Working: What We Do All Day (2023) s01e03 Episode Script
Dream Jobs
1
[Obama] Is this our car?
[technician] All right.
[Obama] Okay.
Okay.
Okay. You're gonna see
the steering wheel move.
- And we're gonna take you on a ride.
- Okay, let's do it.
["Hope" by Can Atilla playing]
[chuckling]
This is pretty cool.
- Like the Invisible Man sitting here.
- [technician chuckles]
We call it the Aurora Driver,
but open to naming suggestions.
[Obama] Is the sensor simply reading
these various cues at all times?
It is going to make decisions
in the moment.
It's been trained on millions
and millions of miles of human drivers,
and billions in simulation,
that's why it feels so smooth.
You can imagine
what this could be like in the future.
What can you do if you're not driving?
As somebody who has not been allowed
to drive for the last 13, 14 years
- Yeah.
- you do a lot of reading.
And occasionally playing online Scrabble.
- [technician] It's a brave new world.
- [Obama] It's a brave new world.
[rock music playing]
[Obama] Over the next few decades,
automation and artificial intelligence
will make about one in four jobs obsolete.
Any job based on
repetitive tasks is at risk.
Like the steam engine,
electricity, and the first computers,
a revolution is happening
right before our eyes.
And in this new economy,
the best jobs will go to those who are
sometimes called knowledge workers.
The term knowledge worker
was coined in the late '50s,
when it was clear that knowledge
would become more valuable
than land or labor.
That the great
natural resource of the future
was actually the human mind.
Today, whether you work in tech,
healthcare, or hospitality,
you can be a knowledge worker.
Solving complex problems,
adept at things like analysis, creativity,
improvisation, social influence.
The skills that AI can't touch.
At least not yet.
Knowledge workers are the lucky few.
But what's it actually like
to work one of these jobs?
Hi, my friend. Nice to see you.
[ding]
[François] Where is Dimitri?
Are you ready
for our friends at the Met Gala?
Oh my God. It's gonna look amazing.
It's not glued to the floor, right?
Tape it a little,
then I can save it for another time.
Of course, of course.
- [associate] When is the big event?
- [François] 5:00 p.m.
We need to do a pen for press.
It needs to be paparazzi-esque.
Well done. Thank you.
["Tomboy" by Valentino playing]
Hi, George. How are you?
Oh my God.
These are the real VIPs of the Pierre.
Maurice.
Put people behind the
the ropes there on the side.
If people want to watch from the lobby,
we can ask them to sit there.
We can do that. Great.
All right. One problem solved.
Where is the nearest bar?
[François] There's 110,000 hotel rooms
to fill every night in Manhattan.
It is more than
in most countries on the planet.
I started working
in the hotel business in 1994.
That was my first job.
In New York, I worked at
the Waldorf Astoria and the Essex House.
I also worked at the Four Seasons,
the Carlyle, and the Mark.
I always liked the idea of entertaining.
Even as a kid, I was always helping out.
Be careful. Yeah.
There you go.
Good morning.
Tika, what have you done?
We have a cinnamon streusel
with vegan buttercream
and our raspberry paper flames.
["Tomboy" continues playing]
Very nice. Well done.
There's about 500 people who work here.
My job is not to be
the expert at all these things.
Who's this for?
[woman] Room 933.
- It's early.
- Yeah.
Good.
My job becomes about
putting the right team together.
Make sure it's the right culture,
lead by example.
- How is the chute? Is it cleared?
- It's cleared. Not bad.
- Just a little bit.
- Well done.
Remember, today we have
the Met Gala outside,
- so we have no dumpster, no surprises.
- No dumpsters.
No deliveries, no banging noises.
You built a relationship with these people
just from working here.
[François] At the end of the day,
what really makes the difference
is the people who work here.
I want people who really want
to make a connection with the guests.
- Good morning, everyone.
- [woman] Good morning.
How are you, Jasmine? Hi, Peggy.
Your locker room is today.
- [Letinka] Finished? I can go today?
- I'm gonna go take a look.
Make sure you tell me because
I wanna take the best place.
- Yes. Say something nice, Letinka.
- Oh. Nice. Yeah.
Was delaying my locker room
for three months, one morning-
But it's gonna be beautiful. Hi, Gigi.
- It's gonna be beautiful and
- Beautiful. It's gonna look the same.
Then I'll kiss you on the cheek.
But until then, no.
- Okay.
- [laughter]
[François] Most of my responsibilities
focus on finding business.
Making sure the Pierre is visible,
stays relevant, is talked about.
So, we have Iman.
We have Valentino, Tory Burch, and
- And Alta Moda.
- [François] Alta Moda.
[woman] 5:30 p.m. is Iman.
Mary J. Blige, also Megan Fox.
[François] 7:00 p.m., Valentino.
He has a party
at 6:00 p.m. in the rotunda, right?
Chef, everything set?
They have a welcome cocktail in rotunda.
- Then they'll move to Perrine for dinner.
- What time?
- [chef] It'll be tight.
- Who's worried?
[chef] The Gala people don't eat.
They just nibble.
- Well, we have five minutes to reset.
- Mm-hmm.
- Nothing can go wrong, right?
- [chef] Nothing.
[François] The biggest complaint
to resolve is 803.
I can't believe the guy had to leave.
The room's out of order?
[man] We have a plumber coming in.
I don't think that hot water problem
has happened in that room before.
When's the next check-in?
The foreign minister.
[man] Yes.
[François] We have to send him flowers,
a note or something.
It can't be more embarrassing than this.
Um
- We can't lose him.
- [woman] Yeah.
[sighs]
["Sleepwalk" by Santo & Johnny playing]
[Karthik] It takes a village
to bring a complex system
like a self-driving vehicle together.
If you think about how humans drive,
we use our hands to control the vehicle,
and we use our brains
to plan where we're going.
Our brains do amazing things, but we are
really not good at doing repetitive tasks
that allow us to pay attention
for a long period of time.
We don't have 360-degree vision.
We're not the best
at seeing through fog or exhaust.
So, there is room for technology
to come in and help out.
Sweet.
So, our goal here
is to ultimately make this
a system that is safer than a human.
So, we write out a list of objects.
Trying to simulate what might be a rare,
but plausible occurrence on the highway.
[Karthik] What parameters
do we want to vary?
I assume we want to vary things like
Start AV.
[Luke] AV start, sure. AV speed.
- Distance.
- [Karthik] Okay.
Tire debris is one of the most
common things we're seeing on the road.
Right.
A five-second cool down
would be sufficient.
A hundred sims for low-speed.
- Ten variations each.
- Cool.
We'd put it high priority but not urgent.
Don't preempt anything.
Even if you get a first handful back
by end of the sprint
Okay.
- That'll give us something to work with.
- Yep.
[playful music]
[Karthik] I've been with Aurora
since the beginning.
We started off as a very tiny company.
Now, it's a pretty large-sized startup.
I used to be more of a programmer,
but now I lead a group of engineers
on the perception team.
Our vehicle has a number of sensors on it.
There's lidar, camera, radar,
telling us things
about the world around us.
Lidar is a sensing technology
that sends tiny pulses of light out
into the world at very fine resolution.
It computes how long it takes
for those pulses of light
to come back to the sensor.
If you know the speed of light, you can
compute how far away that object is.
If you do this for many
millions of points around you,
you get a very
fine-resolution view of the world.
It's a bit of artistry,
a bit of data processing.
A little bit of everything, really.
- Most of what we do.
- [laughs]
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
[Kenny] What's up, George?
Hey, you got
the hardest job in the Capitol.
Yeah.
The hardest job in the Capitol.
How you doing?
Can I count on y'all for support?
- They called me in to put on the party.
- [laughs]
He wants to put on a party.
- How you doing?
- Good.
They tell me you've been on the road.
They said some stuff.
[laughing]
I think it'll be real good for
To put some things
together that we can work on.
Hey, fellas.
How we coming with some
of the stuff you were looking at?
We gotta have the information we need so
we can have an intelligent conversation.
I'mma get it there.
What's going on?
[man] Kenny Wayne!
- How you doing?
- [laughter]
- I'm doing good, man.
- [chuckling] You doing all right.
- I appreciate you.
- I appreciate you for helping us out.
Take it easy.
["Room at the Motel" by Adam Saunders,
Mark Cousins & Christopher Salt playing]
Come on.
Man.
Lobbying in itself is a field
of expertise, just like anything else.
- Senator. My man.
- You doing all right?
[Kenny] Where you been playing?
You have to deal with personalities.
Some people are going to do what's right.
Some people are gonna do
with who brings the biggest check.
That's what politics is about.
[laughing]
[Kenny] I was a State Senator
for eight years.
I started lobbying last year.
Picked up a couple of clients.
Picked up a few more.
And I've been off and running ever since.
The Home Care Provider Association
needed a legislator presence.
They are grassroots.
They need somebody who
actually is gonna stay in the trenches
to get done what they need done.
When we start putting this legislation
out here on the Home Care Provider,
I'm gonna have to tap you on the shoulder.
So, what happened was,
Medicaid took their reimbursement down
five dollars for all of their expenses.
And other things they had to do went up.
The COVID hit.
They were going in the house,
taking care of the folk with COVID.
Basically, what we want to do
is make sure that we get them heard.
Okay.
They are one of the organizations
that don't have a loud enough voice.
