AI and COVID, helping small businesses, and disinformation campaigns with Dilawar Syed
When I moved to San Francisco from the Midwest, I came for many of the same reasons you did. I was young, optimistic, and thought that what was happening here in Silicon Valley was going to change the world forever. In many respects, we have. Many companies are using cutting edge technologies to solve some of the biggest challenges our world faces right now. However, we’ve let our idealism get in the way of our realism. As with any new technology, there’s always a darker side.
I spent four years of my career bringing online experimentation to every company. As a matter of fact, if you use the internet between 2014 and 2019, you were most likely in an experiment that I helped create. I always ask two questions to my clients, what are your goals and who is your audience? Because with enough information about your audience, you can influence them to behave in a way that aligns with your goals. What happens when the goal is to undermine and destroy democracy? What happens when the person in charge has different goals than yours?
This is not a political issue. This is a human rights issue. We need to put in place regulations and oversight that govern how our data can be used to influence our political process. Our industry has a moral obligation to not only future generations but every generation that has come before us to stand up now. We cannot sit idly by while we watch the tools we have built, be used to spread lies, tips, information, and propaganda.
In this episode of the Tech Stands Up podcast, we welcome Dilawar Syed. Dilawar is the CEO of Lumiata and on a mission to give more people access to quality, low-cost healthcare using AI. Dilawar is also a leader in civic advocacy at the local, state, and national levels advising both Gavin Newsom and Joe Biden. Today we talk about how his team is using AI in the fight against COVID, how we need to help the small businesses and startups during this time and what this election means for our country, how disinformation campaigns are a threat to our democracy, and how you can help get out the vote on November 3rd.
Show Notes
- Lumiata
- How Lumiata is taking Action against the COVID Virus
- Santa Clara Country COVID Recovery Report
- California Entrepreneurship Taskforce
- False is the enemy of free and fair
Business leaders’ call-to-action against false political advertising on social media - Joe Biden Campaign
Brad Taylor 0:48
Welcome to the podcast Dilawar, how are you doing today?
Dilawar Syed 0:52
I’m doing very well, Brad, good to be back in touch after some time.
Brad Taylor 0:57
Absolutely. It’s been I can’t believe it’s been four years since the Pi Day protests we did down in Silicon Valley. Not much has changed, has it?
Dilawar Syed 1:08
I guess we had upside down. That’s the best way I could put it Brad, in so many ways.
Brad Taylor 1:14
Yeah, we do have a lot of things to talk about today. But mainly because you’re doing so much right now on all fronts. But before we get into that, when you spoke at the rally, your speech was called “My American Journey”, and what a journey it has been for you, as an immigrant from Pakistan, working your way up to be a Silicon Valley CEO, even Advisor to President Obama. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about that journey?
Dilawar Syed 1:38
Well, it’s a journey that, honestly is only possible in this country. And that’s probably one of the biggest reason why myself and so many people, I would say millions of people in this country are working very hard, are doing everything they can to make sure that we preserve that about us, where literally anything is possible in this country, you can come from anywhere in the world. And if you do your part, and you’re sincere doors, opportunities open for you, and you can contribute to society. And literally, there’s no other country on planet earth that offers that where, regardless of when your paperwork comes through, you can feel you can start to embrace your Americanness. And I’ve traveled all over the world for business or pleasure. The other way welcoming countries, you feel like, oh, I’ve been here before, but no, why you can tell that the society would never embrace you, you would never feel a part of it. US is unique in in, in making people feel a part of it. And that no matter what we’ve gone through, and how difficult and dark these four years have been, that fundamental core is still very much there. And we have to obviously do everything we can in our power in the next 39 days to make sure we get to preserve it. And this election has a victory in Joe Biden Who will you know, move us forward as a country. So in terms of that journey, how it was for me, as Brad, you and I talked about, you know, I came as an international student. And I moved to the valley after my, my undergraduate degree at UT Austin, and I’ve been here in tech for for a couple of decades. I’ve worked in big companies in my first first half of my career at Yahoo, and Siebel, just acquired by Oracle, after Business School. at Wharton, actually, the first day of our second year was 911. And that day, changed our world. It changed our country, and obviously had a profound impact on myself. I had a, I had a one year old daughter, we were in a high rise, we were evacuated. And I think so much of what we’re seeing today, you know, you could say that that was a defining moment. And for someone like myself, who was I always had a, I guess, a civic mindedness I want I would do things beyond just work. But that day sort of emphasize the importance of making sure that global perspectives are being heard, as this country goes through a very, very difficult tragic time. And that I’m a force for good, if you will, as a member of the society, so I got more involved, if you will, in a civic manner. So after business school, I got a job at Siebel, I’ve moved here, you know, got one of the community with a local entrepreneurship efforts. You know, there was a sense at the time that, you know, minority owned community with white minority communities and you know, folks who are South Asians, you know, there was there was there was Jonathan taper them the community when the water started.
Brad Taylor 5:04
Yeah, how did how did that make you feel? seen all the backlash against people from the Middle East during that time.
