Thank you for joining us at live. From nypl. My name is tony marks, and im the president of the new york public library. Tonight we are so delighted to host this important conversation. On the life work impact of worldrenowned investor philanthropists and founder of the open Society George Soros mr. Soros is i believe the longest most consistent. And in many ways the most impactful advocate of open society values. In our times and therefore he is also the most consistently attacked falsified. And just plain misunderstood person if our times that means we need some explication. For the library, all of this is not about party politics. Its about a debate. About and four the values. Of open society mr. Soros is the subject of the book that brings us together tonight george soros a life in full a collection of essays edited by our friend peter ostinas the book is really an astonishing array of essays. And for those of you familiar with mr. Soross work and work about him. I think you will find this really revelatory and and so compelling and direct the contributors have a Hoffman Michael ignatius sebastian. Malabi whose work whos essay on reflexivity is masterful orville shell Leon Botstein ivan kastev. And then of course two of our guests tonight. Will be joined by Gary Lamarche senior fellow at the Colin Powell School at city college of City University of new york the former president of course of the Democracy Alliance as well as the former director of us programs for the open Society Foundations. And also Darren Walker the president of the Ford Foundation. The amongst so many other things the first nonprofit in the us history to issue a billion dollar designated social bond to stabilize nonprofit organizations in the wake of the pandemic. Before joining ford darren was Vice PresidentRockefeller Foundation and ceo of harlems Abyssinian Development corporation. And now of course he has led and is leading. The continued transformation of the leading social Justice Foundation in the world bringing it to new levels. They will be joined by the editor of the book our dear friend and the amazing peter. Osnos whose career. From the Washington Post who founding Public Affairs in 1997, which has gone on. To to become the Publishing House for the most amazing array of authors and if you havent read all of it, you must you can borrow it. But peter should wouldnt have me say you can also buy them. And he and on so delighted that susan is with us tonight susan ostas. The book or all of these are old dear friends and all standard bears of crucial now threatened values. Of open society the book itself is available for purchase right outside this all right there right outside the room as well as in our library shop and you are again, of course, welcome to borrow it. I also want to acknowledge the continuing generosity for these programs from this from celeste bartos. Manas is bohani bartos and adam bartos. Were making live from nypl possible. And of course the stavros niercros foundation for their generous support. Of the amazing space that you are currently sitting in. At the end of our conversation peter guerra and darren will be happy to answer questions. Youll find note cards and pencils on the on your seats. I think and staff will be coming around to collect them. Please join me in welcoming. Gerala marsh Darren Walker and peter rostas. Well with the sound. My god, i can go right to questions. Tony did a magnificent job of summarizing. Let me tell you a bit. First of all. Hello, and i think we all agree that an event in person. Even though its being strained and cspan is going to televise it is a very different experience than all that zoom stuff. Weve had to do and we were all spiffed so let me tell you a little bit about how the book. Came about and then well go very much to darren and gera. Both of them oracles on many issues and well start with philanthropy. It was the summer of ive made a commitment to only refer to him tonight as soros not george because that would suggest a degree of intimacy. Thats inappropriate. Um, it was the summer of 2020 soros was turning 90. Ordinarily they would have been a very kind of celebratory event of one kind or another. Well, we were in the middle of the lockdown. And i was on the zoom. With soros ive been his publisher since Public Affairs started which is to say almost 25 years ago of all the books hes done and hes done a bunch. And i said well. Control on george when were on zoom. So george, why dont you write a memoir and he said absolutely not. Its not the kind of thing. He said i might really interested at this stage of my life and looking back much. I knew that no one had successfully done a proper biography there have been efforts but no ones done it and the reason is that theres too much to do for a single biographer the subtitle we came up with for the book we did do was survivor billionaire speculator for philanthropist philosopher political activist nemesis of the far right global citizen. We didnt deal with several other things like father and husband and friend i said why dont we get people who know what theyre really really know. What theyre talking about . To write essays deeply reported on each of these elements that are so important in the multifaceted life and career of soros. But i said theres one condition. And that condition is you cant interfere. The people are going to write it theyre going to write off their insight and their experience and their knowledge and you will read it. When its done you need to trust us to the extent. That its possible to do a job. That is thoughtful and fair. And to his credit he did not under any circumstances get in the way. Which is important to know because in a book like this, we dont want anybody to say that this is sagiography and it is not. I think theres a great deal in it. Its thoughtful in a really important way. Its its a biography a unique biography. Of a really