But you, as the chairman
of the democratic caucus,
I just want to let you know
that I'm gonna be depending on you.
I'm gonna be fighting like hell
to do what I do.
And you might have to just kinda
sponge some things out 'cause it get ugly.
- I appreciate Yes, sir. Okay.
- All right. Take it easy. All right.
In three to five years, I'll be retired.
I still got a little life left.
So, if you can do what you say
you're going to do for your client,
that makes you feel good
about what you've done.
[baroque music playing]
[Obama] Pop quiz.
Do you have an advanced degree?
Do you live in or near a coastal city?
Are you a lawyer? A dentist?
A mid-level investment banker?
Or maybe you work in tech or media.
Is your net worth
somewhere in the range of a million bucks?
If the answer is yes, chances are
you are a member of the 9%.
Let me back up.
We've all seen the headlines.
Inequality today is at levels
we haven't seen since the Gilded Age.
The top 1% holds a similar amount
of wealth as the bottom 90.
But inequality is not just the story
of the 1% and everyone else.
There's another group in between
that we often don't talk about.
The 9%.
[man] Nice shot!
[Obama] If you ask them,
they'll tell you they feel middle class.
And they aren't entirely wrong.
Others are even richer.
But as a group,
they actually hold more wealth
than the top 1% or the bottom 90%.
The 9% tend to live
in affluent neighborhoods,
have expensive educations,
reliable healthcare, and stable families.
They also have
unprecedented choice in their work lives.
And with that choice comes new questions.
Am I on the right path?
Am I making the most of my opportunities?
[indistinct chatter]
[Obama] Is my job satisfying?
Hey, man. Where's my $20 at?
I hit it. It was double or nothing.
When you say double or nothing
I hit it in the hole.
I'm just saying.
[jazz music playing]
[man] To your right.
[paparazzo] Megan, you look amazing!
[François] Can you back your car a bit?
Can we get everybody out
so we can put the car in front, please?
No, you cannot We cannot be there.
[paparazzo] Mary, the queen
Clear. You're too close
to the door, Christian.
You mind if I say hello?
I'm the general manager of the Pierre.
Just very grateful.
[paparazzi] Mindy!
Be careful. A car is coming.
Stop this. Get out of the way. Come on.
Thank you. Be careful.
All right, everybody off the street,
please.
- So, you got good pictures?
- [man] Yeah.
Good.
It's a wrap.
[Michael Hill] Once again,
this is Morning Edition on WNYC.
I'm Michael Hill with me is
Jacqueline Cincotta,
our programming director.
- Jacqueline, good morning.
- [Jacqueline] Good morning, Michael.
[Michael] It is a special day here
as we launch our fall fundraising drive.
We call it a pledge drive.
We're raising the money today
to keep WNYC coming to you,
the largest source of
You are the listeners and we thank you.
Help strengthen this community
and give now.
- [François] Good morning, Almino.
- Good morning, François. Have a good day.
- Morning, Willie.
- Morning, sir.
[François]
The Pierre is a landmark building.
It's a historical hotel.
The challenge of aging is that
you're not the latest, newest product.
You're just trying to work
with the confine of what you have.
You don't want to be perceived as old.
Today, the hotel is very busy,
so we don't have enough space
in the luggage room.
We put certain bags that guests
will retrieve before the end of the day
in our corridor.
There are always things.
It's a very busy place.
This is it.
I found this great picture of
Diana Ross in front of the Pierre.
A guest sent me that.
That was the cover
of Jet Magazine, I think.
A gift from the Secret Service,
souvenirs,
and other ideas
for the ballroom renovation.
We did research on the Pierre history
so I have a lot of books and things.
And we went through that.
Lots of weddings, lots of events.
Uh, lots of parties with Valentino.
We are trying to find
what was important for the '70s.
What's important for During the '80s.
And we want the people
to connect with it today.
You want the Pierre
to be current and relevant
with the added benefit of being
somewhere that has such a great history.
So it's a fine combination.
You have pressure
coming almost equally from all sides.
From guests, the owners,
the 500-plus people who work here.
The hotel being busy enough
that everybody can work.
The ballroom really is
half the revenue of the Pierre.
There's a lot at stake.
It has to be busy,
and we need to hit 100 weddings a year.
So, there's a lot of pressure.
Now we have to deliver.
- [wedding planner] Bonjour.
- Bonjour.
Watch your step here.
[planner 1] We've narrowed it down,
and our client is going to
- [planner 2] Make the decision.
- Where are they coming from?
The bride's from Miami.
Groom's family is from Mexico.
[planner 2] They want top-of-the-line,
iconic, New York, magnificent,
and then take it up a notch.
- [François] What's the budget?
- [planner 2] $600 per person.
Except for Cristal, caviar,
little things like that.
Okay, now, I will stay
for the rest of the tour.
- Yeah.
- [laughter]
[planner 1] We're going to buy out
the day before.
Very Miami meets Mexico, meets everything.
Large orchestra here, along Fifth Avenue.
- Fun but glamorous
- But safe.
[planner 2] Ah! What are these bar carts?
- Love that. It's unbelievable.
- This is great.
- [planner 2] This is a bride's dream.
- [planner 1] Grand entrance.
They pause here for a beautiful photo,
then you don't even need to build a stage
because it's a built-in stage.
- Okay.
- [planner 2] Phenomenal.
- [François] Ballroom is being renovated.
- [Mark] Yep.
[François] So, look,
you can have one, two, three.
One, two, three.
[planner 1] Fabulous.
[François] The paper shows where
they will do the last hand sculpting.
[Mark] So, the service elevator is gonna
come up, directly to the ballroom, now,
for a surprise.
Later on at night,
want to bring in something crazy.
- A camel.
- Exactly.
I think
[both planners] Sign the contract.
- [both] We're in.
- [planner 2] We're fully in.
[hip-hop music playing]
[newsreader]
Four-hundred-billion-dollar infusion
into the nation's care economy.
[exhales]
Let me show you something. This is
where my morning starts, right here.
All of those suits.
Perception is reality.
You can't persuade anybody
if you don't look like you already know
what you got going on.
That takes you a long way to
just put the pride into what you're doing,
that you look good.
When you know you look good,
you function well.
Suit like this
You see that suit?
You can make that suit anything you want,
but that's a $200 suit.
They wear well.
Put a little heat on,
they come right back.
These suits are essential.
But when you know
you got to do what you do,
you grab a suit like this one,
that's going to have
Kenny Wayne Jones on the inside.
This suit lets you know
it was tailor-made for me.
That's your suit.
The fabric of this suit,
the way it drapes.
Men know the difference.
That's the tool of the trade.
That was my first job
that I could afford a nice watch.
And it's still gold and beautiful.
You know, your Rolex is
an essential staple for big business.
When you get ready to do that.
In order for you to go sit down
with somebody and say,
"Let me handle your business,"
you gotta look like
you can handle your own.
- He assumes things.
- He's getting the holes.
He's going another 20.
He's coming to have a lot of luck.
He didn't talk about friends.
- He got the chicken.
- No, I think I had the fajitas.
- [waitress] With mango salsa on the side?
- [Kenny] Yes.
- French fries?
- Who's gonna bless the table?
Well, I would have blessed it
before you stole my French fries.
[John] Father, thank you
for the food we will receive.
Thank you for the provider of this meal.
In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
[Kenny] Amen. I appreciate you, gentlemen.
I know y'all got meetings,
and I got meetings,
so thank you for answering my phone.
You know I take your phone calls, when
you're not cheating on the golf course.
[John] Kenny Wayne says he shot a 78.
- [Kenny laughs]
- We all know he shot a 98.
- [David] Yeah, right.
- [John] That's dubious.
- [John] Where do you play?
- [Ken] Country club.
- They let Black folks on there?
- Yeah, they let Black folks on there now.
I don't think African Americans
were allowed out there
until A Time To Kill movie was made.
Samuel L. Jackson wanted to play golf,
they told him,
"We don't allow Blacks on our course."
So, anyway,
when we talk about racism,
we still have some pockets of it
that we gotta address.
I was in the grocery store the other day.
And an older white lady,
she said, "Boy, do you work here?"
I said, "I'm going on 60 years old.
I'm not a boy anymore."
And she looked at me,
like, "I didn't mean anything."
[John] Racism is the socio-economic piece.
If I keep you poor,
I always can complain
about you not doing better.
But I never put anything in place
to help you help yourself.
You know, I represent
a home care agency association.
There's 28 home care providers
all over our state.
I need you all to advocate on my behalf,
to get me somewhere
where we can get them heard.
They are more committed
than any group I've seen.
And they're being
overlooked on everything.
They had to buy their own PPEs.
They had to deal with their own safety.
They had to deal with
their own insurance if they got sick.
Medicaid took $5 away
from the reimbursement
that they were already getting.
They couldn't get hazard pay.
- [David] Do they have another lobbyist?
- It's me. Yeah.
What I would like to suggest
that we do is,
set up a meeting and facilitate
this conversation about,
"Here is our list of problems.
How can we fix them?"
The main problem is, you don't
have enough individuals raising hell.
When folks start rolling up
in that Capitol, things will change.
- Appreciate you all.
- Be safe.
- Okay, thanks.
- Bye.
- [John] See you later.
- [David] Okay.
