Traffic sucks. Luckily, smart people are looking into making cities smarter and reducing congestion.
Rapid Flow Technologies was spun out of Carnegie Mellon University with the goal of introducing new Intelligent Transportation Systems technologies into the marketplace. Rapid Flow was created to commercialize the Surtrac adaptive traffic signal control technology developed in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon. I spoke with CEO Griffin Schultz, who was brought in to lead business development efforts for the young startup. Griffin has an MBA from The Wharton School at UPenn and has previously worked with successful tech startups, as the Assistant Deputy Mayor for the City of Philadelphia, and other offices in state and federal government. Never miss one of our best episodes by subscribing to the Newsletter. If you liked this interview, check out our episode Kevin Miller where we discuss artificial intelligence disrupting the world of contracts or our episode with Mark DeSantis where we discuss maintaining road infrastructure with cheap sensors and AI. 
Griffin’s Challenge; Read about artificial intelligence.
Books Mentioned Origin by Dan Brown Life 3.0 Being Human in the Age of AI by Max Tegmark The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro Connect with Griffin Website info@rapidflowtech.com 
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Piper Creative creates podcasts, vlogs, and videos for companies. Our clients become better storytellers. How? Click here and Learn more. We work with Fortune 500s, medium-sized companies, and entrepreneurs. Sign up for one of Piper’s weekly newsletters. We curate links to Expand your Mind, Fill your Heart, and Grow your Tribe. Follow Piper as we grow YouTube Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay
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Idea Foundry has invested in over 200 companies and generated $1B in direct economic impact for the region. The Pittsburgh-based, non-profit economic development organization focsues on creating living-wage, high-opportunity jobs by investing in and working alongside entrepreneurs to grow.
Previously, Mr. Matesic was Chief Executive Officer for two start-up companies and Chief Financial Officer for MetalSite, Inc., participating in the rapid growth of the company and public registration process. We discuss investing in businesses, where Idea Foundry gets its funding, and how Mike & his team help companies grow. Never miss one of our best episodes by subscribing to the newsletter. Mike’s Challenge; Ask yourself “What is it enough?” If you don’t know, you’ll never stop or change. Connect with Mike Website If you liked this interview, check out previous episodes with Idea Foundry portfolio companies like Ian Rosenberger, Anthony Vennare, Ryan Gayman, Josie Cellone, and John Thornton.
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Piper Creative creates podcasts, vlogs, and videos for companies. Our clients become better storytellers. How? Click here and Learn more. We work with Fortune 500s, medium-sized companies, and entrepreneurs. Sign up for one of Piper’s weekly newsletters. We curate links to Expand your Mind, Fill your Heart, and Grow your Tribe. Follow Piper as we grow YouTube Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay 
Craig Markovitz co-founded Blue Belt Technologies, a spinoff from the Robotics Institute at CMU, in 2003 and thirteen years later was a key member of the deal team that led to a $275,000,000 acquisition. During his years in business, Craig has launched companies, raised capital, and managed operations in businesses spanning from pre revenue and 18 employees to multi-million in revenue and 150 employees.
Today, he is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence in the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship and an Assistant Teaching Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. We discuss his experience building a team, his thoughts on fundraising, and touch on the peculiar position of deciding what to do after your company is acquired. If you liked this interview, check out episode 303 with Luke Skurman where we discuss building a tech company in Pittsburgh, raising a Series A, and the challenges of building a team. Never miss one of our best episodes by subscribing to the newsletter. 
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Piper Creative creates podcasts, vlogs, and videos for companies. Our clients become better storytellers. How? Click here and Learn more. We work with Fortune 500s, medium-sized companies, and entrepreneurs. Sign up for one of Piper’s weekly newsletters. We curate links to Expand your Mind, Fill your Heart, and Grow your Tribe. Follow Piper as we grow YouTube Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay 
Courtney Williamson spent years caring for her mother, who had Parkinson's disease for 25 years.
Her company, Abililife, developed their Calibrace+ back support brace with real experience dealing with the problem. She has also used her background in organizational behavior and theory to build a company that is lean and nimble. Despite the Calibrace+ being FDA-registered, covered by Medicare, and available in 35 states, her core team is in the single digits. Regardless of your industry, there is a lot for you to learn from this inventive, thoughtful founder. Never miss one of our best episodes by subscribing to the newsletter. Courtney’s Challenge; Find something inconveniencing you. Find a solution. See where that leads you. Connect with Courtney Website If you liked this interview, check out episode 50 with Ilana Diamond where we discuss running AlphaLab Gear, manufacturing in the US, and the Pittsburgh startup scene. Resources Google Scholar Bloomberg Business 
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A digital agency that provides strategy, delivery, and analysis specializing in a few key service offerings. Documentary-as-a-Service (Vlogging 2.0) Instagram Content Production & Account Building Podcast Production, Strategy Consulting, and Guest Acquisition If you aren’t creating or curating content regularly, your clients and customers might forget you’re open for business. YouTube Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay 
Eight years ago, 100,000s of people died in the Haitian earthquake. Many people donated money, but Ian Rosenberger was compelled to do more.
Ian co-founded Thread International, which has shipped nearly 200,000 lbs of recycled plastic out of Haiti to be processed into fabric. This has also created jobs for Haitian families and represents a forward thinking solution to issues of poverty.. Currently, the Thread Team is busy running a kickstarter campaign for a line of backpacks and other workweek essentials made with this important social mission. We discuss traveling to Haiti, the doubts and stress that comes along with running a company, and the value of professional persistence. Never miss one of our best episodes by subscribing to the newsletter. 
Ian’s Challenge; Say Yes.
Connect with Ian Website If you liked this interview, check out previous interviews with Thread investor Zach Malone, fellow sustainable fashion entrepreneur Nisha Blackwell, and handbag entrepreneur Wendy Downs. Mentioned God Grew Tired of Us
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Piper Creative creates podcasts, vlogs, and videos for companies. Our clients become better storytellers. How? Click here and Learn more. We work with Fortune 500s, medium-sized companies, and entrepreneurs. Sign up for one of Piper’s weekly newsletters. We curate links to Expand your Mind, Fill your Heart, and Grow your Tribe. Follow Piper as we grow YouTube Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay 
If you identify as a creative, this conversation will resonate with you.
I went to the offices of Deeplocal, an innovation studio that boasts clients like Nike, Netflix, Spotify, Lyft, and Google, to interview Director of Business Development Josh Corcoran. Josh Corcoran is the creator of Spare Change, a video series that connects communities and causes with music by inviting bands to busk for their favorite charities. The project began in February of 2017 when Josh & a friend were performing their music on the streets. They soon found themselves with a guitar case full of with money, and a gentleman approached them asking for spare change. They proceeded to give him everything they had earned that night. Since that day, Josh, along with Taylor Mantick, Jared Stillman, and Allan Durand, have been documenting the journey of performing music to help those in need. Last year, Spare Change received nearly 400,000 views and raised thousands of dollars for causes like JDRF, Acres Project, and Best of the Batch Foundation. Today, they drop their newest episode. 
Never miss one of our best episodes by subscribing to the newsletter.
Josh’s Challenge; Recognize the power you have to make a small change for a cause that’s important to you. Connect with Josh YouTube Website 
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A digital agency that provides strategy, delivery, and analysis specializing in a few key service offerings. Documentary-as-a-Service (Vlogging 2.0) Instagram Content Production & Account Building Podcast Production, Strategy Consulting, and Guest Acquisition If you aren’t creating or curating content regularly, your clients and customers might forget you’re open for business. YouTube If you liked this interview, check out previous episodes like 96 with Jake Voelker, a military veteran who now runs a craft brewery, and 97 with Adam Haritan where we discuss mother nature, nutrition, and the power of digital media. Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay 
Can you imagine running a chocolate factory?