Dilawar Syed 5:13
I think what’s interesting is that I tell people everywhere all the time that when I was at Wharton, and this was happening, and literally that week, when we were starting to look for jobs, 911 took place, and I was with his interview process, and I walked out with opportunities. And I have said this to my friends all over the world. No one closed the door on me, just because I had a certain name, or I had a certain face, or a certain accent. This is why this country and our core is just so incredibly beautiful. Um, yes, there were incidents of violence. Absolutely, there has been discrimination. But by and large, people did not let the tragedy come in the way of us shutting doors on people because they happen to be born as a part of the world in which we had not engaged in warfare. And so that gives me hope. I did not look for, if you will, that divisiveness and, and also didn’t stop me from getting involved. But I was aware that we are more divided world, I was aware that this will take decades, if not more, for us to you know, go through as a country as a word given what was going on in the Bush presidency and beyond. And in many ways that also serve as a start for me, you know, more active political involvement with the with the with Barack Obama’s campaign into them seven, who was an anti war candidate, I think people often forget now, they consider this establishment and like, Well, you know, you don’t know where we were, I think we don’t have memory of where we were as a country, and how much progress we made in that post seven campaign of Barack Obama to move this country forward and and, you know, begin to wrap this this part of war they’ve been engaged on both in Afghanistan as well as in, in Iraq. In fact, it would have been even more.
Brad Taylor 7:27
Yeah, we definitely did see a lot of progress over those years. And while we haven’t seen any new wars, thankfully, one of the biggest stories of 2020 has been COVID, obviously, and how it’s really reshaped our world. As a CEO of Lumiata, you’re at the center of this health crisis, because your company is using artificial intelligence to help people get more access to low cost health care. Can you tell us a little bit about Lumiata and how it’s helping people navigate this healthcare system during the pandemic?
Dilawar Syed 7:57
Absolutely, who knew what we were going into this year in 2020. And this is, we are, we are actually we can be huge part and we are becoming a part of the solution in our response to COVID. So, let me give you a little bit of background on what Lumiata does Julius’s as well, and what our products are and how we’re helping COVID. So we’re using big data and artificial intelligence machine learning to predict future cost and risk for patients for populations. For members in the context of healthcare positions, and that information is used to better manage your path of care that information is used to market and sell you a better product from insurance companies. A lot of times that has been operated decisions about benefits plans, that leads to suboptimal outcomes for healthcare,
Brad Taylor 8:56
a lot of pricing to for instance, like multi like one price, maybe five times more in a hospital across town.
Dilawar Syed 9:03
That’s right, when you look at an average family of four makes 100k a year is often spending up to 20- 25% of their income on out of pocket health care costs. That is untenable. It’s unacceptable is unconscionable. And one of the reasons why PMS keep going up because insurance companies are using archaic methods to price flips. They’re using actual methods that were invented about 40 years ago, they make they don’t make use of any data, even though they have more data than any other industry does. And especially after the war and of COVID in this pandemic, where is so much of virtual widows are taking place. They’re generating even more data when we go and see our doctors. All the data could be utilized to better create a picture of your health profile, your risk, and so pricing decisions should be informed by those not by a fear of something happening within our and minimizing your out of pocket coverage for that insurance company. So I believe in the mission to help lower the cost of care over time by having more data driven decisions around, what are you selling? How much are you selling it for, to, to consumers. But of course, it also has a direct impact on the outcomes of what kind of care you get. In fact, the identifying high risk patients, so we can do interventions for by using models here, models that predict future disease or future disease and risk. So it is phenomenal work. Now, I was excited about this before COVID, after COVID hit, boy, we are in the eye of the storm. And we can be a huge part of the solution there. One, there is a lot more data that’s available. So we have the ability as a modern tech stack platform to quickly make use of COVID data and see how we can help predict the future folks who are going to be at risk of COVID, or those folks who actually now unfortunately have 7 million Americans who have got to have pre existing conditions with COVID. Thanks to these tests. We can we can help manage those folks downstream. So the societal impact of a company like Lumiata just got increased 24 in the last six months, and so that’s, that’s where, you know, that’s where we’re going. And obviously, early, in order to give an example COVID claims are still making their way through the insurance industry. Marrying those claims with existing claim structure, it’s not easy healthcare is behind in a lot of ways. But because we work with these companies, and we built with a pretty modern tech technology, where we can ingest data quickly and you know, get new records of data and, and fine tune our models quickly to do give new predictions in a matter of days, we can actually very, very fast share what is the impact of COVID on on your population, and how you manage them, and how you market your insurance products to them.
Brad Taylor 12:11
So you can start using data to make your decisions instead of what the latest meme on Facebook is on whether
Dilawar Syed 12:19
India, that’s real time India, that is that is, you know, we are getting by the week. So that’s that’s where we are right. So it’s a it’s a very, it’s a it’s a it’s a very empowered mission at this time. And it was very important for me as a CEO at the time to remind my my team, we get to be, we get to help with this, with this moment of time. So as dark as his time is, and as unsettling as it is, how cool the day is a few of us know who can who can actually help with this moment. By the way, we also did a global COVID hackathon.
Brad Taylor 13:02
Tell us a little about that? How’d that go?