[traditional music playing]
[laughing]
[Karthik] What is that?
Oh, it's just like apple cider.
- [Karthik] That's a good idea.
- Closest thing to apple juice. Yeah.
[Karthik] I think we are in a lucky place.
Not everyone has the fortune of
doing something they're good at,
they enjoy and also make
a comfortable living out of.
So, definitely pretty privileged there.
And, I feel like most people in tech
are not millionaires or billionaires.
There is the whole
Silicon Valley media thing of startups.
High risk, high reward.
[Poornima] Yeah, I remember
the series Silicon Valley
where they talk about
all that software engineers want to do
is save the world.
- [laughter]
- That is the most important thing.
I do think, to some extent,
it is true, though. Right?
Yeah, totally. [laughs]
Karthik works on perception.
I guess Karthik doesn't
wanna work on Instagram filters.
- Yeah, that's fair.
- [Cody] Right?
[Sebastian] I wanted to work on something
that was the thing I liked.
And I spent a lot of time
soul-searching what that could be.
Self-driving could really impact
the world in a positive way.
- [Karthik] Yeah.
- [Cody] Did you get recruited by banks?
[Karthik] Hedge funds. It starts with
the salary you could make and I'm like
That's the coolest thing about the job.
I don't think I would be happy
if I was just coming into work,
nine to five and clocking hours and
going home and forgetting about work.
I think about something I left at work,
and then, talk to
many of you guys after hours,
and brainstorm stuff, and it's fun.
Yeah.
[news anchor] This is NPR News.
Seventy-five degrees at 4:04.
I'm Christopher
[Karthik] It's been
a really exciting few months.
We acquired Uber's self-driving division
and grew very quickly,
so that was fun.
We are planning to go public.
I think it guarantees that
we'll have jobs for the next few years.
We've been fueling the rocket ship,
and now it's time to start thinking
about how we actually launch.
Aurora started in homes with offices in,
like, the basement and no bathroom.
Definitely seen the garage days.
As you grow,
it's easy to only interact
with your immediate neighborhood.
My interaction with
the founder is a lot less.
Previously, we would
actually be in joint meetings together.
Everyone looks up to
these stars in the field.
And want that access.
And that is something
that kind of goes away as you scale.
I don't know, like, it's hard.
[Bobbie Ann] What's the rush?
It's the weekend.
[Kenny] Got nothing to do today.
What did you want, bacon?
[William]
I can't eat that much. On a diet.
Boy, you're 17 years old.
Who's on a diet at 17?
You lost your mind?
You can't sit up in here all day
and be up all night.
Your birthday, in a few days.
What you want, man?
Just money.
Just money? Okay.
Just money is all I need.
[William] My dad,
he had many different jobs.
He was a senator at first.
Once he stopped being a senator,
I took his little parking plate,
and I put it up there.
I don't know exactly what he does now.
He's on the computer a lot.
Back and forth, communicating.
Stuff like that.
I don't think I could sit at a desk.
I gotta move.
Right now, I buy a lot of shoes and stuff.
There's my main problem.
If I could stop buying shoes, I'd be fine.
They're still in good shape.
I try to keep 'em brand-new,
as much as I can.
I got some Yeezy's 350s right here.
I like an all-black shoe
with a little red on it.
The most I've probably spent
on a pair of shoes?
I don't wanna tell you. I'm embarrassed.
If I could work my way up
to, like, maybe 150,000 a year,
six figures,
a little bit over that, I'd be fine.
Honestly, I think I can get there.
It won't be that hard.
So, I think it would be fine.
[Kennedy] Hey, Snugglebox!
He's actually a little upset.
[Kennedy] He barks at my dad's golf clubs.
[Bobbie Ann]
Have you got your samples together?
Oh, yeah. I have the samples all ready.
I want to be an esthetician.
I really enjoy, um,
making my own products.
I started making this soap.
Once we got consistent results,
I was like, "This is what I want to do.
This is what I want my life to be like."
They don't believe in
working a nine-to-five, like we've done.
They want the flexibility.
They want to be in United States today.
Tomorrow, they want to be in Cabo.
You know, uh, Dubai.
And they want to make it here and now.
And we had a community
where his grandma, my mom
they did not work.
So, they helped take care
of our kids a lot.
They had to, because we both traveled.
I traveled practically 100% of the time,
working with Corporate America. So
I'mma drink a mimosa.
You wanna drink a mimosa with me?
Pass me the champagne and orange juice.
You probably gonna
make more money than me.
Money is not a motive for anything.
It's not, but you need it.
[Kennedy] Just like you make money,
we can make money.
[Kenny] I understand that.
The trust funds that are there now,
they've been put there so
you could have something to start with.
[Bobbie Ann] As opposed to us.
[Kenny] Oh, we started at the back.
[chuckling]
- We started at the back.
- [Bobbie Ann] Yeah.
- [Kenny] I wasn't trained or nothing.
- [Bobbie] Nothing.
Move!
[Kenny] Good Saturday morning.
It's a great Saturday morning.
Put that omelet on there for me, William.
Please, sir.
[Kenny] I enjoy being with my family,
because I missed so much of that.
Being elected, you're always constantly
You have to be somewhere. You're gone.
You're doing this, you're doing that.
That process wears you down.
When we go play golf, and I see
a father bring his little son with him,
it makes me feel like I missed a lot.
And while you're out there
dealing with everybody else,
you're kind of missing
a whole lot that's going on around you.
And that's your main sacrifice.
So, I'm kinda getting back to that now,
where I can be a thorn in their side
for whatever time I got left.
So, I'm enjoying life
a lot more these days.
Not being hectic.
Every hour, every minute,
and having to do this and do that.
[Carl] It's been a while
since we've talked.
I wanted to maybe start
by just kind of checking in
on working in this,
kind of, technical manager role.
And sort of, you know,
seeing your time shift
from the individual contributor
to leading your team.
Yeah, I think it's been interesting.
Um, I think there's pluses and challenges.
For obvious reasons, you get
less connection with the founders
or with the directors, right?
These are people we look up to,
and why we joined the company.
I'm curious about
how we can enable more connections.
We've grown a lot, and this isn't
being an academic research lab.
We're building a product.
I've been thinking that
that could be useful with leaders,
but actually, also, just across team.
We've set up the horizontal virtual teams,
reaching across the other teams.
These things are really important
for you to allocate time on
- Yeah.
- and you have to be disciplined.
It can be helpful to actually
write these things down.
"What is most important?"
"What am I actually doing?"
Exercise can be helpful there.
Yeah, it's useful, thanks.
That's a good tip. I've Yep.
[babble-singing]
Isha, are you a parrot?
[Ishaan continues singing]
Isha baby.
- Isha baby?
- Baby?
Ishaan, can you read
the Little Boat instead?
Little Boat.
Isha, let's read Little Boat.
- Isha phone tashi
- [Ishaan cries]
[Karthik] Yeah.
Ish Oh, baby.
One!
Whoa!
[Ishaan] One, two, three.
Whoa! [laughing]
[Karthik] I think a lot of people see me
as happy-go-lucky. I get that a lot.
My wife,
and probably the rest of my family,
has a very different impression.
When I joined Aurora,
I was coming off
a big personal low in grad school.
I call it first-world stress.
I think there were
days when I wouldn't get out of bed.
I had this whole paralysis phase of,
"I'm not good enough.
I'll never get a job."
"I'm never gonna do anything,
I'm not good for anything," and whatnot.
And when I got my job,
the manager shook my hand and was like,
"We have so many things
we need you to get done."
And just, within a day,
I just snapped out of it and was great.
I've been thinking about
impact in many ways.
I think of my career
as gathering different experiences.
To make an analogy with traveling,
there are people that get a timeshare in
one fancy resort in one part of the world,
and every vacation
is to that place, to the same pool.
But the rest of us want a vacation
in a new country every time.
Why wouldn't you
wanna do that with your career?
At the end of a career, can I look back
and be proud of what I put my name on?
[Obama] Once we have
enough to survive, what's next?
What does it take to feel satisfied?
For many of us,
it's about trying to find meaning.
Meaning is still a relatively new idea.
My generation was the first one
to really look for meaning in work.
And even then, it wasn't something
we expected to achieve right away.
We knew we would
have to grind it out first.
Sometimes, in jobs we didn't like.
My daughter's generation
wants meaning from the start.
And I admit, sometimes,
I'm surprised by their expectations.
Many of today's knowledge workers
have climbed high enough
that they can see the top.
And with in-demand skills,
they have a tendency
to fixate on climbing even higher.
But in the drive for personal achievement,
we can lose sight of the bigger picture.
The broader world.
When you have it all, what responsibility
do you have to other people?
[Kenny] This is the street
that I grew up on.
You knew everybody by name.
I went to high school here.
This is where I would play football.
Those were good years.
Now, we are experiencing crimes that
you would normally see in larger areas.
It's the lack
of educational opportunities.
It's the lack of economic development.
There are a whole lot of dollar stores.
We don't need dollar stores.
We need industry that's gonna
produce, uh, jobs for people.
So that people can work
out of this community their whole life
and make a decent income.
You know, $600,000,000
could be in Mississippi right now.
With Medicaid expansion.
Jobs everywhere.
That's why the work that I'm doing
for At Home Care is so important.
That's how you develop a community.
I've come back here now
because it's still home.