Chris Edwards and his siblings grew up in a chocolate factory and he is the CEO for Edward Marc Brands, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Upon taking the reins, Chris and his siblings transformed the 104-year-old company from regional prominence into a respected national corporation. Edward Marc Brands consists of Edward Marc Chocolatier, The Milk Shake Factory, and Snappers Crafted Snacks. Prior to working at Edward Marc Brands, Chris worked for the United States government in the Office of the Chief of Protocol at the U.S. Department of State and at the White House in the Executive Office of the President. He served as Special Assistant to the President and Director of Press Advance. In this role, he managed public events for the President both domestically and internationally. Don’t miss this conversation about leadership, developing new chocolate products, and the company’s transformational meeting with Costco.
Never miss one of our best episodes by subscribing to the newsletter.
Chris’s Challenge; Surround yourself with people who won’t say “No.” Connect with Chris Milkshake Factory Edward Marc 
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Piper Creative creates podcasts, vlogs, and videos for companies. Our clients become better storytellers. How? Click here and Learn more. We work with Fortune 500s, medium-sized companies, and entrepreneurs. Sign up for one of Piper’s weekly newsletters. We curate links to Expand your Mind, Fill your Heart, and Grow your Tribe. Follow Piper as we grow YouTube Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay 
Halima Tammy Thompson's moved to Pittsburgh as a child and was faced with homelessness, loss and countless obstacles. Years later, she has fused 20+ years of experience in the Real Estate Industry and 8 years of working in the nonprofit sector as a Credit Counselor.
Tammy is a Poverty Expert, Nationally Sought After Speaker, Executive Producer of We Wear The Mask, a documentary released in 2017 highlighting the stigma associated with women in poverty. She provides counseling services with integrity, inspiration, compassion and confidentiality. In the episode, we discuss cycles of poverty, the impact of trauma over a lifetime, and the victims of the 2008 Financial Recession. Never miss one of our best episodes by subscribing to the newsletter. Tammy’s Challenge; Step outside your comfort zone. 
Connect with Tammy
Website Circlespgh.org Underwritten by Piper Creative A digital agency that provides strategy, delivery, and analysis specializing in a few key service offerings. Documentary-as-a-Service (Vlogging 2.0) Instagram Content Production & Account Building Podcast Production, Strategy Consulting, and Guest Acquisition If you aren’t creating or curating content regularly, your clients and customers might forget you’re open for business. YouTube If you liked this interview, check out episode 187 with Grant Oliphant where we discuss the Heinz Endowment, how to strengthen communities, and Grant’s personal career path. Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay 
Watson: Thank you so much for doing this. I am. I'm really excited and we have a mutual friend, Michael Van Ness, who was one of the very first guests on the show, but he was just thrilled when he heard that we were doing this. So we have at least an audience of one. I have my listener.
So, I think that the best place for us to start for folks is to explain, we're in your office here, but just how do you package your work and what you do for people who might be unfamiliar or not know you personally? Tammy Thompson: So the packaging, that's an interesting question. Nobody's ever asked me that before. Everything that I do, which is primarily focused around anti-poverty initiatives, anything associated with removing barriers and stigma related to poverty. So, all of it comes from my own personal experience. Been born into generational poverty and the trauma associated with that becoming an adult who brought that trauma into adulthood and had five children. By the time I was 22 years old, raised every single one of them in poverty and so now in this work. I like to develop programming that I knew that I needed in my darkest time. So everything that I needed and didn't have is sort of the core of everything that I do now. Watson: And that takes the form of workshops, of counseling, what other, maybe activities are you taking? Tammy Thompson: Yeah, so it sort of started, I stumbled into the nonprofit world because, uh, when I really started focusing on building a career. And a nonprofit was nowhere in that plane. I didn't even think about it, didn't even know, had never heard of nonprofit. The two didn't go together. It was sort of like an oxymoron. Everything that I wanted to do focused on how much money can I make, how much money can I make? I was very unhappy. I was making more money than I had ever seen, but it wasn't doing anything to help me heal from my experiences in poverty. I was sort of an empty shell and I sort of got brought into the nonprofit world in 2008, 2009, right at the height of the foreclosure crisis. That was coming from a real estate background and had spent a great deal of time working as a closing agent for a major settlement company, so I had gotten a lot of people into some pretty bad mortgages, I found out later. It was the perfect storm for me. It was going from getting people in bad situations to helping people get out of bad situations through foreclosure mitigation counseling at a large nonprofit here in the city. Although I knew I was doing good work, helping people save their homes, what I kept focusing on is how did they get any situations in the first place? How did people get into homeownership and have absolutely no idea about the transaction or what makes a good mortgage and what makes a bad mortgage? I realized that I wanted to really focus on the education part of homeownership. How do we make people savvy consumers? How do we educate people about what ownership really means, and so that was my focus for a couple of years. Then I realized it was deeper than that. It was a lot of people who looked at homeownership and a lot of people still do look at homeownership as a way of escaping poverty. It can actually put people in an even worse situation if they don't know what they're doing. I realized that there was a lot of programming and even government programming that was pushing homeownership on people and sort of hanging homeownership out as the carrot to escape poverty. I decided that education was not the most important piece, homeownership was not the most important piece, but helping people deal with their trauma associated with their experiences in poverty needed to be primary. That needed to be where the focus started. I found out that a lot of people were seeking homeownership who weren't ready because they saw homeownership as a way to stabilize their housing situation. It was very interesting for me that a lot of people who were coming to me and seeking help and becoming first-time homeowners weren't really ready to be homeowners, but they just saw that as this is the only way I'm going to stabilize my housing situation. This is the only way I'm going to escape a horrible landlord or an absentee landlord, or being forced to move because I can no longer afford my rent. So then we started talking about, uh, what does that education need to look like? I actually had to leave the nonprofit that I was at. I was actually fired from the nonprofit that I was at, mainly because I saw things differently. I saw that it was important to work with people in poverty in a different way, and primarily African Americans living in poverty. There are things that I found out about poverty, not from my own experience, but from watching how people make decisions about how we work with people in poverty. I realized that they have no idea what poverty really is and how it's impacting people. So, we have a lot of programming that, I think, probably very well-intentioned people, who are creating programming around poverty, they have no idea what poverty really is. I stumbled across this program called Circles. If you're not familiar with Circles or the concept of it, it's a national anti-poverty program that really strongly focuses on the building of social capital and giving people a holistic opportunity to address poverty. So in the past, when I've worked with other initiatives around poverty, it is almost 100% focused on financial education. You know, this idea that if people just learn how to budget and save and fix their credit and become homeowners, they won't be in poverty anymore. That's just not true. The financial aspect of poverty is really a symptom of other things. It's a symptom. So yes, it's important that we're discussing finances and it's important that we're teaching people financial education, but what's most important is helping people address the trauma that happens when you're exposed to long term poverty. It affects every decision that you make, and it just so happens that your financial decisions are impacted, but there's so many other aspects of it that haven't been addressed and don't get addressed in our programming. It's one of the reasons why people stay in poverty as long as they do. It's one of the reasons why we've been fighting this so-called War on Poverty for decades, and we still have these tremendous statistics of people in poverty. From my perspective, everything that we do needs to start with, ‘let's stop doing everything that we have been doing. Let's reassess what we've been doing and start stepping outside the box and addressing poverty from an emotional standpoint, from a traumatic standpoint. Let's find out why people are staying in poverty, how people are getting in poverty, and what they need in order to get out.’ That usually starts with asking them. That's the last thing that people think, but how about we ask the people that we're actually helping? Why don't we include them in the decision making around the programming that's supposed to be for them? Watson: Yeah. One of the reasons I was so excited about this conversation was that the work that you're doing is so important, but you have through your own experience, the access to these stories that other people aren't necessarily privy to. We got coffee before this conversation and one of the things I was thinking about in between that conversation and this was how Pittsburgh kind of gets this media portrayal of ‘oh, it's a very stable real estate market. You know, the real crash happened in New York and LA and some of these other metropolises.’ You were here in Pittsburgh experiencing people who really did suffer the consequences of that 2008 recession. Another part of your transition into what you're doing now was how hard that process was of helping these people during one of the worst periods of their lives. So can you talk a little bit more of one level of getting evicted or some of these experiences that quite frankly, we're talking to podcast listeners here, a lot of people have not necessarily had exposure to what that looks like, and how you were playing a part in that? Tammy Thompson: Yeah. Now that I think back on it in retrospect, I believe that I was really drawn to the work of helping families avoid foreclosure. I was pretty, I don't even want to say passionate, it was a little over passionate. I was almost obsessed with this work and to the point where I burned myself out, I was every day, all day. I mean, this is at the height, hundreds of thousands of people in Allegheny County were in foreclosure. I realized afterwards, after I moved on from that work, that one of the reasons why I was so attached to it and passionate about it is because of the number of times I've been homeless. Our first experience in Pittsburgh, we moved here in the late seventies, the first day we were here, we became homeless. We lived in our car for almost a month. Watson: How old were you? Tammy Thompson: I was about nine. I lived in a car for almost a month in downtown Pittsburgh before my brother and I were taken from our parents and put into a group home because we were living on the streets, and that never left me. That memory of what it's like to not have anywhere to go stuck with me. And so that work and helping families, try to avoid that. People coming into my office literally in tears and making themselves physically ill because they didn't know if they were going to be able to keep their homes. That impacted me severely. That really catapulted. Me into wanting to do the work of education around homeownership because the majority of them, people, you know, what's really surprising is the majority of people that were coming to us for assistance, they weren't people living at poverty guidelines, they were middle and upper-class families who were suffering. Those were probably 65% of the people that I saw, they were not people living in poverty. They just happen to be people who didn't understand their market or people who lost their jobs. At the height of that foreclosure crisis, the causes of it were usually companies closing down. People were losing their jobs. People got ill, a spouse died, a thousand reasons why people were losing their homes, but I really paid attention to those statistics back then, because I think most people's assumption was that it was people in poverty who were losing their homes the most. It wasn't, it was the exact opposite. I did a little research on that and was trying to figure out, well, why is this? Because I think we all assumed that it would be people of lesser means, but it wasn't. When you think about the average person living in poverty and the amount of mortgage that they qualify for, it's a relatively low number. Back then housing prices were a lot lower than they are now. 10 years later, the market has a hundred percent come back. Plus some. Back then you could buy a home in East Liberty, you could buy a home for $70-75,000. So, it wasn't necessarily people in lower incomes that were facing foreclosure as much as. People who were able to qualify for $200,000-300,000 homes and had $1500-2,000 mortgages, and then they lost their jobs, and they couldn't make the payments. That was a very interesting revelation to see that the foreclosure crisis really had no standards about who they were going after. You couldn't make your mortgage payment regardless of who you were. Your class system, your race, or economics. It didn't matter. People were losing their homes, but that definitely led me into wanting to, to address the lack of savvy that most mortgage consumers had. We had people who didn't realize that they were in an adjustable-rate mortgage, um, and you know, it just so happened that their rate adjusted at the worst possible time when they were losing their jobs. People were going from having a $600 mortgage to a $1,200 mortgage and they just couldn't afford it. They didn't know. Watson: Was that one of the primary pieces of information that they either didn't get or didn't understand or are there other areas that you saw as being an addressable need? Tammy Thompson: Yeah, I think it was a lot of things. I think it was definitely people who were signing documents that they didn't understand. I think it was also that people had gotten so used to pulling the equity out of their homes. People were refinancing their money or just for everything from weddings to vacations to, I want a new car, to just, I want to pay off my credit card debt, just using their equity in their homes as sort of a revolving line of credit, which is a horrible idea. It definitely was ‘I didn’t know, I just signed this’ and there were wives who would come in and they didn't know that they even had a mortgage. It was a thousand things that were happening, but it all boiled down to a lack of understanding of how the mortgage industry worked. I think that the government has done a good job, they could do better, but I think they've done a good job of trying to come up with programming and ways to protect consumers around that in this industry. Watson: So you've also spoken in this conversation about how your maybe strategy, once again, a divide of people who probably not only have it, but take it for granted versus those who either know that it's necessary and don't know how to access it, or don't necessarily even know that it exists. Can you talk a little bit more about how Circles creates opportunity and is a beneficial experience for everyone involved, not just one party? Tammy Thompson: Yes. I love that question. What I really love about Circles and have grown to understand its power, is the ability to draw an entire community into a central space and educate them about number one, how people become impoverished. Number two, what that exposure to poverty does to people, and communities and how important it is for everyone in the community to see their responsibility to fixing it. I love that we have folks who are middle- upper income, highly educated, tons of their own networks and resources who are coming to us and saying, what can we do? What can we do? And the first thing we're telling them is that, first you have to educate yourself about what poverty really is. There's such a stigma associated with poverty that people would rather suffer in silence than be subjected to the judgment and stigma that comes with acknowledging that you're in poverty. I think as full of community resources we are, you can ask any service provider or practitioner in this field, they will tell you that their services are not utilized as much as they think they should be. That's probably merely because people have been taught that it's better to just try to figure it out on your own than to go and ask for help and be judged and stigmatized for it. That's unfortunate. So, part of what we're doing in Circles is that there's this thought that people in poverty, the ones who need the programming the most, while they're the ones with the least, and they're the ones lacking the resources. So they need this more than anybody. But what we found is that. Our allies, we call them allies, they're actually the volunteers who come in and donate their time and resources. They need it more than any of us do because there's been such misinformation that's been generated in our society by the media. By just, you know, people's ignorance. People lack knowledge at this thought that people in poverty are lazy or they're not working hard enough. They're not educating themselves or not taking care of their children. They need to just pull themselves up by their bootstraps. That's what I did, and that's what they should do, and if you really think that, it's just not true. The families that we're working with work harder than anybody that I've ever known. People that are working two, three jobs and trying to maintain a household, trying to maintain their children and make sure their children are doing well. They're still trying to, in some cases, volunteer and do things in their own communities and just not having enough because they happen to live in communities. They don't have enough. They happen to work in jobs where they're not being paid, where they should be paid. There's a whole bunch of reasons why people stay in poverty, starting with, you know, let's talk about history. Let's talk about the policies and systems that were intentionally created to keep people in a certain class system. Those policies and systems didn't just go away. They were renamed, or they were disguised in certain ways and our education system and our housing system, absolutely. There is a red lining that happened that has created people from building generational wealth. All of these things contribute to why people stay in poverty longer than others. We spent a great deal of time at Circles educating the entire group about these things and how it's impacted people, and what we need to do to be able to navigate those barriers, and how people who do have access to those resources and those social networks can bring them to our families