs. The administration, what the administration looks like in classical ballet, what do the teachers look like in classical ballet . And, all of that feeds up to what the principal dancers look like on the stage. Charlie what is the relationship between the executive director, you, and the creative director . Cara the artistic director is Kevin Mckenzie, and we are partners. It is a dance, like the images you saw earlier. Charlie do you choose the artistic director . Kara no, kevin has been there for 24 years, i have been there for about two months. So, no we both report to the , board of directors. The trustees. Charlie so the board of trustees would choose the director . Kara exactly, and we collaborate to advance the mission of the company. Charlie has dance been a lifelong love affair for you . Kara it has in that it was the first art form i knew intimately, had that ballerina dream, any little girl has. And many little boys have. Over time, i trained seriously. I was ner at the level of the dancers we havat american ballet theater. Charlie how hard did you try . Train . D did you kara i was probably dancing 40 hours a week in high school. In high school. After that, it was how can i keep the arts in my life . That was my first theater, after my time at duke. I was working on broadway and offbroadway. I would always make sure that during the months of may and june, i was at the center watching american ballet theater. When i was working at Lincoln Center, you are not allowed to have favorite children because of all of the art forms, but i probably saw more ballet than anything else. Charlie what did you get out of Harvard Business goal that is applicable to the world you are in now . Kara i think im in a Business Case every day. Solving problems, thinking strategically, and also just being a bridge, having the ability to communicate between the business world, which we need so desperately, in order to run our business, in order to attract philanthropic dollars, you are talking to people who are in the world of business, and trying to take what we do as the artistic mission, to marry it to that. So we can have the resources in place so we can to even figure bigger artistic risks, so we can advance that mission, appellate forward. Charlie is the bolshoi still a big company in washington . Kara it is. And then the royal ballet, the paris ballet, and the American Company is what i admire and love to see when i am in town and theyre performing. Charlie it wasnt in my high school, but do high schools now have, does ballet have a presence in high school . Kara not enough. It would be wonderful if there was more dance training at all ages. Ballet and other dance forms, i think it is very important for young people to know how to move. And i wish also that some ballet history in just performing arts history in general, cultural history was a part of what we learned in school. There is probably not enough, but the more that we can do digitally, the more we can probably reach young people. Educate them. Charlie you can translate what happens on stage to a small screen, a mobile app, wherever it might be . Kara hopefully wherever you might be. Charlie is there an app course . Kara not yet, but stay tuned. Stay tuned. That i think you have to have some experiences, as far as, you see that with misty copeland. You want to try it, you want to try to dance. I think that that that is a human response to what you see. And i wish there were more ways for young people to try it out. Charlie thank you for coming. Kara thank you very much for having me. It is so nice to see you. Just a privilege and an honor to be here. Charlie i look forward to coming. Kara please do. Thank you. Please do. Charlie thank you for joining us, see you next time. Carol welcome to Bloomberg Businessweek. I am carol massar. David and i am david gura. Carol under armours battle to be the sportswear king. David all that ahead on Bloomberg Businessweek. David im with the editor and chief of Bloomberg Businessweek ellen pollack. There was a Supreme Court decision that came down on immigration. Deadlocked. This is now a sign of things to come. Ellen it was deadlocked 44. It goes back to the lower ur