Dilawar Syed 13:05
That was phenomenal. You know, we actually did, this was one of the very first AI hackathons for COVID. And in a matter of couple of weeks, we were able to get a few dozen teams from around the world, who came together on Slack to form new teams, to build these hacks, ai hacks. that would that would help with COVID, I had my investors, you know, come and be part of the judging panel, I got Aneesh Chopra, my former colleague from Obama administration to be to be a judge. And it was great just to be part of sort of helping excellent innovation as a response from the valley with a global community. It was also a reminder, Brad, that we are all in this together. This is not a one country’s problem. This is not a China problem. This is a global problem. We are we are part of one committee and all these awesome minds can come together and try to you know, collaborate and see how do we how do we? How do we move things forward. So you know, there was some incredible ideas that came out of this. In fact, with a couple of those, they got interests of some of the VCs that we work with. So it was it was very, very gratifying, especially given all that was going on those days, everything helped the table forward as well.
Brad Taylor 14:24
You’re right, we have some of the best minds in the world located right here in the Bay Area. And when you put them together in a setting like a hackathon, where there are no bad ideas and you have to collaborate and try new things that may not have ever been thought before can really help you solve problems quickly. You’re really doing great, amazing work with Lumiata. in you’re using state of the art technology to really help communities during this pandemic, but you’re also helping on a local level. You recently had the opportunity to work with the County of Santa Clara which is home to Silicon Valley to help create recommendations and an action plan for how small businesses and startups recover from this economic disaster. What were some of the recommendations your committee proposed?
Dilawar Syed 15:10
So as you know, Brad, we, I mean, the economic fallout of COVID is, is been just heartbreaking, especially for small businesses. For so many of, of the workers, we had a contraction in GDP that’s unprecedented. And most of that contraction affected. The small businesses, it affected the most vulneralbe the people in our society, it affected minorities. And so in May of, I guess, this year, Sam Liccardo, Mayor of San Jose, put together a team of about I would say, 50, plus local business leaders, community leaders, educate educators to come together and help build 100 day plan for how do we recover Silicon Valley not only recover, but how do we renew and get better as a valley. I was tasked to lead the track on on on the recovery of the businesses. And so we had a terrific team. In fact, SunPower CEO, Tom Warner and I were the CO chairs and great guy and got to work with him. And very quickly, we focused on small businesses and startups. Look, the big tech is not being impacted by this pandemic in a negative way. They’re doing better, they’re doing better. And you know that, and we all know that. And I wanted to make sure that people understood where the energy had to spend. And I have to be honest with you, it took some, it took some passionate conversations to make sure I made it known to my colleagues, that I’m not here to help put more focus on one of the challenges a big tech is facing, but rather it’s a small businesses across the valley, majority of whom are shut down, many of whom will never come back. You know, when companies shut down and there’s no lunches, you know, we have literally there is no path for these folks forward. early stage startups, we often don’t hear about them. You know, look, the valley is known for its entrepreneurial core. Yes, we’ve created Facebook, basically, Google, but you know where they came from. That’s not what the valley is known for, and should be known for a lot is known for people who are creating the next, if you will Google, five years, 10 years, 20 years from now. Therefore, when you look at the small stage startups, early stage startups, they had, on average, these reports came out four to six months of cash left. We don’t talk about that. That is not the frontline news. And a lot of these VCs that many of them, we hold them in high esteem hold back. They’re the most risk averse. And I and I know and with my team, we called it out and said, Look, I get it that your business model is that you want to see how things shape up. But in the meantime, these companies are they’re innovators, and they have also jobs that they have to you know, keep How do they survive.
So we focus a lot on small businesses, and on early startups. And we came up with a series of series of recommendations to make sure that there was greater access to capital, make sure there was more education of especially SMB owners who were Hispanic or there might be language challenges, you know, when PDB came out this Data Protection Act that federal government passed, and we know it has been poorly implemented, you know very well, that the the most affected SMBs, especially if you’re a minority owner, did not get access to those funds, in part because they did not have relationship with banks that bigger companies do. And it is shameful that we couldn’t get the money fast enough to those smaller companies that are less than 50 employees, including some of the small startups. So there was there are some recommendations that we put out there to make sure that there is information being shared, that there is bilingual information being shared, that we can educate folks for you and given them tools or maybe offer some sort of accounting help legal help to review this stuff. It’s not easy to get a loan from SBA, even in a in a in an economic catastrophe. Like you have to know many of these businesses do not have the capacity or the competence to actually even get the resources that we as taxpayers are making available. And there was not focused on that, as a country and as a region. So a lot of our recommendations went on making it easier for people to access the resources that are already available for but also on the early startup side. There are reminding ourselves that there’s a bit of responsibility VCs have yesterday The private market. But look, we do expect, we do expect societal responsibility from companies, we can expect the same for VCs as well. Many of them have them, many of them have done very well, right? Using the innovative capital and human talent of this value. So when times are rough, you want to make sure that, you know, they’re they’re being reminded of their responsibility. I’m not saying you make bad deals, but you do take into account that you need to have the back of these startups in the next two to four months. And you don’t horn that because if you don’t, if you don’t, if you don’t have cash, your your back is against the wall of the founder. And it’s very difficult to get a term sheet. So the proposal was very quickly was that we should host an annual entrepreneur annual State of Entrepreneurship Summit in the Valley, where we invite all stakeholders and we take a stock of our how, how are we doing when it comes to early serial entrepreneurship, as a region. By the way, even before the pandemic, if you look at it, the the early rounds were on the downward trend, nouns have been going up and up fight in funding rounds, more with more VCs are spending, and they’re more comfortable with the so called unicorn rounds, including my previous company freshworks. However, the the early stage funding has been the decline after pandemic, it went further down, we will kill we will absolutely kill the entrepreneurial core of this valley if we all just become a big tech Mecca. And for that there needs to be some responsibility for all stakeholders, local government state come together with of course, you know, our big tech colleagues, and the investor and some startups and come together every year and say, Look, how are we doing? You know, how many do we do this year as a community? What do we need to do to make it better, and so forth. So and of course, there’s also an equity that we also know that women owned companies, black owned companies, Latino owned companies are at the further end of the line. So we want to spend a lot of time making sure that that is greater equity in this new Valley than you would create, you know, from this very difficult time to recreate.
