Larry Kramer Episode One — Transcript
Kirk: [00:00:00] Welcome to Let’s Hear It.
Eric: Let’s Hear It is a podcast for and about the field of foundation and nonprofit communications, produced by its two co-hosts, Eric Brown and Kirk Brown, no relation.
Kirk: Well said, Eric. And I’m Kirk.
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Eric: So let’s get onto the show. This is our first podcast for—
Kirk: —our new podcast, Let’s Hear It, and we’re so happy to have you all here. And, Eric, you’re launching us the right [00:01:00] way with this conversation you’ve had with your old boss, Larry Kramer. But before we go there, why don’t you tell people a little bit about what we’re trying to do with this podcast?
Eric: I don’t know, Kirk, what are we trying to do with this podcast? Other than fiddle around with dials and buttons and things like that.
Kirk: This is all your fault.
Eric: This is all my fault. Also, by the way, wasn’t it fun to hear us do that intro read? I thought it was partnership. I felt like the Harlem Globetrotters, just passing the ball back and forth.
Kirk: Spinning it.
Eric: Spinning it. Sweet Georgia—
Kirk: —Brown.
Eric: Anyway, so what is this podcast? To be perfectly honest with you, what we’ve tried to do, I think, is to have the kind of conversations with people that we wished we were able to listen to when we were just young badgers in the communications field. Do I have that right?
Kirk: Yeah. [00:02:00] And actually, you know what? I think the backstory, too, is that we got started talking about this around the Communications Network Conference — at least for me, as kind of a reference point, because you and I actually did a Communications Network Conference—
Eric: That’s right.
Kirk: —years ago.
Eric: That one was in black and white.
Kirk: And there were maybe… I always say there were 50 or 75 people in the room. Do you think that’s a fair comment? If you include the—
Eric: The waiters.
Kirk: Yeah, the guys, the people that—
Eric: —pouring the water.
Kirk: That’s right. Exactly.
Eric: There might’ve been 50.
Kirk: And we were talking about the conference that came into San Francisco, where we’re both based, in 2018. And what’s the head count for that now, Eric?
Eric: A thousand. Probably a thousand people.
Kirk: Yeah. Which is such a testament to all the work that the Communications Network and everybody’s been doing to grow that as a resource, and it’s awesome. But at least my feeling about that is, if I walked into a room of a thousand people as a [00:03:00] first-timer—
Eric: You’d be scared?
Kirk: I’m getting lost. Yeah. Terrified.
Eric: But, Kirk, you are so intimidating. You’re from the Midwest, so you’re a badass.
Kirk: Oh, that’s right.
Eric: I’m telling you, I’m scared to death every time I see you. You just freak me out.
Kirk: Yeah. You know, many people are scared every time they see me. But I think this suddenly became a different podcast. So we thought… And actually, I thought, “You know, Eric knows everybody because he’s such a nice guy. He’s been around such a long time. He’s done such good work. Let’s just ride your coattails. Let’s see who will talk to Eric, and let’s all listen in.” Because I also think there’s not only intimacy — it’s so big, but it’s also familiarity. And there’s a kind of conversation that you can be part of once you know people for a long time and you have some shared history. Would it be possible to use this podcast as a way to kind of short-circuit that?
Eric: That’s right. People will talk to me and they forget that there are gonna be at [00:04:00] least 10 more people who get to hear that conversation, and they say all sorts of incredibly embarrassing things. But what we are trying to do is have a kind of human conversation. Often you go to a conference or you go to some meeting, and what you get are comments meant for public consumption in a different type of way. Or even just — the venue itself doesn’t always lend itself to the sort of conversations that I hope we’re going to be able to have over the course of this enterprise.
Kirk: Yeah, that’s right. And frankly, that’s what’s been coming across. We’ll segue in a moment to what you have done here with Larry, who is so generous to spend time talking about this. But I think our goal is to get a few of these out on a pretty regular basis and, in a sense, have it be a journey — just a process of discovery where we can all together get to know [00:05:00] people and hear about what they’re doing, see the work they’re doing, and hopefully learn something. But you’ve been clear about this. You would like this to be fun, exciting, and engaging. So we’re gonna be hearing a lot from you.
Eric: We’re gonna be—
Kirk: —listening.
Eric: Kirk, you want it to be a journey of discovery in which you cue the journey-of-discovery music. A lot of strings.
Kirk: I do.
Eric: I want it to be—
Kirk: Orchestral.
Eric: —as, I don’t know what. Not the journey of discovery. I want to discover — I wanna be stupider when it’s over than when I started.