quite extraordinary man a multiple voiced multifaceted biography of a multifaceted man so among the contributors who tony mentioned we have to particularly. Well, everybodys good, but we have two were here this evening one is darren and one is gary now together they know more about philanthropy than almost anybody alive with the possible exception. Of george soros himself what i want to do is start really. Darren is the thing. That was so striking to me in your essay. Was the way in which you reframed our understanding of who george soros as a philanthropist . Is carnegie Ford Rockefeller philanthropist gates but the closer you look the more unique the more different. George soros turns out to be as a philanthropist and by the way 35 billion whatever it is that hes put into his philanthropy. Its extraordinary. I mean, i think almost as much as gates and hes going strong. So what was it that you said in this magnificently . Insightful essay that you wrote about soros philanthropy and why he is the unique figure that it is well, i thought that sorrows his place in the narrative arc of american and global but american philanthropy has defined global philanthropy. So sorrows is himself an inheritor of a legacy that Andrew Carnegie and his seminal 1889 gospel of wealth really instantiated among a group of wealthy industrialists with ideas about what they should do with their money. And he Joe George Soros had a really interesting perspective. So what was for sorrows . As an individual he was very much like carnegie or rockefeller or ford. He is enormously complicated and complex. A person filled with contradictions and unlike the rest of us actually well very much. Like rockefeller very much like carnegie very much like henry ford and many others. But what made sorrows . Unusual was that carnegie and and rockefeller especially talked about these ideas of root causes and the role of science in solving mankinds problems and the investment in research and data and commissions and massive systemic reform creation of very in both of their cases institutions that were in in their mold. What was unique about soros is . His his i think his north star was carl popper. I mean was was a philosopher. Rockefeller and carnegie both were both christian men who in their philanthropy talked about the bible. And talked about god and jesus in their writings about their work as a philanthropist. Sorrows was very clear that it was not some godlike not some spiritual figure not some other worldly but a very both intellectual and practical idea of an open society. That was a reflection of his lived experience. And so he he made this this institution. That is the open Society Foundations it is it is rooted in that and the other thing about soros was that he didnt want to be a philanthropist. I mean he i mean the thing about both carnegie and rockefeller ultimately is that they really embraced the idea of philanthropy and both of them embraced the idea of philanthropy in part because they were so reviled in their time that in i mean universally not just by the letter. I mean just universally reviled people dandy rockefeller could not get congress to give him a charter to give away his wealth because the members of congress were so suspicious when his lawyers came to say mr. Rockefeller wants to give away his wealth that they refused to believe that anything good could come out of it. And so philanthropy in part was a salvation of their reputation and it was again, many accused them of the things we hear about today reputation laundering green washing all the ways in which money is used to legitimize people who do bad things in the case of sorrows. He was not looking for that. That was not why he started giving away money, and it wasnt because some pr person told him as with rockefeller if you give away money and start putting your name on things actually and those things are good for society. You will be associated with those things and people will start to like you that was never for sorrows a driver of why he became a philanthropist one of the things its interesting about soros and naming opportunities. Is hes philanthropist whos name is not on any building. Well, its not on the name of his foundation. Its not on the name of his foundation. Its not on the name of the Central European university, which he was the founder of well get to that a bit more. I just want to ask you though. As tony said that Ford Foundation is identified with social justice. And very closely identified. And one of the things i know that you write about is so is the sorrows foundation in its way . Very identified with issues of social justice, which sometimes makes it very complicated Brian Stevenson. You point out in your essay Michelle Alexander. These are people who have truly change the way in which we understand social justice and racial issues. Well, but because before ford, i mean ford certainly was a leader before open societies existed. On focusing on racial discrimination, but it was only in recent years when we incorporated a real justice land and started to use the term social justice and and more recently the idea of social justice philanthropy, but what soros did so assiduously was to do what i call investing in the three eyes ideas institutions and individuals who who go out into the world and proselytize the ideas of an open society. And so when you look at people like Michelle Alexander the soros fellows, i mean in their hundreds of them like Michelle Alexander like Brian Stevenson many others who got individual grants to do their work, so when michelle was writing the new jim crow choose riding a radical book with the soros grant because its hard to imagine. Now because its so normalized but when when michelle introduced the idea of the Prison Industrial Complex and the idea that we were over incarcerating. People had never been people meaning people like you people who read the New York