I didn't necessarily have a clear path.
I just had people who were pushing me
along the path in the right direction.
My mama was away at college
and my grandmama raised me.
My grandmother worked
in white people's houses.
She was ironing and cleaning,
and pretty much raising their children,
because she always told me stories
about the children and who was my age.
I knew their names
like they were in my house.
But did I ever meet them? No, I did not.
You know, because of how we come up,
and all the old ghosts of the South.
I remember when I was in college,
and I knocked on the door,
and they told me
that I had to go through the back.
I said, "Why am I going through the back?
I'm looking for my mom and grandma."
She said, "No Black people can be here."
I was kind of like, "Well, Mama,
how much do they pay you?"
Because I was going to
give her the same thing not to go.
They never said, "Thank you."
I knew it hurt her.
But those are conversations
that I left alone. So
You know,
I'm grateful for everything. Everything.
But I know where I'm from,
and I know where my roots are.
And that's where I'll always be.
["Jazz Nightly" by Ronald Aspery plays]
[music stops]
[Jeffrey] What's the menu,
François-Olivier?
[François] It's your favorite,
penne arrabbiata.
[Jeffrey] Okay.
Farm tomatoes
from New Jersey and mozzarella.
[Jeffrey] You've got booze covered?
- [François] Yes.
- [Jeffrey] All right.
This is normally what happens,
he's in the kitchen, cooking.
And I'm sitting here
telling him what he's doing wrong.
Twenty-one years.
- Twenty-one years.
- [François] Twenty-one years.
[Jeffrey] Love at first sight.
He's actually happy in the kitchen.
He's a natural for his business.
[sizzling]
I've absolutely seen him
pull his That French charm
on problematic people.
Like, they're mad, they're angry.
And François, all of a sudden,
gets very tall and very French.
And you watch just like, "Ooh,"
you know, they melt.
Particularly women of a certain age.
Busboys and stuff
come out years and years later.
They're crazy about him, these people.
They all are.
He actually gives a shit.
This is not someone
who wants to retire and sit back
No, he never does nothing.
It's infuriating.
If you didn't get him out of the city,
every day, he'd go in.
I'd go in for a few hours.
That's when I got the idea
to get the house in the country.
To get us out of the city.
Now, he drags me out there
because he's got to go
and play with his petunias.
He's got to. It's necessary.
- Sorry, was that an eye-roll, François?
- Mm-hmm.
[knocking on door]
- Bonsoir.
- Bonsoir. [laughs]
Why, I'd never in a billion years
Hi.
Are you visiting the old haunt?
[Jeff] It's vanilla and dulce de leche.
Look at us, like ten-year-olds.
Very exciting.
[Jeffrey] Look at that blank slate.
You couldn't write something on it?
- [François] I'll have a French martini.
- [Jeff] Of course you will.
[François]
So, what have you done this summer?
Work, work, work, work, work.
But, you're going out
to the North Fork a lot, right?
And working. [laughs]
- [Jeffrey] From North Fork?
- Yeah.
It's the special glass.
- It's a different drink.
- Cheers.
Mm.
[Alberto] Oh! That works.
- Sit. I'll go pick wine.
- You have to come see us.
[François] Oh my God.
I know what we should drink.
This was given to me by the winemaker
when I worked at
the Four Seasons in Milan.
A gift from the guy who made it.
[Jeff] We have a can of Budweiser we've
been saving for 12 months in our fridge.
Come on over.
[Alberto] When we bought
our apartment in this building,
it was the first time we had a dishwasher.
The things that we have
in our 1,200-square-foot apartment
feels like a small home
anywhere else in America, essentially.
- Yeah.
- Twelve hundred.
- We're 1,360.
- [Alberto laughs]
- You had good fortune coming up.
- [Jeffrey] I did have fortune coming up.
I had a master's degree
in computer science,
was doing parallel processing
on an N-Cube mass multicomputer.
I got a job in mortgage-backed securities.
We're still living off that money.
[Jeff] I moved to New York.
I slung lasagna at
a crappy Italian restaurant in Chelsea.
[Jeffrey] In Chelsea?
Couldn't pay rent. I was a crappy waiter,
wasn't bringing in money.
[Alberto] I do think that because
we kind of arrived with very little,
I think that we are pretty happy.
- There's always possibility for more
- And we see it, actually.
[Jeffrey] And you're right
We are next to it, so we're exposed.
We can see what the next echelon is like.
[Alberto] But I also think
to be in that top world,
it's just a constant greasing the wheel.
It's, like, a constant glad-handing,
making sure you're connected
to the right people,
and showing up at the right things.
The life we have built
is very much, like, who we are.
The next step-up,
you stop trusting people.
I see that all the time.
[Alberto] Wealthy people
I come in contact with,
as much as they have, they're still
sort of noticing what they don't have.
- [Jeffrey] A never-ending chase.
- [Alberto] Never-ending, exactly.
Most of what I do, what I have,
is because of who I represent.
Like, I work with
such a diverse workforce.
I'm surrounded by people
whose story is unbelievable.
Minorities, people of color,
Indigenous people
The minute you scratch the surface,
everybody has something interesting,
and that's what I love about New York.
Then we feel like,
this is actually not my story
It is a thousand stories
Five hundred stories, actually.
I've always felt more,
like, my story didn't matter.
Because, honestly,
my path was, like, laid out for me.
I mean, whether I decided to go
down there or not was almost my choice.
I thought I worked so hard,
but it was really
It was there.
"Do you want to go there? There it is."
That choice is not
given to too many people.
I feel a level of responsibility.
All these customers,
all the people who I work with,
I mean, it's all of them who
And I'm the only one who's their face.
It's because of all these people
that I am drinking a glass of champagne
in Dubai somewhere,
representing the Pierre.
I don't even know
if I should be the face, but I am.
It's really special.
[Apoorva] Ishaan,
do you want to say hi to a new friend?
That's President Obama.
He's not that excited.
He's got work to do.
[laughter]
- You got a little barbecue going on here?
- [Apoorva] We do.
[Obama] I'm not gonna have too much.
- Just gonna sample.
- [Apoorva] Yes.
- Should I just put it?
- [Obama] Just put it on the plate.
This is delicious.
[Apoorva] I'm glad. So glad you like them.
[Obama] I'll give you both credit,
though I know that probably
- He helped.
- I shopped.
- [Obama] The helper.
- Yes.
- Critical contribution.
- Yeah.
So, Karthik, you ended up
early at Aurora, right?
- You were one of the earliest employees.
- Yeah, first 20, something like that.
Things couldn't have gone better for you.
You were sort of moving and shaking.
What made you think, "Now I should leave"?
I don't know. I saw Aurora grow
from a very tiny family
to, like, a really, like
It's established.
Aurora is here now, and it's like,
it was on the way to success.
A new company called Zipline contacted me,
and it felt like a chance to see
robotics making an impact today.
- So, I decided, "I'm gonna make the move."
- [Obama] Yeah.
It was not an easy decision.
[Obama] So, you guys are
the prototypical knowledge workers.
Huge demand for your skill set.
- There's always gonna be a job for you.
- It's a position of privilege.
There's a floor
beneath which you cannot sink.
I'm wondering whether
being in that position
puts more pressure on you,
almost to, like,
ask yourself questions about,
"What's going to be satisfying to me?"
It's a high-class problem to have,
but whether you
start thinking in terms of,
"Man, I really better be fulfilled
because look how privileged I am here."
There's many things I could do
that put food on the table, right?
So, then we start thinking about
I said impact.
Learning. Am I working with
the smartest people in my field?
- Right.
- How much I can influence the company.
In a larger company,
you're a drop in the ocean,
but you have lots of resources.
- Right.
- In a smaller place, uh
The decisions you make
impact the future of this entire company.
These are standard dinner conversations
and I don't know that I have an answer.
[Obama] And these are questions that
just a generation ago,
people would never have.
My dad was at the same company
for 25 years.
And to him, this new culture of changing
companies every three or four years
is a bit weird.
He didn't have
as much flexibility thinking,
"What's my passion?
Where can I get the most learning?"
I grew up watching my dad
define himself through work.
That trickled down.
Apoorva's got a little better at carving
out different identities for herself.
She tells me,
"Work isn't your only identity."
She seems more well-rounded than you.
[Karthik] I would agree. Yeah. [chuckles]
If you were to go back and do things over
from 30, which is how old I am,
what would be the first piece of advice?
Part of my advice would probably be,
you know, just relax.
Okay. [chuckles]
I mean, do the things
that are meaningful to you,
take them seriously.
But don't operate so much as if you need
to prove something to somebody else.
And I think,
when you're still in your thirties,
um, sometimes you're still spending
a lot of time thinking about
what other people want you to be,
as opposed to knowing what you want to be.
I think there are a lot of ways
of impacting the world.
A lot of young people are
in a great hurry to say, "I am impactful."
And I think impact is built over time.
It's a series of steps. It's, um
That add up when you look back.
And you say, "Oh, you know,
I guess that made a difference."
- High five!
- High five!
There you go.
- High five!
- [chuckles]
[Obama] We all have the power
to make an impact on the world.
But what if, instead of running a team,
you're in charge of the whole company?
[cheering]
[Obama] The higher you climb,
the higher the stakes.
What if your decisions
affected millions of lives?
What does a unicorn really look like?