and assist in bringing them along. It's been astounding to see how it's a mutual benefit to have people of mixed-income and mixed race and mixed gender and mixed age and generation just come together and tackle these issues as a community. Watson: One of the very few skills that I have and is only honed from doing more than 300 interviews, is a sense for people who are energized and aligned in the work that they're doing. One thing that is really apparent to me, when I hear you talk about the impact that Circles is having, and just what you're doing now, it's very clear that you have not only experienced the opposite of something that was draining and something that was misaligned for you, but you seem to be in a position now or in a role doing work now that feels very aligned for you. Is that an accurate assessment? Tammy Thompson: Oh, a hundred percent. When I first heard about Circles, I happened to be, in a community meeting representing another organization, and I was going through the food line and there was a gentleman in line behind me named Ted Melnick. Ted Melnick is the Social Equity Director of East Liberty Development, who had the foresight to bring Circles Greater Pittsburgh here. Circles is the first urban chapter of this national program. They decided to bring it here in pilot to try to figure out how to help. People gain access to opportunity. What do we need to do? How do we bring people along so that they aren't being left behind and in communities that are increasing and opportunity? I met Ted, and he was telling me about this program, and everything stopped for me. It was this experience where I just felt like immediately, this is exactly what I needed in my darkest time. This is exactly what I didn't have. I didn't have access. First of all, I didn't have any support system, which is number one in getting out of poverty. You have to have help. You can't do it by yourself. I didn't have access to social capital. I didn't have access to people's resources. I knew that I was not supposed to be in poverty. I knew it, but I had no idea what the first step needed to be to get there on the journey to self-sufficiency. I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing because I felt so trapped and hopeless and, uh, had started giving hang up. Right. I had made decisions of only where you can describe some of the decisions that I made, were that they were decisions of someone who had given up hope. We have communities of people who are so talented and intelligent and passionate about them, you know, their families and their communities, and want more, but they don't know the first step. They don't know what to do first. The really amazing thing that strikes me about poverty is, I strongly believe that people stay in it as long as they do, because you think about what poverty is. It creates this atmosphere and it's an environment that no matter where you turn, the people that you are turning to are in the exact same situation at your end. So, no matter where you look, there's poverty, you look out your door, there's poverty, you turn to your neighbors, there's poverty. In most cases, when you look at your family, there's poverty. There's nowhere you can turn. Where you're not enveloped with poverty. Right? If you have an idea and you say, I want to be a homeowner, or I want to start my own business, or I want to go back to school, but I'm really not sure what I need to do. You don't have anyone in your immediate circle who you can bounce these ideas off of and get an idea for what's the first step. So, you stay stuck, and everything, all of these dreams and these ideas that you have for yourself and your family, and in this hope, it starts to dwindle. It gets dimmer and dimmer and dimmer because that light at the end of the tunnel seems so far away. Watson: Do you think hope can be snuffed out completely? Tammy Thompson: A hundred percent. Hope, it does get snuffed out. It gets snuffed out every time a person takes a step forward and gets dragged back three. Right? This happens. This is the life cycle of poverty. Right? The hope quotient in the work that we do has to be elevated. That is why I keep saying, financial education is important, but none of that is going to get into the mind of a person who's living from check to check, from crisis to crisis, because there's no hope. When you're saying, oh, you need to say, when you need to do planning and saving and budgeting, I think those are all future endeavors. If you think about it, people who are living in poverty are living in crisis mode. In crisis mode, you can't think more than one day at a time. I just have to focus on surviving today. That's how people stay stuck because one day turns into two days, two days turns into a week, then a week is a month and a year. Then the next thing you know, a decade has gone by and then whole, a whole generation of children being brought into this cycle of generational poverty. So, in order to stop that cycle, we have to intervene. Somehow you have to intervene with hope and you have to intervene with a different perspective, which means that you have to connect people who their entire circle is poverty. You have to intervene with a different perspective, and that's where bringing the allies and exposing people to thoughts and ideas and opinions and perspectives that are different than those that are attached to poverty. That's why that becomes so important. Watson: I'm going to throw an idea out at you and if it's completely wrong, just chop it to pieces. I see that the financial literacy part of this is almost being the defensive side. You're kind of putting up a protection or a shield against a mistake that could lead to the three steps back, and the hope side of it falls more on the offensive side, which is your propellant forward or towards some, the step forward or the next step in the ladder. Is that a helpful way to position those two aspects of the work that you're doing? Tammy Thompson: MLet me know if I understood your question properly, but the way I see, first of all, I have to reiterate that financial education is extremely important, right? I don't want anybody to misunderstand my point about financial education. It's extremely important. If it's, if it's presented in the wrong order, we're wasting our time. If you present financial education as a solution to poverty, to someone who's in poverty, you sit somebody down and you invite them in and you just start throwing financial basic tools at them without addressing their crises and their trauma and the stuff that's internally creating their financial decisions, you're wasting your time. You have to address the hope and the lack of hope first in order for the financial education to be received. Does that make sense? Watson: That is much better framing than what I attempted. So you've used this term trauma a couple of times, and I think that one of the last things I want to make sure that we give the opportunity to educate the audience on is how you define that, or if you can just help, we'll never get all the way to complete understanding, but if we could take one small step today, I think that would be very valuable. Tammy Thompson: I don't want to pretend that I am in tune with everybody's trauma, but I can give you a basic example. So, if your primary basic needs are not met on a daily basis, I mean, very basic- shelter, food, water, safety. If those four basic needs are not met, if there's something that you wake up to every single day, not being quite sure if those needs are going to be met, you don't know if you're going to eat, you don't know if you're going to have enough food to feed your children, you might just have enough to feed them. That means you won't eat, or you'll eat what they didn’t. You go days without eating, and you face eviction on a daily basis. You may not have faced eviction, but you've been without electricity. You've been without water. You've been without heat. You are in fear for your physical safety on a daily basis and the physical safety of your children every day inside your own home. If you live that way every single day, since you were a tiled into adulthood, I can guarantee you that there's trauma attached to that. I can also guarantee you that the way you think about money and the way you think about your future and the way you think about the future of your children is much different than someone who's had all of those basic needs always met and has never had the fear of those things. It impacts your every decision. Every single decision that you make is impacted by your experiences. A lot of folks who have been born into a middle or upper-class home who have always had all of their basic needs met, and from a very young age was taught the importance of money management and how to plan for your future, and you plan for college. You started talking about education when you were five or six years old. For those folks, it is very difficult to understand the life of someone who has not had any of those needs met and who has struggled their entire life not knowing if they were going to have just those basic things met. It does impact how you think about everything. Unfortunately, we live in a city and probably even as a society where we don't like to talk about race. Race plays a huge part in every single one of these conversations. It's important that we're addressing all aspects of poverty. We can't just touch on tiny little pieces of it, and then walk away and expect people to be healed or expected that this is a multilayered issue that is going to require a lot of understanding, a lot of creativity and a lot of community coming together and addressing it, and everybody's seeing that we're all responsible for it. We're all impacted by it, whether we want to see it or not. If you think that you're not impacted by the crime, by the lack of resources that other people are facing on a daily basis by a failing school system, by a failing political system, we're all impacted by it by different varying degrees, but