Times people who are pretty knowledgeable and had never really thought about it because the issue of criminal justice had been put through the lens of this war on crime and war on drugs and all of the bad things that these people do in society. So when you look at the individuals when you look at the institutions like ceu but think about the literally thousands of organizations around the world that george soros has funded has initiated has even if they may have existed they might have been started by ford or but the sorrows money made it possible for them to really take off this this could be a discussion. Really literally that could go on for a week. Were just touching the surface and well come back to some of the things that you just said, but i wanted to say to garra is among other things the unique lead qualified because hes done both things. Is raised money. And hes given out money so he knows the two sides of the equation as the first. Director of the open society us programs as the former president of atlantic philanthropies, which was a extraordinary the institution because feeney who started it said im going to end up living in a box and he did he gave away all these quality quite about it sort of a box. It was a very very nice virus, but well actually, but anyway gera presided over atlantic philanthropos to spend down foundation. He was also as i said instrumental in creating us programs, but what i wanted to ask you gary is the evolution of the soros approach when he started osf as i understand it as we describe i think in some detail he intended it to be a Sports Service spender. He so no need. To look after his descendants beside from whatever he would give them. He wanted this to be something that he did in his lifetime. And here we are. Georges nine source is 90 and this foundation will go on. Can you describe a bit from what you know over how that evolved in his head . How is spend down foundation a Legacy Foundation . And then very briefly the difference between raising money and giving it out. Which would you prefer . More honest living the raise money i think than to give it out, but its harder to raise money than to give it out. People. Give out money are always complaining about how hard it is, but thats a highclass problem to have so first i say, its very nice to be here. Its nice to be live event, which i its only second live event. Ive done since the pandemic and i forgot how deeply i missed looking into an audiences face. The face is that people scrolling their smartphones . Um, its its nice to be back in this kind of setting. Its also nice to be here with darren whos been my friend in collaborator for 25 years and the person who introduced us brad lander the city controller now sitting right in the front row. So, thank you brad for that. Its very Fruitful Partnership over the years. I wanted to say, you know, ill answer you a question more or less, but i think that when i was listening to darren talk about how gates and some of the others in carnegie and rockefeller, you know have been thought of as kind of laundering there fortunes, you know, and there was a great deal of skepticism in the early 20th century about the dawn of philanthropy because you know progressives at the time people like many of us were very suspicious of these fortunes. They thought it was antidemocratic, you know to have such a unaccountable, you know institutions and and i i think they had a point soros on the other hand kind of went in the reverse source. Actually. I had the experience i write about i wrote the politics chapter in the book, which you wont talk about much tonight because i did the philanthropy for 11 years. It wouldnt really been appropriate darren did a beautiful job in writing about the philanthropy, but i had experience of going with soros to a bipartisan dinner of senators early in my tenure in the mid 90s and before the foundation really got underway and a serious way before his reputation developed as it had and he was respected by all of them is kind of a guru because a person who is very good at making money and that often gets you a lot of respect in this society and the more he did his philanthropy and its true that he had no concern about his reputation in the same way as other people the more his reputation got more complicated. He took on the thing to understand about george more than anything else. I think is enormous appetite for risks. So i have this theory i think darren would probably agree but im interested in perspective that people will give out money tend to do it in character with the way they made the money right so bill gates is a technologist. Everything is a problem to be solved. I mean hes i think evolved a bit on that, but that was the way he looked at it. I worked for chuck feeney whos been mentioned here. He was a retailer. He made his fortunate dutyfree shops in airports. He liked the built environment like to kick the tires of things. He liked tangible things george soros as sebastian reality malibu writes beautifully about his chapter, you know made his fortune through an enormous appetite for risk good not for the faint of heart and that is the way hes done his philanthropy, you know, he is very often what it was a sari avo in the mid 90s or whether it was dealing with clinton and the Republican Congress is attack on immigrants in the in the mid 90s. He has had an appetite for for doing things that he hadnt even planned to do, you know and one of the things about soros i think is that he he doesnt care. For his reputation and he has been willing at least certainly in the early years to be out in front of everybody else. So when you talk about Michelle Alexander and Brian Stevenson the criminal justice work when we started that work in 1996, no other foundation the United States was dealing with criminal justice. He had no Mcconnell Clark foundation had been the the only foundation doing it and they