Kirk: Slapstick.
Eric: That was my goal: to drain my brain of information.
Kirk: Good goals.
Eric: So between the two of us, who knows what’s going to happen. But I do think the point is that it ought to be interesting and fun to listen to. And it is true that the people we are going to be speaking with are really interesting people who have a lot to say. So kind of despite my own silliness, they actually [00:06:00] are able to share useful information and meaningful stories, I hope.
Kirk: Well, absolutely. And I think you just gave us the best segue, because our first guest here—
Eric: I’m the segue king.
Kirk: —Larry Kramer from the Hewlett Foundation. Interesting person, has a lot to say. I think that’s fair to say.
Eric: Yeah. Larry Kramer, wallflower. Not. No, Larry is one of the most interesting people. On his worst day he’s incredibly interesting, and on his best day, the top of your head will come off. He’s really, really smart. He was my boss for a couple of years at the end of my time at the Hewlett Foundation, and one of the worst things in life is having a boss who’s 10 times smarter than you are, ’cause you can never really measure up. But the wonderful thing about his brain is how quickly it works, and he took to philanthropy very quickly. I think he has emerged in the two years since he has been— [00:07:00] Oh, sorry, now it’s been five or six. I was with him for two, and then I’ve been gone for four or so. But in the five or six years since he’s been the president of the Hewlett Foundation, I really think that he has helped change the way some people think about philanthropy, and he has certainly been an exciting communicator.
Kirk: And willing to take public stands on some really important issues that Hewlett had already been engaged with, but also bring some new programming into focus there, too. As somebody who’s been around Hewlett for a while, it was really awesome to be able to listen to this conversation. I think it’s a conversation that only a handful of people in the world literally could have had with Larry.
Eric: I have a feeling anybody who wanders into his office can have one. Basically, if you call him up, he’ll say, “Sure. Come on over, let’s chat.”
Kirk: There you go.
Eric: But this conversation happened summer of 2018, so it’s [00:08:00] an old conversation. But what he says is as meaningful and relevant today as it ever was. And it happens that now, as we record this and we’re about to release the interview, he has just published an essay on the Hewlett website. What we’re gonna do is a special episode, just you and me talking about this essay. But, Kirk, can you give us a little preview of what that conversation is gonna be?
Kirk: So our special episode is gonna be looking at Larry’s call, basically, to all of us to examine what it is to listen with empathy. And there’s a lot going on in that essay, not to mention how Hewlett is starting to use its own platform to project its values forward. There’s a lot to talk about in it. So we’ll deconstruct it. And if you happen to hear this and happen to have a chance to jump to the Hewlett website, you’ll find it on the site. And [00:09:00] it’s certainly well worth the read, so we’d encourage you to read it.
Eric: It’s fascinating stuff. Larry’s a great writer. And as you’re about to find out, he’s a really interesting conversationalist. And lest you wanna turn it off ’cause now you’ve heard all the fun stuff — keep listening. We talk about the Beatles. We talk about hold music for the Hewlett Foundation. We talk about… What else do we talk about? We talk about his mother. No conversation with Larry does not include some reference to his mother and her hopes for his improvement as a human being. What else do we need to do before we go to the actual conversation?
Kirk: I think that’s it. Eric and Larry will talk, and then we’ll come back and chat a bit more about the interview. And that’ll be the format for the podcast moving forward. So thanks again to the Knight Foundation for [00:10:00] supporting this work. Thanks again to all of the people helping us pull this together. And Mr. Brown, thank you. All right. Let’s hear it.
Eric: I’m here with my former boss and our guest, Larry Kramer, who’s the president and CEO — or what are you? The president and CEO?
Larry: Just the president.
Eric: Just the president. Someday, if you work hard enough, you get to be CEO of the Hewlett Foundation. And Larry’s been generous enough to sit with us for a little while. Just to remind you of the format, we’re just gonna turn this thing on, and then 15 minutes later we’re gonna turn it off. So we’re not editing unless — like, if you go into a sneezing fit—
Larry: Okay.
Eric: —we might consider doing a little snip.
Larry: If I can cuss as much as I want and just let it off?
Eric: You can do whatever you want, assuming that you don’t say anything that’s gonna cost you your job.
Larry: Right.
Eric: If you really worry, we’ll turn it off. But anyway, so I’m here with Larry. We’re heading into the Communications Network Conference in October in San Francisco, so we’ll be bringing together communications people from nonprofits and [00:11:00] foundations. And I just think that people would be fascinated to hear from you, running one of the country’s largest foundations. What are the things that you’re thinking about? What are the issues that are interesting to you? And maybe we’ll talk a little bit about the Beatles or—
Larry: Sure.