Once you've made it to the top, then what?
[closing theme music playing]
[Obama] Is this our car?
[technician] All right.
[Obama] Okay.
Okay.
Okay. You're gonna see
the steering wheel move.
- And we're gonna take you on a ride.
- Okay, let's do it.
["Hope" by Can Atilla playing]
[chuckling]
This is pretty cool.
- Like the Invisible Man sitting here.
- [technician chuckles]
We call it the Aurora Driver,
but open to naming suggestions.
[Obama] Is the sensor simply reading
these various cues at all times?
It is going to make decisions
in the moment.
It's been trained on millions
and millions of miles of human drivers,
and billions in simulation,
that's why it feels so smooth.
You can imagine
what this could be like in the future.
What can you do if you're not driving?
As somebody who has not been allowed
to drive for the last 13, 14 years
- Yeah.
- you do a lot of reading.
And occasionally playing online Scrabble.
- [technician] It's a brave new world.
- [Obama] It's a brave new world.
[rock music playing]
[Obama] Over the next few decades,
automation and artificial intelligence
will make about one in four jobs obsolete.
Any job based on
repetitive tasks is at risk.
Like the steam engine,
electricity, and the first computers,
a revolution is happening
right before our eyes.
And in this new economy,
the best jobs will go to those who are
sometimes called knowledge workers.
The term knowledge worker
was coined in the late '50s,
when it was clear that knowledge
would become more valuable
than land or labor.
That the great
natural resource of the future
was actually the human mind.
Today, whether you work in tech,
healthcare, or hospitality,
you can be a knowledge worker.
Solving complex problems,
adept at things like analysis, creativity,
improvisation, social influence.
The skills that AI can't touch.
At least not yet.
Knowledge workers are the lucky few.
But what's it actually like
to work one of these jobs?
Hi, my friend. Nice to see you.
[ding]
[François] Where is Dimitri?
Are you ready
for our friends at the Met Gala?
Oh my God. It's gonna look amazing.
It's not glued to the floor, right?
Tape it a little,
then I can save it for another time.
Of course, of course.
- [associate] When is the big event?
- [François] 5:00 p.m.
We need to do a pen for press.
It needs to be paparazzi-esque.
Well done. Thank you.
["Tomboy" by Valentino playing]
Hi, George. How are you?
Oh my God.
These are the real VIPs of the Pierre.
Maurice.
Put people behind the
the ropes there on the side.
If people want to watch from the lobby,
we can ask them to sit there.
We can do that. Great.
All right. One problem solved.
Where is the nearest bar?
[François] There's 110,000 hotel rooms
to fill every night in Manhattan.
It is more than
in most countries on the planet.
I started working
in the hotel business in 1994.
That was my first job.
In New York, I worked at
the Waldorf Astoria and the Essex House.
I also worked at the Four Seasons,
the Carlyle, and the Mark.
I always liked the idea of entertaining.
Even as a kid, I was always helping out.
Be careful. Yeah.
There you go.
Good morning.
Tika, what have you done?
We have a cinnamon streusel
with vegan buttercream
and our raspberry paper flames.
["Tomboy" continues playing]
Very nice. Well done.
There's about 500 people who work here.
My job is not to be
the expert at all these things.
Who's this for?
[woman] Room 933.
- It's early.
- Yeah.
Good.
My job becomes about
putting the right team together.
Make sure it's the right culture,
lead by example.
- How is the chute? Is it cleared?
- It's cleared. Not bad.
- Just a little bit.
- Well done.
Remember, today we have
the Met Gala outside,
- so we have no dumpster, no surprises.
- No dumpsters.
No deliveries, no banging noises.
You built a relationship with these people
just from working here.
[François] At the end of the day,
what really makes the difference
is the people who work here.
I want people who really want
to make a connection with the guests.
- Good morning, everyone.
- [woman] Good morning.
How are you, Jasmine? Hi, Peggy.
Your locker room is today.
- [Letinka] Finished? I can go today?
- I'm gonna go take a look.
Make sure you tell me because
I wanna take the best place.
- Yes. Say something nice, Letinka.
- Oh. Nice. Yeah.
Was delaying my locker room
for three months, one morning-
But it's gonna be beautiful. Hi, Gigi.
- It's gonna be beautiful and
- Beautiful. It's gonna look the same.
Then I'll kiss you on the cheek.
But until then, no.
- Okay.
- [laughter]
[François] Most of my responsibilities
focus on finding business.
Making sure the Pierre is visible,
stays relevant, is talked about.
So, we have Iman.
We have Valentino, Tory Burch, and
- And Alta Moda.
- [François] Alta Moda.
[woman] 5:30 p.m. is Iman.
Mary J. Blige, also Megan Fox.
[François] 7:00 p.m., Valentino.
He has a party
at 6:00 p.m. in the rotunda, right?
Chef, everything set?
They have a welcome cocktail in rotunda.
- Then they'll move to Perrine for dinner.
- What time?
- [chef] It'll be tight.
- Who's worried?
[chef] The Gala people don't eat.
They just nibble.
- Well, we have five minutes to reset.
- Mm-hmm.
- Nothing can go wrong, right?
- [chef] Nothing.
[François] The biggest complaint
to resolve is 803.
I can't believe the guy had to leave.
The room's out of order?
[man] We have a plumber coming in.
I don't think that hot water problem
has happened in that room before.
When's the next check-in?
The foreign minister.
[man] Yes.
[François] We have to send him flowers,
a note or something.
It can't be more embarrassing than this.
Um
- We can't lose him.
- [woman] Yeah.
[sighs]
["Sleepwalk" by Santo & Johnny playing]
[Karthik] It takes a village
to bring a complex system
like a self-driving vehicle together.
If you think about how humans drive,
we use our hands to control the vehicle,
and we use our brains
to plan where we're going.
Our brains do amazing things, but we are
really not good at doing repetitive tasks
that allow us to pay attention
for a long period of time.
We don't have 360-degree vision.
We're not the best
at seeing through fog or exhaust.
So, there is room for technology
to come in and help out.
Sweet.
So, our goal here
is to ultimately make this
a system that is safer than a human.
So, we write out a list of objects.
Trying to simulate what might be a rare,
but plausible occurrence on the highway.
[Karthik] What parameters
do we want to vary?
I assume we want to vary things like
Start AV.
[Luke] AV start, sure. AV speed.
- Distance.
- [Karthik] Okay.
Tire debris is one of the most
common things we're seeing on the road.
Right.
A five-second cool down
would be sufficient.
A hundred sims for low-speed.
- Ten variations each.
- Cool.
We'd put it high priority but not urgent.
Don't preempt anything.
Even if you get a first handful back
by end of the sprint
Okay.
- That'll give us something to work with.
- Yep.
[playful music]
[Karthik] I've been with Aurora
since the beginning.
We started off as a very tiny company.
Now, it's a pretty large-sized startup.
I used to be more of a programmer,
but now I lead a group of engineers
on the perception team.
Our vehicle has a number of sensors on it.
There's lidar, camera, radar,
telling us things
about the world around us.
Lidar is a sensing technology
that sends tiny pulses of light out
into the world at very fine resolution.
It computes how long it takes
for those pulses of light
to come back to the sensor.
If you know the speed of light, you can
compute how far away that object is.
If you do this for many
millions of points around you,
you get a very
fine-resolution view of the world.
It's a bit of artistry,
a bit of data processing.
A little bit of everything, really.
- Most of what we do.
- [laughs]
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
[Kenny] What's up, George?
Hey, you got
the hardest job in the Capitol.
Yeah.
The hardest job in the Capitol.
How you doing?
Can I count on y'all for support?
- They called me in to put on the party.
- [laughs]
He wants to put on a party.
- How you doing?
- Good.
They tell me you've been on the road.
They said some stuff.
[laughing]
I think it'll be real good for
To put some things
together that we can work on.
Hey, fellas.
How we coming with some
of the stuff you were looking at?
We gotta have the information we need so
we can have an intelligent conversation.
I'mma get it there.
What's going on?
[man] Kenny Wayne!
- How you doing?
- [laughter]
- I'm doing good, man.
- [chuckling] You doing all right.
- I appreciate you.
- I appreciate you for helping us out.
Take it easy.
["Room at the Motel" by Adam Saunders,
Mark Cousins & Christopher Salt playing]
Come on.
Man.
Lobbying in itself is a field
of expertise, just like anything else.
- Senator. My man.
- You doing all right?
[Kenny] Where you been playing?
You have to deal with personalities.
Some people are going to do what's right.
Some people are gonna do
with who brings the biggest check.
That's what politics is about.
[laughing]
[Kenny] I was a State Senator
for eight years.
I started lobbying last year.
Picked up a couple of clients.
Picked up a few more.
And I've been off and running ever since.
The Home Care Provider Association
needed a legislator presence.
They are grassroots.
They need somebody who
actually is gonna stay in the trenches
to get done what they need done.
When we start putting this legislation
out here on the Home Care Provider,
I'm gonna have to tap you on the shoulder.
So, what happened was,
Medicaid took their reimbursement down
five dollars for all of their expenses.
And other things they had to do went up.
The COVID hit.
They were going in the house,
taking care of the folk with COVID.
Basically, what we want to do
is make sure that we get them heard.
Okay.
They are one of the organizations
that don't have a loud enough voice.