were focused on prison conditions, which is very important, but not really frontally challenging why we have mass incarceration in the United States. George had been very concerned about drug policy because he thought there was a taboo in this country on discussion of it and the thing that george feels most strongly about as darren has mentioned is is what he calls open society, you know drawn from from what he learned from carl popper when i started the us programs in 1996. You know i had only had to go on was was the philosophers meeting that you write about the george force and people together at his home over a weekend to talk about what kind of problems the United States he might like to address. And you know, i talked to a bunch of people and put together a kind of a white Paper Foundation and i started it with an epigraph which is a quote from part of a quote from gk chesterton, which is written about buddhism which chesterton called not a creed but a doubt and i think that sums up, you know, soross attitude about things, you know quite hes much more about leaning into the doubt very very suspicious of ideologies of all kinds and and wanting to open up debates, so all the things we did originally in in the us programs and this is also true in the work and the rest of the world was to kind of challenge established chivalists, you know, whether it was the way the society dealt with drugs the way this society dealt with care death and dying and the end of life the way we deal with people in prisons, and george was very hesitant certainly initially to be proscriptive about policy. What he wanted to do was open up debates. So having listened to these two explanations, you can know it was like editing this book. Um, it was great fun and i won a very very briefly tell you a little bit about the other essays. And because they they are the sort of the way in which we filled out the story as much as we could. So the only person who source did not know among the authors contributors was eva hoffman. And ava was a trust you know that lost in translation, which is her classic book about the experience of being an immigrant and refugee. Ava is polish george said well, shes polish im hungarian. I mean, how are we going to get along . She did a terrific and and what she does and what both gara i think and darren referred to is . She shows you that georges experience as a teenager in the nazi era period when hungary was invaded in 1944. Is where george learned about risk . The fact that he and his family are his father brought them out. Save them prove to george at some level that you can take risks. And that is what in essence as a upper middle class whose life was not expected to go upside down. Source learned that you cant count on life and therefore you take risks. Thats ava which leads to Sebastian Sebastian is really a remarkably. Strong writer on finance and people you know when they hear about reflexivity. I can tell you that roll their eyes. What does it mean fact is what george soros did would is invent effectively. The hedge fund because hes someone who went into finance. With the ability to withstand risk and in reflexivity which is his thesis philosophy he says. Effect there are times when in finance the bubble. Almost guarantees the pullback thats reflexivity. Soros was able. To rey to make tens and tens of billions of dollars as a hedge fund speculator in his own words. And thats a remarkable achievement. Some people would rest on that laurel. Then comes michael egnotif is himself. A philosopher was the rector of ceu the ceu story is both inspiring and very frustrating. And ill mention were going to talk a little bit about oriban and hungary. Ceu started by soros put up all the money. Created a new and important Global Research university in budapest. And michael has the one who was the most recent rector and describes the extraordinarily complicated business. Of the ceu of quality in the era of orban the autocrat who chose . Turn ceu and soros in particular into an enemy. Yvonne is a post. Soviet intellectual, hes bulgarian and he writes about this really astonishing trajectory. Of whats happened in the years since the end of the cold war . The war in 1991 soviet ussr imploded and there was a belief. That were in a world now in which the logical transitions are to democracy. And with soros did was activate Civil Society throughout the former soviet union. And i say that the reason he could do all that stuff is because he was very rich and they loved us as we were told rich people and they didnt know he was a radical. Um, and he really did a unique role. In getting the Civil Society framework started in in the former soviet union and of course what weve seen now is some success. The Civil Society aspects of much of Eastern Europe for better or worse poland czech republics hungary and so forth there are Civil Society structures there. But we also know. Now that his very substantial efforts in russia. Failed that no one could have done more. To enable russia to come out of the wasnt exactly a marshall plan, but he gave every russian scientist who asked for it money to live on. And what weve seen now is a repudiation of all that soros. Attempted to do too quickly. Orville shells great china expert and he has also watched. Sorosis engagement with china which again has gone through the astonishing up. Of a period in which it looked like china was moving in one direction and the frustrations of watching it go in another direction. I think one of the things about soros is hes old enough. Experient enough in bruised enough to know that doesnt always go the way you want it to. And finally on botstein. Leon im sure people in this room know who leon or many of you know, the others not to be taken lightly what leon does is engaged something which is immensely important soros is hungarian. Being a being hungarian has been an essential frame of his life. So what