Eric: —or something else.
Larry: I think about the Beatles all the time.
Eric: I know. Like, the application of the Beatles to philanthropy.
Larry: You know, I’ve been trying really hard to… Actually, I really wanted to get our hold music to be, like, “Can’t Buy Me Love.” “Never Give Me Your Money.” And “Money” — they did that cover. And we couldn’t get the rights.
Eric: You couldn’t get the—
Larry: They wouldn’t let us do it, no.
Eric: Did the foundation ever consider buying the Beatles’ songbook so they could—
Larry: That’s a little more than I think I could justify for the board.
Eric: Do you think that wouldn’t…
Larry: No, I don’t think that would’ve gone—
Eric: —could maybe get the investment team. It’s an asset.
Larry: I haven’t tried that, I will confess. Then we tried Pink Floyd, to get their song “Money.” I just think it would be fun to have the hold music. “Can’t Buy Me Love” is perfect.
Eric: Yes.
Larry: Right? So so far we’ve failed in all efforts to get a [00:12:00] good, fun song on our hold.
Eric: You know, you fund the performing arts, right?
Larry: Yes. I know. I tried to get their help to—
Eric: —fund a contest.
Larry: But no, I’d want a new song.
Eric: Make it a song that will become important.
Larry: You know? Hold music. Only a handful of people hear it, and they only hear a snippet, so it would have to be something people instantly hear and think is funny, right? We thought of all the old classic songs that are kind of about money.
Eric: Ah. Oh, well.
Larry: Yeah.
Eric: You know, it’s funny, speaking of money — I remember Paul, your predecessor. Paul’s photo—
Larry: I still have that. He left it on my desk. When I got here, my desk was empty except for that saying Paul left. Is that what you’re talking about?
Eric: No, no, it’s another one. It was his picture that was on the website, and it was this look. Some people think that Paul’s a little imperious, or can be—
Larry: They clearly don’t know him.
Eric: No, they know. But at first blush, they’re very intimidated by him, and the photo that he had on the website when I first started at the foundation [00:13:00] did nothing to dissuade that misperception. He had this look on his face that he was about to say, “No, you can’t have the money.” And so we got a new picture taken. The new picture was slightly softer, in which the look on his face said, “Well, you’re probably not gonna get the money.” And that was the best that we could get out of Paul.
Larry: Mine just makes me look fat.
Eric: Do these pants make me look fat? All right. Let’s start by nominally talking about communications, and then we can talk about other stuff. I mean, what—
Larry: Can I confess I’ve never really understood what communications means?
Eric: That’s exactly my question for you. What is this thing? What do you think—
Larry: It’s like a buzzword.
Eric: Like, okay, what do you think it means, or what should it mean?
Larry: I’ve come to understand it better. So there’s all the things that I never… I came from a university, so in universities people loathe that language — brands and all of that stuff. So there’s that piece. The part that obviously is really good and important is we’re trying to change people’s [00:14:00] minds and what they do, and their hearts, and how you communicate with them is a huge part of that. So I get that now. And actually, as you know, when you were here at Hewlett, we had really bad communications for a really long time. So when we were finally able to… When you left, it was really an opportunity to change the role of communications in the foundation from what it had been. So that required some conversation with the board — but the idea of really building into the programs that communications is part of the strategy, and it’s taken the programs a while to figure out what that means and how to do it. So it’s simple and complicated at the same time.
Eric: You know, it’s funny because you almost have to get a new person to come in with a new strategy. Is that the inflection point?
Larry: Well, yeah. A change of people is always an opportunity, but there was more in this case, right? Because before you there was zero, and you came in in that period when it was like, “We don’t communicate,” right? “We [00:15:00] give our grantees money. We let them speak. We don’t do anything.” And so your leaving was not just an opportunity to have a new person to rethink, but it was really to go to the board and say, “You know, we should rethink this whole thing. Sometimes we actually do need to use our voice.” And it was an interesting conversation.
Eric: Who do you think that we should use our voice with? Who are you trying to influence as the foundation, in its voice?
Larry: It depends on the strategy. In some — like in Madison, especially at the beginning — we were the only voice out there, so we were using our voice to kind of try and influence everybody. At least get people saying, “Oh, this is a problem,” and, “Oh, maybe we should think about it that way.” So that’s an area in which we were speaking to multiple audiences.