Brad Taylor 22:13
One of the interesting pieces that I saw out of the reports, small businesses must evolve in a digital environment, but don’t have the ability, the equipment, the technology that is required. And it always comes down to money. And it’s really surprising for me to hear that early stage investing has dried up a little bit more, because this almost sounds like a big business opportunity to bring these small businesses that are struggling to be digital online.
Dilawar Syed 22:45
Absolutely, I mean, clearly, Twitter and Instagram, can help these small businesses become more more digitized. And they are but there’s opportunity to for for other tools to emerge as well. But on that note, let me say this little things that I’ve learned, it’s humbling. You know, many of these businesses don’t even know how to market on Twitter or Instagram.
Brad Taylor 23:10
They don’t even know how to even get signed up for. So how do I get on these sites, they know
Dilawar Syed 23:16
it or offend us. You know, I admire that some of these beer companies have done some have given some training, have invested some efforts to do to try and educate these small business owners on these tools. But we have to realize even though in the valley, majority of businesses are not necessarily online, there’s a digital divide does that does that there’s a social digital divide that exists because of our social divide. You know, and and we have to make a concerted effort, both from bigger companies to make sure that they are enabling these small business owners, especially diverse small business owners, but also to your point, this opportunity for newer ideas to shape up right and provide those services that are built for small businesses. And with a price point and within approachability. You know that that did deserve.
Brad Taylor 24:07
I think a key aspect to and you alluded to this is that, you know, it’s not just the software but it’s getting the software connected modernizing it within the government within the small businesses being able to have the services because you can’t just hand a restaurant owner like here’s Salesforce, and here’s a marketing platform, go use it.
Dilawar Syed 24:28
Totally invited it also social dimension to it. I’ll give you an example. We were discussing the idea of, you know, one of the larger companies here conducting eight hour training sessions on zoom for digital marketing, and we heard the feedback. We did some focus groups. folks said I need childcare. Yeah, I have four kids. I live in a one bedroom apartment. And by the way, sometimes you have multi generational household I need help, I can’t afford just spending eight hours getting marketing, even though it is it is how it is free. So, you know, look, if you have to be empathetic, we get it reminds us that, you know, the folks that we’re trying to help their situation is very different from ours, we are very fortunate we are able to socially distance ourselves, we may have help, we can we can, you know, we can have our kids who have access to Wi Fi. And so he had to think about not only just fine arts, but also how do we support the people they’ve been trying to help with, they can actually benefit from these training and from these tools.
Brad Taylor 25:38
So besides working at the local level here in Silicon Valley, you’re also extremely active at the state level. And another position you hold is the chair of the California entrepreneurship Task Force. And back in May, your team helped over 30,000 small business owners through virtual sessions, get access to aid and just try to stay in business. What was that experience like for you?