we're all impacted. I just think that we get more done when we're, we're all trying to address it together, or at least having a basic understanding of each other. Watson: Absolutely. I'm hopeful that this episode was a small step towards a little bit more understanding. I would love to do this again sometime in the future. In the meantime, I want to make sure that people follow along with the work that you're doing. So, can we give them some digital coordinates where they can live with it? Tammy Thompson: Sure. So first let's start with Circles. I am the new Executive Director at Circles Greater Pittsburgh. You can go on and learn some things about Circles at www.circlespgh.org, or you can go to my way site, which is www.tammytthompson.com. Watson: Awesome. We're going to link all of that in the show notes, goingdeepwithaaron.com/podcast is the place to find it for this and every episode of the show. Tammy, before we let you go, I want to give you the mic one final time to issue a challenge to the audience. Tammy Thompson: So my challenge, first of all, is for people to step outside of their comfort zone. Step outside. Be honest with yourself. What issues do you really care about? If poverty is one of them, connecting with a Circle site is a really phenomenal way to get a true understanding of what people in poverty are experiencing, and witnessing the work that they're doing to do better and to get better. Bring yourself. But, it's not always about your resources or yourself, bring your purse, all gifts, and talents to the table. Be open to meeting and connecting and truly building an intentional relationship with people that you may not have had the opportunity to meet with before, and I promise you that you will walk away a different person. Watson: You said Circles is a national organization. So let's just hypothetically, if someone isn't near and isn't easily connectable with a Circles group and they still feel this calling cause we have listeners all over. Can you suggest another initial step of someone who's just looking to engage in that same way or not exactly the same, but have the same sense of not knowing the first thing to do? Like training wheels, what advice would you give them? Tammy Thompson: So on training wheels, I would say, still, I will go back to reaching out to someone who's different. Reach out to someone who's living a different experience than you are, and be intentional about it. Again, I'm going to challenge people to address the race issue. I think we have become this self-segregated community of people, and I don't think we do it on purpose. I think it's just human nature that we segregate ourselves. I'm going to challenge people to step outside of that comfort zone, and not just a ‘hey, how you doing,’ but to actually intentionally try to understand someone who's different, ask questions, don't be afraid of saying the wrong thing, and connect with people with a deep intention. I think that's important. I think a basic understanding of someone who's different than you are is the first step. Watson: If for some reason we failed to convince the listener that this is something that's important, another angle that I've heard about is from an author named Tyler Cohen, who teaches economics at George Mason. He wrote a book called “The Complacent Class.” You talked about self-segregation, which leads me to this point of, compared to most of American history, people change where they live the least. They spend the most time, not so much that they aren't like traveling the world, in very kind of like pocketed, enclosed groups more so than in the past. There isn't the main street where you're walking down with everyone involved. There's a real correlation between that and just general economic growth. Some people, unfortunately, can't get to that place initially of just reaching out for the benefit of others. But there is a real value for everybody when we mix together and celebrate the diversity that is this country. I hope that people take that challenge, and I hope that they will connect with you, Tammy. Thank you so much for giving us your time. Tammy Thompson: Thank you for having me. This was awesome. Watson: We just went deep with Tammy Thompson. I hope everyone out there has a fantastic day. 
When you think of a polling company, you probably think of Nielsen or Gallup. John Dick is going to change that.
As the Founder and CEO of CivicScience, John is building a modern consumer and media analytics company based in Pittsburgh. He and his team are reinventing consumer polling for a digital and mobile-first environment. We discuss how polling has gotten more difficult as media and telecommunications have become more fragmented, the challenges of hiring technical and marketing talent, and how looking at the data has made John more empathetic. Never miss one of our best episodes by subscribing to the newsletter. John’s Challenge; Get out of your tribe. Your surroundings are too curated. Connect with John Website Mentioned Episode 303 with Luke Skurman of Niche.com Episode 248 with Seth Stephens-Davidowitz 
Underwritten by Piper Creative
A digital agency that provides strategy, delivery, and analysis specializing in a few key service offerings. Documentary-as-a-Service (Vlogging 2.0) Instagram Content Production & Account Building Podcast Production, Strategy Consulting, and Guest Acquisition If you aren’t creating or curating content regularly, your clients and customers might forget you’re open for business. YouTube If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, check out interviews with Mark Leslie about building Veritas to $1 billion in value and Darrin Grove about servant leadership and reinvention. Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay 303 Generating 50,000,000 Unique Visitors & Raising a $6.6 Million Series B w/ Luke Skurman4/18/2018 
Niche.com generated 50,000,000 unique visitors last year. They announced a $6.6M Series B round of fundraising in February 2018. They’ve come a long way from their humble beginnings in 2002.
In my interview with Luke Skurman, the Founder & CEO of Niche.com, we discuss the challenges of raising venture capital as an established company, the marketing & business development talent in Pittsburgh, and importance of aiming at a big target. Luke is also a Co-Founder of Ascender, a non-profit, 501(c)(3), focusing on bolstering innovation and entrepreneurship in the Pittsburgh region. They host the annual Thrival Innovation + Music Festival every year in Pittsburgh. Never miss one of our best episodes by subscribing to the newsletter. Luke’s Challenge; The more you give, the more you get back. Have an impact in a meaningful way through service. 
Connect with Luke
Website Underwritten by Piper Creative A digital agency that provides strategy, delivery, and analysis specializing in a few key service offerings. Documentary-as-a-Service (Vlogging 2.0) Instagram Content Production & Account Building Podcast Production, Strategy Consulting, and Guest Acquisition If you aren’t creating or curating content regularly, your clients and customers might forget you’re open for business. YouTube If you liked this interview, check out a bunch of previous interviews with Pittsburgh entrepreneurs like David Cristello, Jorgen Pederson, and Darrin Grove. Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay 
Rich, President & CEO of Innovation Works, leads one of the nation’s most active early-stage investors. In this conversation, we discuss a recent report IW authored with Ernst & Young that detailed the last decade of venture investing in the region.
Some highlights of recent activity include the $225 million acquisition of security awareness trainer Wombat Security by California-based Proofpoint and the $1 billion round of funding recently raised by self-driving car intelligence provider ArgoAI from Ford. Further, Pittsburgh tech companies have attracted over $3.5 billion in funding over the past 10 years, including $2.1 billion in the past five years. What will this mean for the future of the region? Never miss one of our best episodes by subscribing to the newsletter. Rich’s Challenge; Advocate for the startup community in your region to elected officials. Connect with Rich Website Connect with Piper Creative YouTube Website If you liked this interview, check out our dozens of interviews with Pittsburgh influencers and business leaders including entrepreneurs than Innovation Works has invested Henry Thorne, Hahna Alexander, and Ryan Green. Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay 
David Cristello had no background in accounting. He’s not a coder. Yet, he is the founder of a fast-growing accounting software startup called Jetpack Workflow.
How’d that happen? David diligently interviewed business owners until he found an untapped opportunity, then struck with full force. He’s driven to solve painful problems with smart, passionate, and empathetic people and is building his company in Pittsburgh. Jetpack Workflow is used by thousands of accountants in 12+ countries to help them better manage their client work. Never miss one of our best episodes by subscribing to the newsletter. David’s Challenge; Go sell something in the next 24 hours. An old item around the house, a service you want to offer, or anything you can think of. 
Mentioned
Dan Kennedy John Carlton Gary Halpert Connect with David Website david@jetpackworkflow.com Connect with Piper Creative YouTube Website If you liked this interview, check out our interviews with other software entrepreneurs like Andy Rachleff, Dennis Mortensen, and Mark Leslie. Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay 
Beth Caldwell is an author, speaker, business success strategist and a host for Pittsburgh BizTV Shows. Since 2014, she has been a global instructor with the Steve Harvey Success Institute. She is also a columnist for the Pittsburgh Business Times newspaper and Smart Business magazine, but is best known as the founder of Pittsburgh Professional Women and Leadership Academy for Women.