potsteen does is examine . How that works and again enormously i thought thoughtful essay and have to say for soros not to get involved in that essay. Leon was writing it. I was an act of discipline almost beyond imagining. So the thats the book. And as you can see, weve done the best we can with what weve got. And if you read it, you know, i keep saying that this is a uniquely complicated life and therefore we devised a way of telling that story in what is essentially an unusual way. I want to get now to the because believe it or not. Its already 703 i want to get to the very very important aspect. Of the sorrow story which is how he became so controversial how the first thing that people say when they hear the name not this audience necessarily, but anybody whos turned on fox news and i took a carlsons done hour after hour. Of attacks on soros and most people outside those who follow this thing carefully. Will tell you what they know about him is hes responsible for all the evil on the left in america, which i think those of us who have worked with him know its nonsense. It is truly nonsense. Because thats just not the way his mind works. Hes not somebody who sits at an organ and pushes the keys. So darren, can you try to frame in a you know in the coaching way that we time we have what is it about service . That makes him so controversial. What is it about him that . Means that most people truly do not understand his motives and his activities. Well, i think we have in the audience lord mark malik brown who has been one of georges long standing friend and now is the leader of open Society Foundations and gets to live with that controversy every day, so maybe we can have the first question come from mark. But what i would say first is that george soros is a capitalist. But he because of his intellectual curiosity in his his nonideological outlook questions the very things that made him rich this is unlike any of the great philanthropists. There is no in the history the annals of american philanthropy. There is no great. Philanthropists who actually does what dr. King said in 1968 when he said the following philanthropy is commendable. But it should not allow the philanthropist to overlook the economic injustice, which makes philanthropy necessary. No one else. Carnegie Rockefeller FordRobert Wood Johnson name them. Were all perfectly fine with inequality. They didnt think inequality was a problem. In fact carnegie said inequality. And the bounty that he and rockefeller had was because god had deemed them special men with special talents and that they had a an accountability to god to give that money away a particular way. Sorrows became controversial because he called out capitalism in the programmatic work of open society as gaara knows because he was managing that program. So he brought economists together to actually have people like joe stiglets write essays about the problems of capitalism for democracy and open society, which was unprecedented the other thing that he did was that he put at the center of their work the idea of justice. And justice in this country is a deeply contested idea. It is. It is a complex word because it was used in ways Thomas Jefferson wrote to his friend Samuel Dupont and said the work of america is to build a just nation. This is what Thomas Jefferson said. I think george soros was saying i want to hold Thomas Jefferson to his words and in order to do that the risk that you have to take. The people the institutions the structures that that have to be upended uprooted excavated means that the status quo. Is deeply unhappy because you are you are one of them. But you are calling them out. But karen so what actually is georgias engagement with politics thats your essay . Your essay describes the the notion that he is equal in in the as approach to say the Koch Brothers that he is on the left the source of much of the kind of disruption and so on i can tell you that. From having listened to him talk over and over and over again. Its extraordinary the equanimity. That he has about being attacked except. In hungary, so why dont you talk about what in fact is his influence in politics . Well, i dont think george soros would characterize himself nor do i think he should be characterized as a left figure as in the philanthropy. Lets i know of course the bulls that you know that we live in a society in which people are restored it all over the place. Thats the world we live in with truth is distorted, but but no george soros is i probably as i say in the book if he had to describe himself politically, he probably call himself a rock or would have called himself. This is a endangered species a rockefeller republican, you know without the rockefeller drug laws, you know, we used to be the kind of progressive republican. You know, he his giving has been almost exclusively to democrats because he kind of believes in a set of values that hard find anywhere except there these days but when you you know to link it back to the question you darren why source so controversial . I think its hard to its hard to get an answer to that without touching on his political role. So hes a very unusual figure among philanthropists among the people who talked about. I dont think theres anybody like it who has both, you know extremely active in the in a philanthropic sense. He pushes the edge on advocacy and activism in that philanthropy, but all within the well within the confines of the past, theres a technical distinction. You have to make here between the open Society Foundations and georges active. Yeah, which is what you need. So exactly so so theres a foundation the foundation has certain set of activities and source is an actor is an individual, you know, and has some assistance on that side. So i wrote about the political side, which i wasnt involved with it all when i was working for the foundation for separation of church and state reasons