But you, as the chairman
of the democratic caucus,
I just want to let you know
that I'm gonna be depending on you.
I'm gonna be fighting like hell
to do what I do.
And you might have to just kinda
sponge some things out 'cause it get ugly.
- I appreciate Yes, sir. Okay.
- All right. Take it easy. All right.
In three to five years, I'll be retired.
I still got a little life left.
So, if you can do what you say
you're going to do for your client,
that makes you feel good
about what you've done.
[baroque music playing]
[Obama] Pop quiz.
Do you have an advanced degree?
Do you live in or near a coastal city?
Are you a lawyer? A dentist?
A mid-level investment banker?
Or maybe you work in tech or media.
Is your net worth
somewhere in the range of a million bucks?
If the answer is yes, chances are
you are a member of the 9%.
Let me back up.
We've all seen the headlines.
Inequality today is at levels
we haven't seen since the Gilded Age.
The top 1% holds a similar amount
of wealth as the bottom 90.
But inequality is not just the story
of the 1% and everyone else.
There's another group in between
that we often don't talk about.
The 9%.
[man] Nice shot!
[Obama] If you ask them,
they'll tell you they feel middle class.
And they aren't entirely wrong.
Others are even richer.
But as a group,
they actually hold more wealth
than the top 1% or the bottom 90%.
The 9% tend to live
in affluent neighborhoods,
have expensive educations,
reliable healthcare, and stable families.
They also have
unprecedented choice in their work lives.
And with that choice comes new questions.
Am I on the right path?
Am I making the most of my opportunities?
[indistinct chatter]
[Obama] Is my job satisfying?
Hey, man. Where's my $20 at?
I hit it. It was double or nothing.
When you say double or nothing
I hit it in the hole.
I'm just saying.
[jazz music playing]
[man] To your right.
[paparazzo] Megan, you look amazing!
[François] Can you back your car a bit?
Can we get everybody out
so we can put the car in front, please?
No, you cannot We cannot be there.
[paparazzo] Mary, the queen
Clear. You're too close
to the door, Christian.
You mind if I say hello?
I'm the general manager of the Pierre.
Just very grateful.
[paparazzi] Mindy!
Be careful. A car is coming.
Stop this. Get out of the way. Come on.
Thank you. Be careful.
All right, everybody off the street,
please.
- So, you got good pictures?
- [man] Yeah.
Good.
It's a wrap.
[Michael Hill] Once again,
this is Morning Edition on WNYC.
I'm Michael Hill with me is
Jacqueline Cincotta,
our programming director.
- Jacqueline, good morning.
- [Jacqueline] Good morning, Michael.
[Michael] It is a special day here
as we launch our fall fundraising drive.
We call it a pledge drive.
We're raising the money today
to keep WNYC coming to you,
the largest source of
You are the listeners and we thank you.
Help strengthen this community
and give now.
- [François] Good morning, Almino.
- Good morning, François. Have a good day.
- Morning, Willie.
- Morning, sir.
[François]
The Pierre is a landmark building.
It's a historical hotel.
The challenge of aging is that
you're not the latest, newest product.
You're just trying to work
with the confine of what you have.
You don't want to be perceived as old.
Today, the hotel is very busy,
so we don't have enough space
in the luggage room.
We put certain bags that guests
will retrieve before the end of the day
in our corridor.
There are always things.
It's a very busy place.
This is it.
I found this great picture of
Diana Ross in front of the Pierre.
A guest sent me that.
That was the cover
of Jet Magazine, I think.
A gift from the Secret Service,
souvenirs,
and other ideas
for the ballroom renovation.
We did research on the Pierre history
so I have a lot of books and things.
And we went through that.
Lots of weddings, lots of events.
Uh, lots of parties with Valentino.
We are trying to find
what was important for the '70s.
What's important for During the '80s.
And we want the people
to connect with it today.
You want the Pierre
to be current and relevant
with the added benefit of being
somewhere that has such a great history.
So it's a fine combination.
You have pressure
coming almost equally from all sides.
From guests, the owners,
the 500-plus people who work here.
The hotel being busy enough
that everybody can work.
The ballroom really is
half the revenue of the Pierre.
There's a lot at stake.
It has to be busy,
and we need to hit 100 weddings a year.
So, there's a lot of pressure.
Now we have to deliver.
- [wedding planner] Bonjour.
- Bonjour.
Watch your step here.
[planner 1] We've narrowed it down,
and our client is going to
- [planner 2] Make the decision.
- Where are they coming from?
The bride's from Miami.
Groom's family is from Mexico.
[planner 2] They want top-of-the-line,
iconic, New York, magnificent,
and then take it up a notch.
- [François] What's the budget?
- [planner 2] $600 per person.
Except for Cristal, caviar,
little things like that.
Okay, now, I will stay
for the rest of the tour.
- Yeah.
- [laughter]
[planner 1] We're going to buy out
the day before.
Very Miami meets Mexico, meets everything.
Large orchestra here, along Fifth Avenue.
- Fun but glamorous
- But safe.
[planner 2] Ah! What are these bar carts?
- Love that. It's unbelievable.
- This is great.
- [planner 2] This is a bride's dream.
- [planner 1] Grand entrance.
They pause here for a beautiful photo,
then you don't even need to build a stage
because it's a built-in stage.
- Okay.
- [planner 2] Phenomenal.
- [François] Ballroom is being renovated.
- [Mark] Yep.
[François] So, look,
you can have one, two, three.
One, two, three.
[planner 1] Fabulous.
[François] The paper shows where
they will do the last hand sculpting.
[Mark] So, the service elevator is gonna
come up, directly to the ballroom, now,
for a surprise.
Later on at night,
want to bring in something crazy.
- A camel.
- Exactly.
I think
[both planners] Sign the contract.
- [both] We're in.
- [planner 2] We're fully in.
[hip-hop music playing]
[newsreader]
Four-hundred-billion-dollar infusion
into the nation's care economy.
[exhales]
Let me show you something. This is
where my morning starts, right here.
All of those suits.
Perception is reality.
You can't persuade anybody
if you don't look like you already know
what you got going on.
That takes you a long way to
just put the pride into what you're doing,
that you look good.
When you know you look good,
you function well.
Suit like this
You see that suit?
You can make that suit anything you want,
but that's a $200 suit.
They wear well.
Put a little heat on,
they come right back.
These suits are essential.
But when you know
you got to do what you do,
you grab a suit like this one,
that's going to have
Kenny Wayne Jones on the inside.
This suit lets you know
it was tailor-made for me.
That's your suit.
The fabric of this suit,
the way it drapes.
Men know the difference.
That's the tool of the trade.
That was my first job
that I could afford a nice watch.
And it's still gold and beautiful.
You know, your Rolex is
an essential staple for big business.
When you get ready to do that.
In order for you to go sit down
with somebody and say,
"Let me handle your business,"
you gotta look like
you can handle your own.
- He assumes things.
- He's getting the holes.
He's going another 20.
He's coming to have a lot of luck.
He didn't talk about friends.
- He got the chicken.
- No, I think I had the fajitas.
- [waitress] With mango salsa on the side?
- [Kenny] Yes.
- French fries?
- Who's gonna bless the table?
Well, I would have blessed it
before you stole my French fries.
[John] Father, thank you
for the food we will receive.
Thank you for the provider of this meal.
In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
[Kenny] Amen. I appreciate you, gentlemen.
I know y'all got meetings,
and I got meetings,
so thank you for answering my phone.
You know I take your phone calls, when
you're not cheating on the golf course.
[John] Kenny Wayne says he shot a 78.
- [Kenny laughs]
- We all know he shot a 98.
- [David] Yeah, right.
- [John] That's dubious.
- [John] Where do you play?
- [Ken] Country club.
- They let Black folks on there?
- Yeah, they let Black folks on there now.
I don't think African Americans
were allowed out there
until A Time To Kill movie was made.
Samuel L. Jackson wanted to play golf,
they told him,
"We don't allow Blacks on our course."
So, anyway,
when we talk about racism,
we still have some pockets of it
that we gotta address.
I was in the grocery store the other day.
And an older white lady,
she said, "Boy, do you work here?"
I said, "I'm going on 60 years old.
I'm not a boy anymore."
And she looked at me,
like, "I didn't mean anything."
[John] Racism is the socio-economic piece.
If I keep you poor,
I always can complain
about you not doing better.
But I never put anything in place
to help you help yourself.
You know, I represent
a home care agency association.
There's 28 home care providers
all over our state.
I need you all to advocate on my behalf,
to get me somewhere
where we can get them heard.
They are more committed
than any group I've seen.
And they're being
overlooked on everything.
They had to buy their own PPEs.
They had to deal with their own safety.
They had to deal with
their own insurance if they got sick.
Medicaid took $5 away
from the reimbursement
that they were already getting.
They couldn't get hazard pay.
- [David] Do they have another lobbyist?
- It's me. Yeah.
What I would like to suggest
that we do is,
set up a meeting and facilitate
this conversation about,
"Here is our list of problems.
How can we fix them?"
The main problem is, you don't
have enough individuals raising hell.
When folks start rolling up
in that Capitol, things will change.
- Appreciate you all.
- Be safe.
- Okay, thanks.
- Bye.
- [John] See you later.
- [David] Okay.
[traditional music playing]
[laughing]
[Karthik] What is that?