Recognized by Pittsburgh Magazine as an influential and innovative leader, Beth was named a “40 Under 40″ winner the day before her 40th birthday. In October she was recognized with the Pennsylvania Woman of Courage Award. Beth teaches workshops on leadership, business, and inspiration to audiences worldwide. Attend my one-day conference January 27th in Pittsburgh. Learn more here. Beth’s Challenges; Stop trying to do everything at once and Stop making decisions based on what other people might think. Beth’s Eight Easy Ways to Enjoy an Effective 2018 Connect with Beth From Frantic to Focused: How to Shift Your Life from Out-of-Control to Streamlined and Successful Website If you liked this interview, check out these interviews with social broadcaster Sunny Lenarduzzi and Super Connector Larry Gioia. Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay 263 Audrey Russo, Lessons from Leading the Oldest & Largest Technology Trade Association on Earth11/22/2017 
Since 2007, Audrey Russo has served the technology business sector for southwestern PA as President and CEO of the Pittsburgh Technology Council, the oldest and largest technology trade association in North America.
With a background in information technology, operations and finance, Audrey facilitates interaction across all sectors of the regional economy, which she believes will only succeed and grow through technology innovation and commercialized disruptions across every platform and experience. She previously worked for large multinational Fortune 500 companies (Alcoa, Reynolds Metals), as well as at MAYA Design. Russo earned her Bachelor of Science from Ohio State University. She also has a Masters in Public Administration from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Public Affairs. Russo also co-hosts TechVibe Radio on KDKA 1020 AM Friday nights at 7 to explore technology companies and entrepreneurial issues. Attend our one-day conference in Pittsburgh. Audrey’s Challenge; Open the door for someone else to get a customer. Use your contacts, influence, and buying power to make a meaningful difference for someone’s business. Books Mentioned Nudge by Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown Ayn Rand Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne 1984 by George Orwell Remaking Post-Industrial Cities: Lessons from North America and Europe by Donald K. Carter Connect with Audrey PGH Tech Coucil Twitter Audrey's Twitter Website If you liked this interview, check out episode 187 with Grant Oliphant where we discuss reshaping the future of Pittsburgh to be more just. 
Underwritten by Piper Creative
Piper Creative creates podcasts, vlogs, and videos for companies. Our clients become better storytellers. How? Click here and Learn more. We work with Fortune 500s, medium-sized companies, and entrepreneurs. Sign up for one of Piper’s weekly newsletters. We curate links to Expand your Mind, Fill your Heart, and Grow your Tribe. Follow Piper as we grow YouTube Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay 
I love meeting people who beat the odds. Anthony Vennare was supposed to be a “dumb jock”. He wasn’t supposed to open a gym and find profitability within 2 months. He wasn’t supposed to raise millions of dollars to get more people working out. He wasn’t supposed to sign deals with massive healthcare companies and turn the world of digital content writing on its head.
Luckily, no one told him. Today, Anthony is the co-founder and CEO of Fitt – a media and technology company that connects people to local health and fitness activities. They’ve got big plans for the future and anyone in the content & branding game needs to study what they’re doing. I got him for 40 minutes over the weekend and hustled to get this episode out ASAP because it got me so fired up. Hope you enjoy it. Attend our annual event, the Going Deep Summit. Learn more here. Anthony’s Challenge; Leave behind everything in your life that is stuck in the status quo. Write down a plan and execute on one step every month in the new direction. Resources Voice Dream Connect with Anthony Vennare Website If you liked this interview, check out the rest of the movers and shakers in Pittsburgh that I’ve interviewed.
Underwritten by Piper Creative
Piper Creative creates podcasts, vlogs, and videos for companies. Our clients become better storytellers. How? Click here and Learn more. We work with Fortune 500s, medium-sized companies, and entrepreneurs. Sign up for one of Piper’s weekly newsletters. We curate links to Expand your Mind, Fill your Heart, and Grow your Tribe. Follow Piper as we grow YouTube Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay 
Joe Calloway has no time for BS real estate gurus standing in front of Ferraris.
Instead, he’d prefer to offer his perspective. He’s built a $40,000,000 real estate portfolio through hard work, persistence, and patience. Being raised by a single parent in a two bedroom, low income apartment in Mt. Oliver doesn’t usually breed success, but Joe Calloway’s story is anything but usual. Joe went from those unfortunate circumstances to being the largest single family home buyer in Pittsburgh. With little direction in life and few marketable skills, Joe enlisted in the US Navy in 1997. Using his military reenlistment bonus, Joe bought his first property in 2004. For his early projects he served as investor, contractor, designer, and property manager, giving him first-hand experience which proved to be invaluable. Joe formed RE360 in 2009 and has grown the company’s rental portfolio to 270 units with a monthly gross rental income of $229,000. 2014 alone saw the rags-to-riches Calloway invest $5 million and purchase 72 homes, making him the largest housing buyer in Pittsburgh for the second year in a row. Not bad for the poor kid from Mt. Oliver. Attend my one-day conference January 27th in Pittsburgh. Learn more here. Joe’s Challenge; Don’t rely on traditional sources if you are unhappy with your current position. If you want something great, you have to make it yourself and get creative. Connect with Joe Website If you liked this interview, check out my other interviews with people making moves in the city of Pittsburgh, like Bill Peduto and Grant Oliphant. Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay
Underwritten by Piper Creative
Piper Creative creates podcasts, vlogs, and videos for companies. Our clients become better storytellers. How? Click here and Learn more. We work with Fortune 500s, medium-sized companies, and entrepreneurs. Sign up for one of Piper’s weekly newsletters. We curate links to Expand your Mind, Fill your Heart, and Grow your Tribe. Follow Piper as we grow YouTube Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay 
Darrin Grove, Truefit’s Founder and CEO, is a native Pittsburgher with a passion for innovation, technology, and values-based leadership.
Since its bootstrap beginnings in 1997, Truefit’s experience with new, disruptive technologies has positioned the company as a leader in helping entrepreneurs and organizations bring new software products to market quickly. Using their proprietary Idea Launch™ process, Darrin and the Truefit team guide clients through a proven path to create new and next generation software products. By involving a broad cross-section of company stakeholders, end users, and subject matter experts, Truefit helps product teams reduce risk and build confidence. Their principled approach and “start-up” mentality have proven to be an invaluable asset to companies looking for an entrepreneurial approach to software product development. In addition to his work at Truefit, Darrin is dedicated to sharing his insight in innovation and entrepreneurship with the Pittsburgh community. He leads the Deal Flow Team for Software and Technology at BlueTree Allied Angels and advises start-up companies at the AlphaLab tech accelerator. He is also active on several non-profit boards to promote leadership, education, and urban renewal, and is a regular panelist and judge at events related to innovation. Darrin’s Challenge; Think small. Focus on the small executions, pivots, and iterations that will move your work forward. Never miss one of our best episodes by subscribing to the newsletter. 
Resources Mentioned
Lean Startup by Eric Reis Prospect The Sandler Way by John Rosso Good to Great by Jim Collins Agile Manifesto Connect with Darrin Website If you liked this interview, check out my other interviews with Pittsburgh entrepreneurs. 
Underwritten by Piper Creative
Piper Creative creates podcasts, vlogs, and videos for companies. Our clients become better storytellers. How? Click here and Learn more. We work with Fortune 500s, medium-sized companies, and entrepreneurs. Sign up for one of Piper’s weekly newsletters. We curate links to Expand your Mind, Fill your Heart, and Grow your Tribe. Follow Piper as we grow YouTube Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay 
Never miss one of our best episodes by subscribing to the newsletter.