and in that sphere it hardly to do justice to the whole argument. A short thing here, but i think hes been his innovative in politics as he has been in philanthropy. He got into politics in a serious way in 2003 or so when he looked at the Bush Administration and the war on iraq and the in the war on terror and the abrogations of Civil Liberties in the United States and thought to himself he had to do something about it and that the problems that his foundations were dealing with whether in the United States around the world. Maybe he in addition to the charitable activities. He was doing he needed to go upstream a bit and see if he couldnt actually bring about regime change in the United States and he thats what he said about to do but very interestingly and i meant to say this earlier intrusive is philanthropy. I think what makes soros distinctive in in addition to the appetite for risk is that he has to an unusual degree. I think two unique degree in philanthropy has devolved decisionmaking about his philanthropy to a network of Decision Makers close to the ground. He has a network. Thats why its called plural the open Society Foundations. Theyre a i dont know mark knows in 60 or 70 countries around the world where the decisions are made by people close to the ground and also in most of those places people who have been marginalized in their own societies and had no access to philanthropic power resources, you know, whether its Indigenous People in guatemala or blacks in south africa or in baltimore which aaron writes about where we established an office, you know, a majority blackboard and a majority black city when when we started it every other philanthropy in town was was white led and dominated so he has he rebels in the idea that he empowers people to make decisions with his money and sometimes he doesnt even like what they do, but he understands that to be part of the process so in the political realm he followed rather a similar template. He didnt create the he has funded a great shift in the Progressive Side toward grassroots organizing but he did in the basis of plans that other people had that he did not invent as had to be hes had an enormous eye for talent so he was in early backer of barack obama and Stacey Abrams and other leaders of color. You know whove come to you know, be significant figures in our in our politics. He was an early innovator in the use of referenda to bring about, you know, policy change. So the whole movement for drug policy reform in this country was stoked on the philanthropic side in the sense of ideas and policy stuff, but he also invested on his political side in a set of state referendums on medical marijuana and marijuana decriminalization that now have really radically transformed the way this country deals with that with that substance and then hes also been heavily identified, you know, growing out again in the consciousness formed of his criminal justice work, you know with the campaign to elect progressive prosecutors around the country and that is in there in many many jurisdictions in this city and around the country and are changing the way. Security deal with crime so why is he unpopular because everywhere he deals with controversial unpopular is a difference. Maybe there is hes controversial certainly and some places. Hes unpopular. I dont think that bothers him very much, but i think that he he stands for marginalized people everywhere that he is active and he stands for challenging the status quo in ideas and established kind of, you know, Power Centers and that is no way to make friends, you know about it that much we got about a few minutes before we go to questions. And i one of the things thats always been striking about soros. Is that in todays world if somebody criticizes you . Publicly you know you go for defamation suits, you know, people are always now responding the kind of criticism peoples the thin skins of the very important are remarkable. One of the things thats astonishing about sorrows. Is that very hard to truly get under his skin. Accept hungry because hungary is homeland. Hungary is where he did an enormous amount of early work and the frustration of watching orban who just got elected to its fourth term. Desecrate all that sorrows believes in as a hungarian you know what . Hell say when well you know in a kind of informal setting as im old and im rich how much can they do to me . Um, not much. So the equanimity that he shows in the face of all this stuff. Is quite remarkable and i think because we have a couple of minutes left. Very briefly what is it that he has . Whats the legacy . Henry ford did not expect. Darren walker to be the president of this really. Well, you know, actually i called them yesterday to ask him whether he thought you would be the good president , but what it very briefly because we have to go to questions. What what is the legacy of his extraordinary character in life . The legacy and philanthropy, is that the idea of social justice philanthropy that the work of philanthropy is not just charity generosity. But that is actually for the donor. To call into question the very system that made him or her rich . And call into question their own privilege in that. Get a hundred years from now. When youll be a hundred and hundred and sixty seven. Yeah, i mean, do you even want to hazard i guess as to whether the soros tradition will endure of a commitment to social justice. To the up to the to the whole values structure that hes created for philanthropy and it is entire approach to land. How well can you imagine how it can evolve in the culture that we now live in it . Because remember your deep deep experience the open society . With atlantic and with Democracy Alliance, youve seen it all so how do you think its going to play out . Its hard to say what anybody think i hope a hundred years from now. There isnt any philanthropy because i hope that actually