Dilawar Syed 26:02
Oh, thanks for asking that question. Let me step back for us to what this is and how I got involved in this. So after 2016 election, Brad, you know very well, I was very involved. After, after the election, and given what we’re going through the country, I wanted to do my part in, in helping bridge the divide that we saw that emerge, you know, in our country, and especially do work and help in areas that are not like the valley, that, frankly, politically are probably more red than they are blue. And so I got introduced to some local leaders in the Central Valley, which you may people, our listeners may know, it’s, it’s probably a more more centrist, if not more conservative part of the state. But also, unfortunately, economically, it has been left behind. And I realized that I always just drove by the Central Valley, I never drove through it, literally as well, as you know, metaphorically. And before many of us who are wanting to jump into the heartland, middle of America, our own Heartland needs attention. So I started spending some time with a wonderful organization called Central Valley Community Foundation in Fresno. And I became sort of the advisor on their strategy to invite more tech companies to invest in Fresno. Which I know helped with that quite a bit. In fact, Ashley swearengin, she the former mayor of Fresno, whose mother, by the way, republican, I got to work with very closely, she calls me this, you know, Metro mentor, which is a, which is a very gratifying term. But what it meant was I was helping I was helping develop a strategy for the region to market themselves to the tech companies in the valley for second office, right? So before you think of Nashville and Austin, Texas, and another Austin word, why not my own state? Why not my own neighbor? It’s two and a half hours away. And, you know, look, let me tell you what I drove there. First time, I felt like why were two hours away, I felt like I was in a different country in terms of the terms of economic development, and just the opportunity that you see around. So that effort led to when Gavin was elected governor, you know, I was working with Manny mundaka, who went on to become our chief business adviser to the new Newsome administration, we we thought about why not scaling this effort broadly, the state How about if you recreate a strategic engagement from Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and Sacramento and help advise, advise the state on a more inclusive entrepreneurship a more a more widespread tech investment across the state, because it’s interesting Silicon Valley is, you know, has been fairly insular, like we haven’t really, as a community as entrepreneurs led a role in helping further economic development across the state in a more systemic manner. So I founded this California entrepreneure task force, which essentially is about a dozen of us. You can call us civic minded entrepreneurs, business leaders, by the way, equal number of women and men on this on this team. We come from all sorts of backgrounds is not just tech, some of us are manufacturing, healthcare, real estate, and so forth. And we represent the entire state. There’s only I think two or three of us from the valley. The rest are from Central Valley and SoCal, even Far North. And our mission in life has been the last few years is to further more access to capital, assets, resources, assets from networks, especially to people of color to women, entrepreneurs and founders in our state and in regions that are economically disadvantaged. Now when COVID hit, and we went shelter in place in mid March, um, I felt this was the reason why we were created. We have to meet your moment. I caught up our my contact within the governor’s office, Isabelle, she’s wonderful partner, I said, You know what? We’re going to front end this engagement with the small business community. I’m not going to wait for government orders or resources right now. People need help. They need advice. So let’s start having these fire side conversations every Friday.
We’ll do one one Friday in English, one Friday in Spanish. And we will share lessons about how do you apply for PPP? How do you how do you go digital, you know, our earlier conversation? What is a pivot when people keep talking about hey, I was at a restaurant. I don’t have any, any customers I could probably provide. I could be a wholesaler, right? There’s all these great stories, but people don’t even know what that is. They haven’t gone through that experience before. I’ll tell you, Brad, it took us a week to launch the first one. In fact, our first conversation happened literally the day the Kids Act was, was signed. And we were on the call, hundreds of people showed up zoom call. And I had people from SBA local folks. And we were answering questions we couldn’t like it was it was phenomenal, like the number of chats, and people were clamoring for information. It is both humbling and moving.
And I get sometimes emotion about this that I felt we were part of providing a solution with people who felt they didn’t know where to go.
Brad Taylor 31:53
You’re their lifeline.
Dilawar Syed 31:55
I won’t say that. But we clearly were tapping into a massive gap that exists in our government, where sometimes despite best intention, and billions being rolled out, we’re not speaking to people. We don’t understand what the issues are. And you know, you’re talking about my being an immigrant. I don’t even remember, I’m an immigrant. I just remember I’m a human being. And I’m talking to them. And I’m understanding that to me, because I’ve been through this. And that empathy that we’re all one we’re all being dealt with this global issue. And we have to solve it together. I need to do this together. So it was it was incredible. It was it was it feels very gratifying. We are a lot of work to do. I wouldn’t say that we solve everybody’s problems. We solved everybody’s, you know how to get to them the information. But yes, to your point. 14 sessions later, we have touched about 30,000 small businesses all across the state. The business community, right of entrepreneurs, and small business owners. It’s a diverse community, by the way, not all tech people, not all startups, small businesses is also for the startups to see the other side, that there are these other businesses that have different vantage point. So that’s, that’s what we’re doing. When we started four years ago, Brad, that wasn’t the intention. I knew there was something missing. I felt that Why couldn’t you know the entrepreneurs of the valley could be a force of good for in our own state. And this moment in time, I think a few of us with the help of many good people tried to do that. So that’s that effort. It’s been it’s been we still have a lot of work to do. But it’s been wonderful to be able to, you know, provide some help.
Brad Taylor 33:43
If anyone listening wanted to get involved or help How would they how they or see some of the past presentations where would they go?
Dilawar Syed 33:51
Absolutely. The you can go to business.ca.gov/ETF. Again, busines.ca.gov/ETF. It’s California on the entrepreneurship taskforce, or the past sessions are posted both in Spanish and English. And you can sign up to be on our email list. Actually, if you want to host a future session, we’d love for you to.
Brad Taylor 34:15
I’d love to host the session sometime let’s let’s make it happen. I’ll Also, be sure to put those links in the show notes as well for our listeners. So we’ve talked about how you’re active at the local level and at the state level. But you’re also active at the national level, and your surrogate and advisor to Joe Biden as part of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council, which is really just an all star list of amazing entrepreneurs. Like I’m seeing Andrew Yang, Jerry, from Ben and Jerry’s, just to name a few. How did you get involved with the campaign and what’s your experience been like over these past year of campaigning?