William Generett has been working to connect the Pittsburgh region’s innovation economy to underserved communities as the first president and CEO of Urban Innovation21. Urban Innovation21 is a unique public-private partnership that is supporting the growth of the Pittsburgh region's innovation economy while simultaneously connecting that growth to underserved communities, the residents that live in those communities and diverse populations that have not traditionally been connected to the innovation economy. Urban Innovation21 is one of the first US based organizations to work under the "Inclusive Innovation" model. William’s Challenge; Meet 10 new people outside your existing network and visit 5 neighborhoods you don’t usually visit. http://www.goingdeepwithaaron.com/podcast Connect with William Website If you liked this interview, check out episode 125 with Dan Gilman where we discuss how to make cities more attractive to younger generations and leadership. 
Never miss one of our best episodes by subscribing to the newsletter.
Dr. Rasu Shrestha is the Chief Innovation Officer at UPMC and Executive Vice President of UPMC Enterprises. As chief innovation officer for UPMC, Dr. Shrestha plays a leading role in driving UPMC’s innovation strategy, serving as a catalyst for transforming the organization into a more patient-focused and economically sustainable system. As the leader of a team of over 200 technology professionals, Dr. Shrestha works to facilitate new health care intelligence, technology expertise and entrepreneurial drive to solve complex healthcare challenges. Through strategic partnerships, joint development agreements and investments in promising healthcare startups, Dr. Shrestha champions the development, implementation and commercialization of these innovations. Dr. Shrestha has been recognized by Becker’s Hospital Review as one of the 26 “Smartest People in Health IT,” and InformationWeek named him one of the “Top 20 Health IT Leaders Driving Change” and a “Top Healthcare Innovator.” He is a frequent speaker at national and international health care, innovation and technology conferences. Rasu’s Challenge; Practice empathy by turning off your smartphone and focus on connecting. It’s important not just to listen, but to hear. Not just to look, but to see. http://www.goingdeepwithaaron.com/podcast Connect with Rasu Website If you liked this interview, check out episode 151 with Dr. Matt Keener where we discuss mental health, telemedicine, and the future of accessible care.
Underwritten by Piper Creative
Piper Creative creates podcasts, vlogs, and videos for companies. Our clients become better storytellers. How? Click here and Learn more. We work with Fortune 500s, medium-sized companies, and entrepreneurs. Sign up for one of Piper’s weekly newsletters. We curate links to Expand your Mind, Fill your Heart, and Grow your Tribe. Follow Piper as we grow YouTube Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay 
Bill Peduto was elected to the office of Mayor of the City of Pittsburgh in November 2013. Prior, he worked for 19 years on Pittsburgh City Council. A self described “Reform Democrat”, Bill Peduto wrote the most comprehensive package of government reform legislation in Pittsburgh’s history.
During Pittsburgh’s ongoing financial crisis, Bill Peduto has been the consistent voice of fiscal discipline. Decades of financial mismanagement and antiquated policies have left Pittsburgh with the highest debt ratio and lowest pension funding in the nation. He helped to write a new budget, lobbied to get others on board and after a year of hard work he was able to lead the city into a new five year plan. He wasn’t afraid to make the tough votes to secure Pittsburgh’s future. Adding his own charity fund-raising activities, such as Executive Producer of a documentary about the Allegheny Observatory and the only politician who laces his skates as a member of Pittsburgh’s Celebrity Hockey Team and it is pretty easy to see — Bill Peduto is not your typical Mayor.
Connect with Bill
Website If you liked this interview, check out episode 83 with Kristi Woolsey where we discuss the future of work and how technology will change the workplace.
TRANSCRIPT:
Watson: Bill, thank you so much for coming on my show. I really appreciate it. Bill Peduto: It's a pleasure. Watson: I've got to admit, I’m particularly excited about this interview. I don't want that to go to your head or anything, but I want to start off by asking you about the smart city pitch that you did yesterday. I saw a little bit of the video. Bill Peduto: You got to link it to this podcast so people can see it. Watson: We'll link to it for sure. Can you just tell folks a little bit about what the smart city pitch was, and also talk a little bit about how you prepare a pitch like that, because that's a pretty big deal. We're talking about 10 for tens of millions of dollars. Bill Peduto: Well, yeah. So the department of transportation challenged midsize cities- only midsize cities. What will the future of transportation be? Don't think about it in the scope of what is available now. So in other words, don't say, ‘well, we're going to add another bus stop or we're going to add another light rail stop.’ No. What about sensor detection that is now being used in every automobile that's being produced? What about autonomous vehicles that are now being tested in cities around the world? What about electric vehicles? What about powering them without fossil fuels? What about making areas connected that were separated because in the 1950s, we built highways that ran through neighborhoods. Think about all of that, and then not just about the mobility of transportation, but social mobility, giving people opportunities to get to work, to get to the doctor, to be able to take care of the basics. Then, put it all together in a plan, and present it to us. So, 78 cities took it up and from that seven were chosen to be finalists. We're in pretty good company where it's Austin, San Francisco, Portland, Denver, Columbus, and Kansas City. Pittsburgh pitches a very unique place because we saw the devastation that happened through urban planning. We called it urban renewal. The 1950s, when we went to neighborhoods with demolition balls and tore out the heart of areas like the Hill District in East Liberty and the North Side. We saw that we built roadways around them and built tunnels and bridges, and people led flood down to the city into the suburbs. But we also saw during the past 35 years of economic collapse, the hollowing out of these neighborhoods. So our mission is, ‘if it's not for all of us, it's not for us.’ We want to be able to use technology to help restore these neighborhoods, to give people the opportunity to get to their workplace, just like the old days. We built roads and used the river and rails to get products to market. We want a new economy that gets people to work, and we want to be able to utilize new partnerships with Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, Google, and Uber in order to be able to see all this 21st century transportation be piloted here. Watson: Absolutely. That's something that I've seen. I go to some of these other conferences and other towns, some of the towns that you mentioned. I think that, quite honestly, as someone who was born and raised in Pittsburgh, you say, ‘oh, I'm from Pittsburgh.’ You know, I'm half expecting them to maybe not even know where that is or what our story is. Recently, I've come across people when they get excited, their eyes light up because they've heard, ‘oh, that's a food destination’ or ‘oh, that's one of the new up and coming places,’ but they don't necessarily know the details of what we have to offer. So that's really exciting. Hopefully we end up winning that. Bill Peduto: I gotta tell you one short thing with that. I was in Tallinn Estonia. It's an absolutely beautiful city. Just Google it sometime and look at the photos. You'll be like, ‘oh my gosh, I got to go there.’ I was checking into my hotel and there was a group behind me, three or four people from Japan. They said, ‘are you from the United States?’ I said, ‘yes.’ They said, ‘where from?’ I said, ‘Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.’ They said, ‘oh, Pittsburgh! Hospital city.’ Watson: Wow. I guess everyone has their different idea of what the city represents. The tech side of things is really kind of the emergent narrative along with some of the food stuff. We have these very big tech brands coming into town, as you mentioned, Google, Uber, Facebook, all these other big players. You also mentioned self-driving cars, which is something that I'm dreaming of. That was actually my question. How many self driving vehicles are in the streets of Pittsburgh right now? Bill Peduto: They don't like to share the numbers, but there are several that Uber is testing primarily in the Strip District and Lawrenceville, but also crossing the river, going over to the North Side and soon, a little bit more. There's also a few that Carnegie Mellon's testing in Oakland. I don't know the exact number. A few dozen cities around the world are actually at the stage that Pittsburgh's at. There's a city in Sweden, Gothenburg, that is going to have about a hundred Volvos that will be on the road probably by the end of the year, or beginning of next year. Austin, Texas and San Francisco are two of the cities that are leading this, but Pittsburgh is not far behind. If we have the opportunity to partner with these groups, with Carnegie Mellon, with Uber, we can actually leapfrog those other cities and be able to have on demand autonomous vehicles within the next few years. Watson: Absolutely. Bill Peduto: Within the next few years! Watson: I mean, you don't have to tell me that. Bill Peduto: Well, people are like, yeah, that's Jetson stuff. That's never going to happen. It's