Oh, it's just like apple cider.
- [Karthik] That's a good idea.
- Closest thing to apple juice. Yeah.
[Karthik] I think we are in a lucky place.
Not everyone has the fortune of
doing something they're good at,
they enjoy and also make
a comfortable living out of.
So, definitely pretty privileged there.
And, I feel like most people in tech
are not millionaires or billionaires.
There is the whole
Silicon Valley media thing of startups.
High risk, high reward.
[Poornima] Yeah, I remember
the series Silicon Valley
where they talk about
all that software engineers want to do
is save the world.
- [laughter]
- That is the most important thing.
I do think, to some extent,
it is true, though. Right?
Yeah, totally. [laughs]
Karthik works on perception.
I guess Karthik doesn't
wanna work on Instagram filters.
- Yeah, that's fair.
- [Cody] Right?
[Sebastian] I wanted to work on something
that was the thing I liked.
And I spent a lot of time
soul-searching what that could be.
Self-driving could really impact
the world in a positive way.
- [Karthik] Yeah.
- [Cody] Did you get recruited by banks?
[Karthik] Hedge funds. It starts with
the salary you could make and I'm like
That's the coolest thing about the job.
I don't think I would be happy
if I was just coming into work,
nine to five and clocking hours and
going home and forgetting about work.
I think about something I left at work,
and then, talk to
many of you guys after hours,
and brainstorm stuff, and it's fun.
Yeah.
[news anchor] This is NPR News.
Seventy-five degrees at 4:04.
I'm Christopher
[Karthik] It's been
a really exciting few months.
We acquired Uber's self-driving division
and grew very quickly,
so that was fun.
We are planning to go public.
I think it guarantees that
we'll have jobs for the next few years.
We've been fueling the rocket ship,
and now it's time to start thinking
about how we actually launch.
Aurora started in homes with offices in,
like, the basement and no bathroom.
Definitely seen the garage days.
As you grow,
it's easy to only interact
with your immediate neighborhood.
My interaction with
the founder is a lot less.
Previously, we would
actually be in joint meetings together.
Everyone looks up to
these stars in the field.
And want that access.
And that is something
that kind of goes away as you scale.
I don't know, like, it's hard.
[Bobbie Ann] What's the rush?
It's the weekend.
[Kenny] Got nothing to do today.
What did you want, bacon?
[William]
I can't eat that much. On a diet.
Boy, you're 17 years old.
Who's on a diet at 17?
You lost your mind?
You can't sit up in here all day
and be up all night.
Your birthday, in a few days.
What you want, man?
Just money.
Just money? Okay.
Just money is all I need.
[William] My dad,
he had many different jobs.
He was a senator at first.
Once he stopped being a senator,
I took his little parking plate,
and I put it up there.
I don't know exactly what he does now.
He's on the computer a lot.
Back and forth, communicating.
Stuff like that.
I don't think I could sit at a desk.
I gotta move.
Right now, I buy a lot of shoes and stuff.
There's my main problem.
If I could stop buying shoes, I'd be fine.
They're still in good shape.
I try to keep 'em brand-new,
as much as I can.
I got some Yeezy's 350s right here.
I like an all-black shoe
with a little red on it.
The most I've probably spent
on a pair of shoes?
I don't wanna tell you. I'm embarrassed.
If I could work my way up
to, like, maybe 150,000 a year,
six figures,
a little bit over that, I'd be fine.
Honestly, I think I can get there.
It won't be that hard.
So, I think it would be fine.
[Kennedy] Hey, Snugglebox!
He's actually a little upset.
[Kennedy] He barks at my dad's golf clubs.
[Bobbie Ann]
Have you got your samples together?
Oh, yeah. I have the samples all ready.
I want to be an esthetician.
I really enjoy, um,
making my own products.
I started making this soap.
Once we got consistent results,
I was like, "This is what I want to do.
This is what I want my life to be like."
They don't believe in
working a nine-to-five, like we've done.
They want the flexibility.
They want to be in United States today.
Tomorrow, they want to be in Cabo.
You know, uh, Dubai.
And they want to make it here and now.
And we had a community
where his grandma, my mom
they did not work.
So, they helped take care
of our kids a lot.
They had to, because we both traveled.
I traveled practically 100% of the time,
working with Corporate America. So
I'mma drink a mimosa.
You wanna drink a mimosa with me?
Pass me the champagne and orange juice.
You probably gonna
make more money than me.
Money is not a motive for anything.
It's not, but you need it.
[Kennedy] Just like you make money,
we can make money.
[Kenny] I understand that.
The trust funds that are there now,
they've been put there so
you could have something to start with.
[Bobbie Ann] As opposed to us.
[Kenny] Oh, we started at the back.
[chuckling]
- We started at the back.
- [Bobbie Ann] Yeah.
- [Kenny] I wasn't trained or nothing.
- [Bobbie] Nothing.
Move!
[Kenny] Good Saturday morning.
It's a great Saturday morning.
Put that omelet on there for me, William.
Please, sir.
[Kenny] I enjoy being with my family,
because I missed so much of that.
Being elected, you're always constantly
You have to be somewhere. You're gone.
You're doing this, you're doing that.
That process wears you down.
When we go play golf, and I see
a father bring his little son with him,
it makes me feel like I missed a lot.
And while you're out there
dealing with everybody else,
you're kind of missing
a whole lot that's going on around you.
And that's your main sacrifice.
So, I'm kinda getting back to that now,
where I can be a thorn in their side
for whatever time I got left.
So, I'm enjoying life
a lot more these days.
Not being hectic.
Every hour, every minute,
and having to do this and do that.
[Carl] It's been a while
since we've talked.
I wanted to maybe start
by just kind of checking in
on working in this,
kind of, technical manager role.
And sort of, you know,
seeing your time shift
from the individual contributor
to leading your team.
Yeah, I think it's been interesting.
Um, I think there's pluses and challenges.
For obvious reasons, you get
less connection with the founders
or with the directors, right?
These are people we look up to,
and why we joined the company.
I'm curious about
how we can enable more connections.
We've grown a lot, and this isn't
being an academic research lab.
We're building a product.
I've been thinking that
that could be useful with leaders,
but actually, also, just across team.
We've set up the horizontal virtual teams,
reaching across the other teams.
These things are really important
for you to allocate time on
- Yeah.
- and you have to be disciplined.
It can be helpful to actually
write these things down.
"What is most important?"
"What am I actually doing?"
Exercise can be helpful there.
Yeah, it's useful, thanks.
That's a good tip. I've Yep.
[babble-singing]
Isha, are you a parrot?
[Ishaan continues singing]
Isha baby.
- Isha baby?
- Baby?
Ishaan, can you read
the Little Boat instead?
Little Boat.
Isha, let's read Little Boat.
- Isha phone tashi
- [Ishaan cries]
[Karthik] Yeah.
Ish Oh, baby.
One!
Whoa!
[Ishaan] One, two, three.
Whoa! [laughing]
[Karthik] I think a lot of people see me
as happy-go-lucky. I get that a lot.
My wife,
and probably the rest of my family,
has a very different impression.
When I joined Aurora,
I was coming off
a big personal low in grad school.
I call it first-world stress.
I think there were
days when I wouldn't get out of bed.
I had this whole paralysis phase of,
"I'm not good enough.
I'll never get a job."
"I'm never gonna do anything,
I'm not good for anything," and whatnot.
And when I got my job,
the manager shook my hand and was like,
"We have so many things
we need you to get done."
And just, within a day,
I just snapped out of it and was great.
I've been thinking about
impact in many ways.
I think of my career
as gathering different experiences.
To make an analogy with traveling,
there are people that get a timeshare in
one fancy resort in one part of the world,
and every vacation
is to that place, to the same pool.
But the rest of us want a vacation
in a new country every time.
Why wouldn't you
wanna do that with your career?
At the end of a career, can I look back
and be proud of what I put my name on?
[Obama] Once we have
enough to survive, what's next?
What does it take to feel satisfied?
For many of us,
it's about trying to find meaning.
Meaning is still a relatively new idea.
My generation was the first one
to really look for meaning in work.
And even then, it wasn't something
we expected to achieve right away.
We knew we would
have to grind it out first.
Sometimes, in jobs we didn't like.
My daughter's generation
wants meaning from the start.
And I admit, sometimes,
I'm surprised by their expectations.
Many of today's knowledge workers
have climbed high enough
that they can see the top.
And with in-demand skills,
they have a tendency
to fixate on climbing even higher.
But in the drive for personal achievement,
we can lose sight of the bigger picture.
The broader world.
When you have it all, what responsibility
do you have to other people?
[Kenny] This is the street
that I grew up on.
You knew everybody by name.
I went to high school here.
This is where I would play football.
Those were good years.
Now, we are experiencing crimes that
you would normally see in larger areas.
It's the lack
of educational opportunities.
It's the lack of economic development.
There are a whole lot of dollar stores.
We don't need dollar stores.
We need industry that's gonna
produce, uh, jobs for people.
So that people can work
out of this community their whole life
and make a decent income.
You know, $600,000,000
could be in Mississippi right now.
With Medicaid expansion.
Jobs everywhere.
That's why the work that I'm doing
for At Home Care is so important.
That's how you develop a community.
I've come back here now
because it's still home.
I didn't necessarily have a clear path.