Dilawar Syed 34:55
So, you know, I got involved pretty early With Joe’s campaign, and I’ll tell you this is bigger than a Bart election or a campaign. It is, and I’m going to use a new bottle of joe biden’s work it is to help restore this one operation. I felt very strongly from the very early days that Joe was the best guy for this moment. And I think the country’s getting to see that. Look, I think his experience, his humility, his character, his understanding this moment, his ability to bring people together, all of those and all of those are showing up as he’s engaging the country. So I got involved very early on before we had a campaign is like a, you know, feedline startup. And I was probably one of the very few people in the valley, who were supporting Joe Biden, it was a garden primary, as you know, we have some amazing, talented people during their home, state senator and it’s great to have Kamala Harris on the ticket. In fact, I’ve noticed that the house for a long time, but I decided to support Joe because I felt like, you know, the country needs he was stressed. So it was early. And you know, one thing I’ve learned is, and, you know, it’s when you get involved, get involved in early stage of the campaign, you’re going to do everything you are helping connect with the right people, you are organizing committees, you are helping various firms you’re providing, in making introductions to the campaign, with with with with, with tool, certain tech tools that they can use. Remember, the campaign manager called me up and said you do anybody at at Venmo. Like, sure I’m making those connections, it is literally all hands on deck to get the campaign going. So it’s been phenomenal. Um, but I’ll tell you, at the end of the day, this was about making sure we move forward on November 3rd. , this is not this is not political. This is this is making sure we save this country. And Brad, you’ve done amazing work on this. And you know, you help lead the tech industry’s charge. So I I’m in it this because I feel like we got a we got to we got to save our country and save our democracy. And this is about now, especially after this pandemic about saving lives as well. So that’s why I’m behind Joe. And I’ve been doing a lot of work and, you know, helping on a whole breadth of issues. A couple of ideas, where I’m very involved right now is helping organize. The campaign’s engagement with the small businesses and entrepreneur community, there’s a constituency, there are many of these businesses can be actually a great platform to help get the word out, we’re going to need to, we’re gonna need to turn out the word all across the country, especially in key states, as you know very well, it’s gonna be hundreds of words, in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and in Ohio, and Florida, that’s gonna make the difference. So we’re working with small businesses, entrepreneurs, influencers, who would like to endorse Joe Biden, who would like to host a zoom session, or would like to, you know, host a phone banking, and make sure that they understand also that we have a plan for them, you know, program to make sure that their recovery serves their needs, given some of the earlier challenges we talked about. So that’s one big area where I’m focused on the business engagement side, the other one with diverse communities, again, that I’m very passionate about making sure that Asian Americans come on board, these all these diverse communities come on board, unfortunately, a number that is not as great. Some of the more minority communities don’t vote as much as you know, white Americans need to close that gap. And so it’s and then, of course, on the policy, and as well, I’ve been advising on a hotbed of issues. So those are some of the areas where I’m involved in the campaign
Brad Taylor 38:43
I appreciate the kind words i think that you know, my whole reason I started tech stands up because I really felt that tech needed to stand up at this moment in time, especially around the ways that some of our tools have been used and misappropriated for for political advantage. And one interesting thing that I saw was in November, you wrote a medium post, and got a fair amount of executives in the Silicon Valley in Silicon Valley. There was asking social media companies not to allow false political advertising on their platforms. We know that Twitter said that they weren’t going to allow it. But for the most part, that did not happen. How has this political advertising these tools been used to affect this election?
Dilawar Syed 39:34
This disinformation campaign that is quite frankly, being perpetuated at Facebook as a platform and to some extent, other social platforms as well. I think history will judge that decades from now. As probably one of the biggest enablers of the the state of political affairs in a country to put it mildly. And in the event, we are our democracy is weakened to a point of no recognition. This would be one of the core core enablers of that. I feel very, very strongly about this. I think this and you’re right, I actually took a very early stance, and this was this came in reaction to an ad. the Trump campaign ran in November, because they knew that Joe was a candidate, they were fed up, and they ran an ad that literally was factually incorrect, factually incorrect. Against Joe Biden. And if you may reacall at the time, everyone and I have so much respect for central water, Sarah Sanders, anybody said, guys, that’s unacceptable. The core Facebook are the set stop this. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, I love Elizabeth Warren’s creativity. They actually ran a false ad.
Brad Taylor 41:12
I believe it was against Mark Zuckerberg
Dilawar Syed 41:15
against mark, and that just took off. Look, you’ve gone you can’t shirk responsibility. You are the public square to say, Hey, you know what, I don’t editorialize. That’s, that’s nonsense. Human responsibility. I can give you right now, many examples, just in my feed on lies that are being perpetuated about communities, about Muslims, about Jews, about people in the campaign about the reporting structures. And these are systemic camp, systemic campaigns, that I do hold Facebook responsible for, that go from Facebook to WhatsApp, brilliantly, by their own by the same company. Yeah, and Instagram, these will suppress words. And all you need to do is suppress 1000 words in a precinct. All you need to do is suppress 500 words in Broward County in Florida, which is by which Bush won a game score. That’s all you need to do. I’m not saying Facebook is responsible for handing Trump a victory he doesn’t deserve. What I am saying is Facebook is responsible for making sure they’re not playing in the hands and not actually enabling rigging. That’s what’s going on. And so yeah, I feel more people should know that, as consumers, by the way I’m not a believer of canceled culture of, I’m going to delete Facebook app, no, I’m not going to do that. I’ll give you my data, you monetize that, I’m going to use the service. And I love the product. As an entrepreneur, I admire what they have done. And we absolutely should not believe in this narrative that somehow, you know, you should not you should not grow and you should not create economic value, and should not create global products. That’s our core as Americans, I’m proud we are proud of of your belt also have to be responsible. So we caught it very early. And I appreciate the people who supported this. And I think we’re gonna have to be very vigilant on this. I’m just worried that Brad, we have one month to go roughly. And some of this is out of the bag. And I don’t know how many people can really fact check. Right, the responsibility to know what they’re reading is not true. Remember, pizza gate, help Hillary Clinton, you know, lose this election,
Brad Taylor 43:46
and almost kill innocent people killed because someone actually drove down there with a gun and fired rounds at a family restaurant. And now we have the President of the United States actively saying that the election is going to be rigged because of mail-in voting, and that it should be called that night when we know it’s going to take days to find out the results. What should Facebook and other companies do to prevent our own president from using their tools to spread propaganda that either he won or that it was rigged if he loses?