happening. It's happening so quickly that even the automobile industry has been surprised. So, every major manufacturer from Ford to Subaru to everyone else is already testing as well. Watson: Yeah. So I’m curious. I'm on the side of like I buy into, it's going to be soon. It's going to be here sooner than we realize, but one of the things that gets thrown out as a potential obstacle to that becoming a reality is the regulation of the self-driving vehicle. If there's an accident, who's at fault what safety precautions are in place? As someone who's working in the public space, I'm curious if you could elaborate on where you see that regulation burden really falling on? As Pittsburgh is one of these cities where the tests are being made, how much of a hand do you have in that, and how much are you hampered or helped by the state or federal level? Bill Peduto: Yeah, a lot of it comes out of the state. The feds opened it up to be able to pilot that. Now, the state in Pennsylvania, we have legislation that has bipartisan support to be able to move forward. I think we'll be the second state after Texas. It will require additional insurance, and that will require someone's behind the wheel, you know, in case something would go wrong. In the cases with CMU and Uber, there's two people, there's somebody behind the wheel, and there's somebody watching that person behind the wheel, but the regulations are already starting to be caught up. The industry is helping to guide them, not write them. There are so many different watchdog groups right now to make sure that safety is always first. Also, understand this: the last time you got on a plane, it was a driverless plane, other than taking off and landing, that thing goes. Most of the boats that are in the ocean are guided by a system. It's not somebody just sitting there turning a wheel. Trains, too. I mean, transportation automation is just catching up to what other automation has already had happened. If you think back 10 years ago, the iPhone didn't exist. There was no smartphone, and your smartphone didn't contain a computer. In 10 years, the whole world's in your hand. Five years ago, the sharing economy didn't exist. All of a sudden, nobody even thinks twice about ordering an Uber, looking to see what Airbnb is in another. Just imagine what 10 years is going to bring in this field. Watson: Yeah. It seems so far away until it's here, and then it's like, ‘well, why didn’t we always have this?’ Bill Peduto: That's exactly what will happen. Watson: Yeah. So, I'm going to change the pace here a little bit. A big part of my show is understanding the journey of the people that I'm interviewing and their path to where they've gotten to. There's a lot of young listeners out there who are really taking those kinds of first steps towards whatever dreams they're pursuing or career path that they're going to follow. So, I'm curious, I'm actually going to take it way far back. Did you fit a particular high school stereotype? Bill Peduto: I sort of was a friend of all tribes in high school. I was the student body president, big surprise. I played sports, but I was friends with people who were part of every activity. I didn't really isolate into any one group, but I had a very strong core group of friends who I'm still friends with to this date who were my closest friends. There was a group of about six to eight of us that pretty much stayed together for most of the time, but I was never in any one clique. My best ability, I would probably say, was not my academic ability, but my social ability. Watson: Would you say that that's something as you've gotten interested in politics, or pursued a career down this path, that you've worked to cultivate or has it basically come naturally and you've kind of focused on sharpening other skills? Bill Peduto: So, I would say my social skills when I was younger are stronger than my social skills today, which is kind of weird to say, but it's true. Then the other part of it, is in this job, is the ‘Pittsburgh famous,’ you know, because you're on TV. I've never had antisocial feelings, but when you go to the grocery store and there's like somebody talking, there's someone behind them, then somebody there, and they want to talk to you about the pothole that they called in three times about. It makes you not want to go out. So, I find myself more and more in these past two and a half years, staying at home and doing things that weren't what I would usually do in the past. That's just on the social side. I talked to other mayors about it and they talked about the same thing. It's weird because a good mayor is a good communicator, and you have that set of skills that I think you're born with. You hone those skills throughout your life, and then you get into the position and they become almost a detriment at times to your own well-being. Watson: I hear you. To kind of follow up on that, as a leader, you kind of mentioned that there's an archetype that most mayors have to fall into. Are there any leaders, political or otherwise that you've studied or try to emulate in your own style of leadership for the city of Pittsburgh? Bill Peduto: Yeah, but I mean, they're not political leaders. My heroes are Mahatma Gandhi., Martin Luther King, and Mother Teresa. The reason is self-sacrifice and belief of cause beyond belief of self, and I think those are really, really good characteristics in public leadership. Whether you're running a nonprofit, you're a teacher, or you're in an elected office, and I'll never be able to meet their standards, but they just give me hope that there were those that were able to do so. They also were able to win and do amazing things without much political power being given to them to do so. So how did they build that? That's what I like to study. How were they able to do so without having to resort to the typical use of power, but being able to compel people? How were they able to get through their losses, which they each had, and then at the end still remain victorious? Unfortunately, two of them were taken away from us through violence, but. At the same time, they also changed the world, and did so doing what they believed. That's the best example. As far as the type of personality of mayors, I don't know if it's that there is a type of personality that makes a good mayor, or if people with a personality or are interested in the position, but I know this, there are very few positions where the personality of a politician really gets exemplified and becomes personified in the city, or the municipality, or the district that they represent as much as a mayor. A mayor and their city sort of combine. I think a good mayor is allowed to take down a bit of themselves to promote a bit of what they want to see for their city governors, to a lesser degree presidents, to a higher degree. Those are really the positions that I think about when people think about a big personality. I think a mayor needs to have a big personality, but that personality can't be bigger than the city they represent. They have to embody that and let it sort of go out. Watson: I’m curious how you hold onto that, or how that's balanced between different political seasons, where you're in office, you're executing? How do you balance being the executive branch of the city versus being on a campaign portion of the season, and how you have to maybe temper or highlight certain parts of your personality, or do you feel like it's almost the same thing on both sides? Bill Peduto: So, I'd prefer to lose and be me than to win and be in any way held back. Watson: Is that something you have to negotiate with maybe your staff or the people who are campaigning with you? Bill Peduto: I'm sure that my staff cringes every time I tweet. So it's like, they want control over what I'm doing, and especially when my tweets are after 11:00 PM. So no, I would prefer that when I'm done with this job, that people don't say ‘he was a really good mayor,’ but that they say ‘he was a really good person.’ I don't want to lose me because of a job. It's crazy. So, I'm happy with who I am, and I just wanted that to be the way that I'm not only perceived, but the way that I go about my day to day business of being an executive for a city. It's weird. I mean, politics gets its own little world of like how people would consider how it's run, but I've got 3,500 employees through the authorities and the city budget. We spend about a billion dollars a year. My job is just to make sure that it's being executed the most efficient way possible, the most effective way possible, and in the most equitable way possible. I cover those three areas, then I do my job well. Watson: Absolutely. That's a great note to start wrapping up on. Bill, if we could direct people to check something out in the digital world, if they want to learn more about you or connect with, you mentioned Twitter. Bill Peduto: Yeah. Twitter. I will load your inbox though. Right now, I just watch my followers drop because it's hockey playoff season and I have a lot of opinions. Twitter's the best way to follow, and to stay in touch. Our webpage, billpeduto.com, even though it's not campaign season, we really haven't updated it completely, but we keep it active with what's happening around town. That may be a little bit less about city government and more about how you can get involved in Pittsburgh. Then the city's website, pittsburghpa.gov. We have all the information. The press releases come out on a daily basis. If you really want to know what's going on in this town, check it out. Watson: Absolutely. All that will be linked at goingdeepwithaaron.com/podcast. The best place to find the show notes for this and every episode of the show. Bill, thank you so much for coming on here, and I really appreciate it. Bill Peduto: Thank you. |
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