we live in system of government where what philanthropy is relied upon in our system, which is heavily privatized is actually undertaken by the state or theres more democratic control of resources than we now have but but i think wherever philanthropy has talked about george sorris will have had an influence i think, you know, its an open question hasnt say this in the present in the presence of the President Foundation what over time in a post george source era the legacy even within the foundation will be because even though as i say he has to an unusual degree empowered others to to lead he has been an enormous force in the foundation and it is in the throes in recent years led by him preparing for a world in which he he doesnt exist. And you know, if you look at the great fortunes in the great philanthropies over time usually the big players change, you know new money comes on the scene all the time from down is managed to lead the Ford Foundation to kind of renewed, you know, relevance and leadership but in a world in which there are many many other players including many who spend, you know, more than four does so having a lot of money doesnt give you impact necessarily what gives soros the impact is is the boldness the appetite for risk and the willingness to empower other people, you know to take some leadership. I dont even think we all respect to darrens argue that that is social justice perspective is particularly unique. I think whats unusual about it. Its driven by a leading donor who is in some sense kind of arguing against interest, you know, george stories not looking for a tax break, you know, hes not self. Hes not seeking a world in which people like him and his money and well have less power. And thats unusual. Well, theres a whole lot of questions here. Well, one of the some of the which of course and we have exactly 12 minutes. Are what happens there . Unless you all want to say for now. Dare, i went the one of the questions the future of sources philanthroposaurus which he would just dealing with. But i want you to just add one thought or can so which is exactly what she touched on. The uniqueness that hes 90 and that he needs that the passing of the you know torture whatever it is. Having watched in other foundations. How complicated will it be . For the open Society Foundations, do you believe to fulfill the vision that it started with in a post source. I dont know. Im not that close to it anymore. But well youre watching i think that i think that i think the a lot of it is baked into the dna of the foundation, you know, but of course, you know, one of the advantages i had in the 11 years i worked for sorosis. Is that when you did something controversial like, you know if you were down or somebody at ford or carnegie, they would say to you Andrew Carnegie. We rolling in his grave if you know about this and im like well that i thought true of george sores. Hes actually alive and hes all for you know, so i think over time and look the danger of Legacy Foundations that out live their donors is that they become if theyre not careful sclerotic, you know, theyre kind of calcify. I mean living individuals have in general more of an appetite for risk than corporate entities do and that will be the thing to watch with respect to this the open Society Foundations. Is a question that i can answer. I just by the way, i should say that the this book carries the imprimatur of the Harvard Business review press which agreed to publish whatever we well, not whatever but when we created the concept of the book and went to them and said will you be here for us and they agreed which is very important to understand because the Harvard Business review press. Is the harvard . Business review press which means it has access to all over the world. For a certain kind of audience so it gives the book a different say iteration than if it had been done by a political publisher. And i have to say i want to say because i assume that somebody is watching that Harvard Business review. Press was very important, and im very grateful to them for their work. Somebodys asked. What would be the one book i would suggest as the publisher of so much of Georges Soros books that you should read. And i actually its an interesting question for which i had a simple answer. Its called in defense of open society. Its the most recent thing. Because it came at the time when all of this pushback. On open society around, you know, an Eastern Europe and the us and from russia so forth and the reason the book is significant in defense of open society is a very eloquent series of curated essays and remarks by soros. Defense of all those values that he was so important in in creating do you think he . Do you think soros . As a young man when he was starting out and was it london and had didnt have two nickels to rub together. What do you think . Could have happened what darren what do you think vision . Where do you think the vision . That gave soros the kind of life ark that hes had where did it come from . To the extent that you understand it as someone who knows him. Well and who admires so much about him . While i do think it is like the other great philanthropist. It comes from the trauma of childhood. I mean John D Rockefeller was traumatized by living on an economic precipice and growing up in a household where his father because he was an irregular irregularly employed. Shall we say put the families economics circumstance always at risk . So to pile up as much money as he could. Was so in terms of his the psychology of who he was. Andrew carnegie was an immigrant. He was a particular kind of immigrant at a time who came to america. And that in so many ways. Infused in him an idea of the american immigrant i think in the case of sorrows the trauma. Of what happened to him . And so many ways instantiated this idea of of antifascism and the the perniciousness of nationalism and