Dilawar Syed 44:21
What I think the two things here I frankly don’t even hold Facebook responsible for how Donald Trump handles a defeat. The challenge is, as you said, pointed out, there’s a significant number of million ballots and we may not be able to call a race that night. It’s very possible that he might be leading in a few states. And the morning when he gets up. More million ballots are counted. Many of them might be Democratic voters, you the things will change and that happens in all elections. What you’re pointing out is that the broader issue here is that we are finding for the first time in our history. a situation where they’d come back to saying they’re not gonna accept the result. And that delegitimize the election, even as the votes have been cast, that is very, very dangerous. I think even as a focus is on get out the word and make sure we win, we should brace ourselves as a country to make sure that we don’t allow democracy being derailed in this country. The fact that there is a public strategy by the republican party and by Donald Trump’s campaign, that they would go to states and ask for electors to be appointed. This should be even more outrage, more outrage. That is absolutely unacceptable. And but also, it should be a reminder to all of us, that we have to do everything in our power to make sure that we have a decisive win, that there is a landslide so that there is very little room for doubt, or things big being contested. But let’s brace ourselves, you know, for any recount that’s happening, any contest in any state, this president will exploit it. And he will try to protract this, and we have to have a plan, you know, as people as to what role do we play? Look, I’m a big believer at the end, that you can’t suppress people and people said to them, even Donald Trump cannot. Let me tell you, I don’t know if you saw the visuals of the president standing on the steps of the Supreme Court, paying respect to our justice, who passed away, and people chanting. Those were those were the voices of democracy. There is more voices all over this country, if he tries to steal this election, the results of this election, let me tell you, we saw what we did in tax in Part B, your leadership, on the Pi Day and beyond. People will be out peacefully, there’ll be out whether we are entrepreneurs, we are executives, we are mom and mom and dad, we are small business owners, we are students, we are all citizens. First, we’ll all be out there, we’ll make sure that doesn’t happen there is I’m a big believer that I’m an optimist, in part because I’m an I’m an entrepreneur that we’ll pull through. But we have to recognize this moment, that one first step, we want to make sure we get out we organize, we get the word out the decisive way, decisively. Secondly, we stay vigilant. And we protect our rights and our democracy. And it means that we get out, make our voices known. Nobody can put us down.
Brad Taylor 48:02
I think what worries me the most is the gunman like pizza gate that has embraced themselves and 50, anti Hillary anti Biden Facebook groups, that is, you know, a constant, you know, that is their only form of information that are going to believe whatever is kind of put forth to them in those groups. How many more gunmens like a pizza gate, will that motivate and on these platforms?
Dilawar Syed 48:32
Well, there are fringe elements, right, they will always be there. Remember, we lost so many people a couple of decades ago, almost a decade ago in Oklahoma City. So I don’t know if you can necessarily always take out the conspiracy theorist minded element in our society, that that is there. Obviously the platform can make things worse. And and there needs to be more vigilance on our part and and I generally by the way, on this point, hope that for their own business and their own communities. And I still believe that many of these leaders in for these platforms are they started out to do the right thing and create good products. I worked at Yahoo myself, many of my colleagues went on to work at these big companies that are now doing very well. I know the meanwhile, I know, I know, they’re optimizing for user experience every single day. But they have to understand that they have a broader responsibility. They have a lot of power and but that that algorithm that you’re optimizing has a lot of power, a lot of power and you have more responsibility. It’s no longer about tech alone.
Brad Taylor 49:47
That’s my background is an experimentation and a B testing. And it’s one thing when you’re slightly moving the bar to get them engaged to you know, add something to their cart or convert on a lead, but when the Engagement is anger, civil unrest. That’s, that’s a very powerful tool and a scary tool.
Dilawar Syed 50:07
Yeah, by the way, I ran a social network for five years in emerging markets. And this is when the protest movement against President Erdogan started in Turkey. And we had some we had to make some serious decisions about what was being put out on our live feed. So my decisions of product and user experience were literally have direct ramifications of people living or die. And for me to say, as a CEO physician network, that’s not my responsibility. That’s nonsense. No, it is my responsibility. I am, I am my decisions on, on how to monetize that traffic, how to optimize the user experience, how to make the part more sticky, has direct impact on people’s livelihoods and people’s lives. So you can’t you can’t separate that. So but again, I hope that the industry gets better at creating an environment where these are more force for good. And they can be and they have been, you know, there’s no doubt about that. But also, maybe there’s an opportunity. And I know when Mark has said that, the government needs to step in and help regulate things, since this is serving a public utility function now.