I just had people who were pushing me
along the path in the right direction.
My mama was away at college
and my grandmama raised me.
My grandmother worked
in white people's houses.
She was ironing and cleaning,
and pretty much raising their children,
because she always told me stories
about the children and who was my age.
I knew their names
like they were in my house.
But did I ever meet them? No, I did not.
You know, because of how we come up,
and all the old ghosts of the South.
I remember when I was in college,
and I knocked on the door,
and they told me
that I had to go through the back.
I said, "Why am I going through the back?
I'm looking for my mom and grandma."
She said, "No Black people can be here."
I was kind of like, "Well, Mama,
how much do they pay you?"
Because I was going to
give her the same thing not to go.
They never said, "Thank you."
I knew it hurt her.
But those are conversations
that I left alone. So
You know,
I'm grateful for everything. Everything.
But I know where I'm from,
and I know where my roots are.
And that's where I'll always be.
["Jazz Nightly" by Ronald Aspery plays]
[music stops]
[Jeffrey] What's the menu,
François-Olivier?
[François] It's your favorite,
penne arrabbiata.
[Jeffrey] Okay.
Farm tomatoes
from New Jersey and mozzarella.
[Jeffrey] You've got booze covered?
- [François] Yes.
- [Jeffrey] All right.
This is normally what happens,
he's in the kitchen, cooking.
And I'm sitting here
telling him what he's doing wrong.
Twenty-one years.
- Twenty-one years.
- [François] Twenty-one years.
[Jeffrey] Love at first sight.
He's actually happy in the kitchen.
He's a natural for his business.
[sizzling]
I've absolutely seen him
pull his That French charm
on problematic people.
Like, they're mad, they're angry.
And François, all of a sudden,
gets very tall and very French.
And you watch just like, "Ooh,"
you know, they melt.
Particularly women of a certain age.
Busboys and stuff
come out years and years later.
They're crazy about him, these people.
They all are.
He actually gives a shit.
This is not someone
who wants to retire and sit back
No, he never does nothing.
It's infuriating.
If you didn't get him out of the city,
every day, he'd go in.
I'd go in for a few hours.
That's when I got the idea
to get the house in the country.
To get us out of the city.
Now, he drags me out there
because he's got to go
and play with his petunias.
He's got to. It's necessary.
- Sorry, was that an eye-roll, François?
- Mm-hmm.
[knocking on door]
- Bonsoir.
- Bonsoir. [laughs]
Why, I'd never in a billion years
Hi.
Are you visiting the old haunt?
[Jeff] It's vanilla and dulce de leche.
Look at us, like ten-year-olds.
Very exciting.
[Jeffrey] Look at that blank slate.
You couldn't write something on it?
- [François] I'll have a French martini.
- [Jeff] Of course you will.
[François]
So, what have you done this summer?
Work, work, work, work, work.
But, you're going out
to the North Fork a lot, right?
And working. [laughs]
- [Jeffrey] From North Fork?
- Yeah.
It's the special glass.
- It's a different drink.
- Cheers.
Mm.
[Alberto] Oh! That works.
- Sit. I'll go pick wine.
- You have to come see us.
[François] Oh my God.
I know what we should drink.
This was given to me by the winemaker
when I worked at
the Four Seasons in Milan.
A gift from the guy who made it.
[Jeff] We have a can of Budweiser we've
been saving for 12 months in our fridge.
Come on over.
[Alberto] When we bought
our apartment in this building,
it was the first time we had a dishwasher.
The things that we have
in our 1,200-square-foot apartment
feels like a small home
anywhere else in America, essentially.
- Yeah.
- Twelve hundred.
- We're 1,360.
- [Alberto laughs]
- You had good fortune coming up.
- [Jeffrey] I did have fortune coming up.
I had a master's degree
in computer science,
was doing parallel processing
on an N-Cube mass multicomputer.
I got a job in mortgage-backed securities.
We're still living off that money.
[Jeff] I moved to New York.
I slung lasagna at
a crappy Italian restaurant in Chelsea.
[Jeffrey] In Chelsea?
Couldn't pay rent. I was a crappy waiter,
wasn't bringing in money.
[Alberto] I do think that because
we kind of arrived with very little,
I think that we are pretty happy.
- There's always possibility for more
- And we see it, actually.
[Jeffrey] And you're right
We are next to it, so we're exposed.
We can see what the next echelon is like.
[Alberto] But I also think
to be in that top world,
it's just a constant greasing the wheel.
It's, like, a constant glad-handing,
making sure you're connected
to the right people,
and showing up at the right things.
The life we have built
is very much, like, who we are.
The next step-up,
you stop trusting people.
I see that all the time.
[Alberto] Wealthy people
I come in contact with,
as much as they have, they're still
sort of noticing what they don't have.
- [Jeffrey] A never-ending chase.
- [Alberto] Never-ending, exactly.
Most of what I do, what I have,
is because of who I represent.
Like, I work with
such a diverse workforce.
I'm surrounded by people
whose story is unbelievable.
Minorities, people of color,
Indigenous people
The minute you scratch the surface,
everybody has something interesting,
and that's what I love about New York.
Then we feel like,
this is actually not my story
It is a thousand stories
Five hundred stories, actually.
I've always felt more,
like, my story didn't matter.
Because, honestly,
my path was, like, laid out for me.
I mean, whether I decided to go
down there or not was almost my choice.
I thought I worked so hard,
but it was really
It was there.
"Do you want to go there? There it is."
That choice is not
given to too many people.
I feel a level of responsibility.
All these customers,
all the people who I work with,
I mean, it's all of them who
And I'm the only one who's their face.
It's because of all these people
that I am drinking a glass of champagne
in Dubai somewhere,
representing the Pierre.
I don't even know
if I should be the face, but I am.
It's really special.
[Apoorva] Ishaan,
do you want to say hi to a new friend?
That's President Obama.
He's not that excited.
He's got work to do.
[laughter]
- You got a little barbecue going on here?
- [Apoorva] We do.
[Obama] I'm not gonna have too much.
- Just gonna sample.
- [Apoorva] Yes.
- Should I just put it?
- [Obama] Just put it on the plate.
This is delicious.
[Apoorva] I'm glad. So glad you like them.
[Obama] I'll give you both credit,
though I know that probably
- He helped.
- I shopped.
- [Obama] The helper.
- Yes.
- Critical contribution.
- Yeah.
So, Karthik, you ended up
early at Aurora, right?
- You were one of the earliest employees.
- Yeah, first 20, something like that.
Things couldn't have gone better for you.
You were sort of moving and shaking.
What made you think, "Now I should leave"?
I don't know. I saw Aurora grow
from a very tiny family
to, like, a really, like
It's established.
Aurora is here now, and it's like,
it was on the way to success.
A new company called Zipline contacted me,
and it felt like a chance to see
robotics making an impact today.
- So, I decided, "I'm gonna make the move."
- [Obama] Yeah.
It was not an easy decision.
[Obama] So, you guys are
the prototypical knowledge workers.
Huge demand for your skill set.
- There's always gonna be a job for you.
- It's a position of privilege.
There's a floor
beneath which you cannot sink.
I'm wondering whether
being in that position
puts more pressure on you,
almost to, like,
ask yourself questions about,
"What's going to be satisfying to me?"
It's a high-class problem to have,
but whether you
start thinking in terms of,
"Man, I really better be fulfilled
because look how privileged I am here."
There's many things I could do
that put food on the table, right?
So, then we start thinking about
I said impact.
Learning. Am I working with
the smartest people in my field?
- Right.
- How much I can influence the company.
In a larger company,
you're a drop in the ocean,
but you have lots of resources.
- Right.
- In a smaller place, uh
The decisions you make
impact the future of this entire company.
These are standard dinner conversations
and I don't know that I have an answer.
[Obama] And these are questions that
just a generation ago,
people would never have.
My dad was at the same company
for 25 years.
And to him, this new culture of changing
companies every three or four years
is a bit weird.
He didn't have
as much flexibility thinking,
"What's my passion?
Where can I get the most learning?"
I grew up watching my dad
define himself through work.
That trickled down.
Apoorva's got a little better at carving
out different identities for herself.
She tells me,
"Work isn't your only identity."
She seems more well-rounded than you.
[Karthik] I would agree. Yeah. [chuckles]
If you were to go back and do things over
from 30, which is how old I am,
what would be the first piece of advice?
Part of my advice would probably be,
you know, just relax.
Okay. [chuckles]
I mean, do the things
that are meaningful to you,
take them seriously.
But don't operate so much as if you need
to prove something to somebody else.
And I think,
when you're still in your thirties,
um, sometimes you're still spending
a lot of time thinking about
what other people want you to be,
as opposed to knowing what you want to be.
I think there are a lot of ways
of impacting the world.
A lot of young people are
in a great hurry to say, "I am impactful."
And I think impact is built over time.
It's a series of steps. It's, um
That add up when you look back.
And you say, "Oh, you know,
I guess that made a difference."
- High five!
- High five!
There you go.
- High five!
- [chuckles]
[Obama] We all have the power
to make an impact on the world.
But what if, instead of running a team,
you're in charge of the whole company?
[cheering]
[Obama] The higher you climb,
the higher the stakes.
What if your decisions
affected millions of lives?
What does a unicorn really look like?
Once you've made it to the top, then what?
[closing theme music playing]