xenophobia and these ideas and i think coming up on carl popper and really starting to read philosophy. Wooted him and away forward that as a as a successful capitalist, he could take that money. And do good for the idea of an open society. And i think this is why to the book i mean in what is heartbreaking i think and it must be for for george soros and it is we know it is what did happen in hungary. Nothing george sorrows has very thick skin very and as garon any of you know, this is a man who it is unlike many other wealthy men who have really thin skin. Who will not tolerate people saying things that make them uncomfortable about themselves or being reflected in the media or in any way i mean there are so many wealthy. Who are like that that was that is not who knows remarkable, isnt it . But hungary and the fact that victor orban was a sorrows fellow at oxford. He was a sorrows fellow he bought into the idea of an open society. Just took the money and got his phd. I mean he and and so the tragedy that he and its in its not just like in the us i mean george soros. As a figure was at the center of orbans political campaign. I mean he was used as a visual the imagery. They were put they put in on the on the subways on the buses. Awesome on georges face to literally he became the face of of what was bad for hungry. So imagine someone i mean, i mean someone who loves this country i could only imagine what it would feel like to me to have my picture be used as a metaphor for what is antiamerican. I just want to underscore one thing with with garen the very short time we have left which is Andrew Carnegie was steel. Rockefeller was oiled gates was microsoft. Soros speculation do you think arab and youre not yourself if . Well, if they understand correctly someone who deals wildly in finance, even though but youve dealt with a great many as the democracy as president. You know what . Its like. Dealing with progressives with money. And i think you did not have gray hair before you went into the democracy lines. Can you tell us what it is about the soros ability . To have this way of understanding his values. But not being daunted in the end. By the degree to which things fail well, i dont know, you know, i dont know that. I dont know that i would say look at dealing with which people who often can be kind of entitled, you know is its not for everybody but but if you run an institution, i might even might be an issue with the public library. I dont know but but its a challenging thing for people to do and you just have to kind of suck it up. But but i think the in my experience source is not vastly different, you know from most of those liberal donors the sense that all of them and i dare say on the conservative side people are often motivated by their values as well. Not just selfinterest. Theyre motivated by the world. They want to see and very often in the case of a lot of these progressives the policy changes. They want to see are not necessarily going to advantage them in a personal way. So source isnt is an unusual in that way. It makes soros unusual is that he is rigorous about questioning even his own beliefs it may and thats why keep returning to the open Society Concept of the principle of doubt. He would not want to be known and he is not as a partisan, you know, either as a partisan in the political sense or is an ideologue, you know in any other sense he would want to be known for for questioning. Hes not my experience a particularly sentimental person, but you know, his autobiography does play a role in the in the philanthropy, you know, the reason they did the work on that. I mean technically histor, im sorry personal story not and no written autobiograph. No, no, no what i mean is his story . Plays into as it does with every human being we did. Death and dying work because his father died kind of alone and in pain and his mother died having her family around with the care of others and he decided he wanted to promote more of that kind of death, you know, we did the immigration work in 1996 because he was an immigrant and immigrant in england when he was a young man. He broke his leg in the National Health service, you know took care of him and it made an impression on him and he did when when clinton in the congress cut off legal benefits for legal immigrants. He thought he could see himself in that he wanted to do something about it. So so his story does does play into it, but i i think that he look having worked for him and having worked with a lot of other wealthy people. I think that soros is willingness to be challenged to challenge himself and have others challenge him makes him relatively unusual. Relatively not unique. Well, all right. Well, we weve reached the and here i just the you know, somebody had to ask about the book if you want to understand something more about george soros read his fathers book. Hmm tividar masquerade masquerade isnt Remarkable Book written originally an esperanto whole thing good way the esperanto version. Im sure the public last frontal version is for some of you it may be routine, but the point about it, is that if you want to understand the fabric of whats become this remarkable . Risk taker this person who will try to change the world. And then take his lumps. Something about his father in masquerade is worth in. Its not just about trauma. By the way. Theres also its also as you can see in the book and ava its also about joy it was the thrill of many response. Yeah. He says we got to stop he says, you know, i have a little pain here. I think ill break the pound. Its a remarkable story. Hes a remarkable fellow and darren and garrett you weve only barely scratch the surface and thank you all thank you very much. Thank you. You betcha. Its Larry Oconnor here on our what were live now everywhere honestly, but we wont be live everywhere for long. But right now were streaming live on our youtube channel. Were