Brad Taylor 51:24
So we have 39 days till the election, it’s obviously one of the most important elections in our history. If any of our listeners want to get involved with the campaign help, how would they go about doing that?
Dilawar Syed 51:40
Number one, visit Joebiden.com. and sign up to be a volunteer to make calls, you can make calls from your home, from your phone, you can send text without leaving your home. Let each one of us make 50 calls every week, for the next four weeks, five weeks, that’s 200 calls per person. And by the way, calls should be made first I would prioritize key states, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Arizona, not gonna matter. I would say let’s flip Texas blue, then I will travel call the election pretty early. We can do it, we can do it. So you’d be prioritized as one make the calls. That’s an ESU. Right? We can knock doors, but we’re going to be more productive. We can save all that travel time to Nevada, and flying time to Ohio and make those calls. That’s number one. And number two, contribute, you know, you know who’d be forced by to? Well, you know, we it isn’t our money is fine. Let’s look in order to win this election. In a decisive manner. That means more states have to be in play. That means more ad buys, that means more get out of the board operations. This is a publicly financed campaign. In this country in our country, we don’t have money from the United States government. We finance it $5 $10 $15. Many of people, our listeners can’t afford a lot more than that. Give Look, it’s an investment in your children and their children’s future. It’s invested in our democracy, this is not about getting Joe Biden money. It’s about saving this country, it will make an impact. It helps. And third, know what persuade your friends and families and your neighbors, especially those who may not necessarily agree with us on everything. It’s okay. We could disagree with many things you could disagree with economic policy we could disagree on on Medicare for all versus a more evolution of Obamacare. Those are perfectly fine policy disagreements as informed well meaning citizens, we must disagree or learn to disagree and have the debate or what should not be in debate for us whether we should remain democratic. That we should treat each other with respect. Regardless of its, you know, faith or your or the, the color of his skin. There are fundamental values that are not for debate. And this election is about that. And that’s why if you look at it every day, Republicans, former military officials, generals are signing on to saying we’re gonna go to vote for Joe Biden. They’re not becoming Democrats. They’re just making sure they’re doing their duty as Americans.
Brad Taylor 54:37
Hopefully, everyone who’s listening turns off your Facebook turns off the newsfeed gets active we know that the we know the stakes of this election, you know, need to be constantly told every day through your feeds. I think another thing I would add to that is reach out to the and reach out to those conservative friends of yours. I actually have a weekly call with my brother who was a Trump supporter, and we have legitimate conversations about, you know, his conservative views and my more liberal views, but it’s done in a very constructive way and not, we don’t see each other as a caricature. He doesn’t see me as like a left wing, anti fun. I don’t see him as a magga hat wearing. You know, the Trump supporters. So having those conversations is super, super important at this time,
Dilawar Syed 55:33
so Brad can I put in hot seat. Are you there with him?
Brad Taylor 55:37
That is, we’re still we’re still having those conversations. And I think, now that I’ve actually helped him get out of his own bubble, and he’s, and Trump has been doing it to himself as well, he’s starting to see.
Dilawar Syed 55:53
And that’s, by the way, a great story to say, we still have a lot of work to do.
Brad Taylor 56:00
Yes,
Dilawar Syed 56:01
Look, these good people is your brother, you’re a great guy.
Brad Taylor 56:05
I love him to death. I love all my conservative friends, we need to have these conversations. Absolutely. So I’ll ended on this. We’ve talked about how important this is, and what this election means. what actually makes you hopeful.
Dilawar Syed 56:22
You know, the essential goodness of our people makes me hopeful. And I’ll tell you why I know this. I know this because I did not grow up in this country. I came here as a 17 year old kid. I went to a beautiful liberal arts school in the middle of Ohio, Wooster, Ohio. I had a host family. My host dad was a local sheriff. And I saw what a wonderful welcoming. Incredibly, I would say loving those people are, and that those families all over this country, we got to get close to each other. So what makes me hopeful is that, at the, at the core of it all, people are good. People have same aspirations whether you’re in Fresno, or you’re in Charlotte, we just need to make sure we listen to each other, we understand that. We also remind people of the responsibility. I think people respond. I genuinely think the reason people are not lining up in droves in the middle of a pandemic to cast their award in person. Because they want to make sure their voices heard in case Trump suppresses it is because they’re good. That makes me hopeful. So as dark is much seen what happens on November 3, in the event, we’re across election, I think those good people all over this country will do the right thing. And move us forward as a country. And Nobody. Nobody can suppress that.That’s what makes me hopeful.
Brad Taylor 58:13
Well, thank you so much for joining the podcast today Dilawar I really appreciate all the work you’re doing and keep up the good work. Good luck in November.
Dilawar Syed 58:22
Thank you, Brad.
If you’re a current or past employee of a tech company and want to tell your story about how tech needs to stand up. Please email me at Brad@techstandsup.org, because remember the warning of the Lorax “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot. Nothing’s gonna get better. It’s not”