Eric: And the Madison Initiative is the foundation’s initiative to try and save American democracy.
Larry: Yeah, fixing democracy. I love to say that, and when I’d say it in crowds I’d get a laugh. Actually, it would be, “We’re trying to fix Congress.” That got a bigger laugh.
Eric: Yeah.
Larry: But yeah, that is what we’re [00:16:00] trying to do.
Eric: So make democracy great again?
Larry: Well, at least that would make it minimally functional again. That’s what I’ll settle for. Make democracy min— although I do have a hat over there that says, “Make Congress Great Again.”
Eric: Or make democracy exist again?
Larry: And then for others, we’re just trying to communicate to our grantees, and for a lot of them, we’re trying to actually help our grantees communicate better, right? Sometimes that’s each of them communicating their strategies, but sometimes it’s their communications sort of cohering around our strategy — the larger message. So if you take something like our education strategy on deeper learning, no particular grantee is doing deeper learning. They’re all doing pieces of it. But we need a message out there, which is that the culture of education needs to change to focus more on teaching students how to think and less on content, and so on.
Eric: And are there areas that you think you’re getting somewhere? Like, when it works, is this the “I’ll know it when I see it” [00:17:00] model? Can you give me any examples where you think the communications has been effective?
Larry: No. It’s not that I can’t.
Eric: It’s that I won’t.
Larry: Well, no. It’s that in a lot of areas — it’d be the same question if you asked me about our grantmaking, because we’re not the only grantmaker or communicator in any of these areas. So I’m loath to say, “Yes, us.” Right? But I think communications broadly in climate has been hugely important and successful. Everything from increasing awareness of the problem, to not having happen in Paris what happened in Copenhagen — and that was absolutely a smart communications strategy that was well coordinated. Same thing in democracy. I do think awareness of the problem has increased. I think we were the first in, and so that had some play, but obviously lots of others have come in since. And same thing in cybersecurity. So in those areas I can say I think it mattered, because we started it, and other people have gone, “Oh, [00:18:00] yeah, yeah,” and have come into the field. Now, they might have had we not done it. But you never know for sure. And then when you get into the more complex strategies, again, we’re one voice among many. So what I can say is, as with our grantmaking, I’m not sure. I can’t show you the… You couldn’t do a study to prove causally that it was our communications or our grants, but I’m comfortable enough that I would not have done it otherwise. That may be the most you can ask for.
Eric: Yeah, I think so. It’s impossible. You can’t take a core sample or a DNA of the message that made it—
Larry: Right. And if you make your best guess, you’re like, “I’m pretty sure we’re better off for having done this than had we not done it.”
Eric: Yeah. Well, with deeper learning, you coined the phrase, you created—
Larry: It’s become a problem, though.
Eric: Yeah.
Larry: We’re trying to get away from it now, because it has taken on… This is the problem with communications, you know? Words, phrases become loaded, and then people think they know what you’re saying before you’re finished and they stop listening. Diversity, equity, and inclusion — I tried very [00:19:00] hard when we started all our work in the foundation around that to use some other language, not because I think there’s anything wrong with it as such, but because everybody thinks they already know what you’re talking about. And so it’s hard to really have the full kind of conversation you wanna have.
Eric: Yeah. Well, I believe that about jargon anyway. Because jargon just allows you to not say anything. You just kind of use a phrase that everyone believes that they—
Larry: Well, some—
Eric: They hang their own hopes and dreams on it.
Larry: Yes. But some things become jargon against your will. That’s what happened with deeper learning. We don’t want it to be jargon.
Eric: That’s right.
Larry: You know?
Eric: But you still have to explain it. When you talk about deeper learning, you have to explain what your version of it actually means.
Larry: Yes. But we’re now at the point where a lot of people think they already know that, so when you do that, they’re not hearing you.
Eric: Got it. Well, that makes sense. All right, so enough about communications. That was so exciting. What I’d much rather talk about is just you, ’cause you’re an interesting guy. Nobody wakes up, nobody graduates from fifth grade and says, “Mom, I wanna be a foundation—”
Larry: No, I didn’t have that happen till [00:20:00] seventh.
Eric: The seventh grade. But you tell a very funny story about the first day at the foundation.
Larry: You mean with my mom?
Eric: With your mom.
Larry: I mean, all of my good stories are with my mom. So I was dean at the law school.
Eric: At Stanford Law.
Larry: Yeah. The deeper background is my mom, being a Jewish mother of that generation, had wanted me to be a doctor and never forgave me — still hasn’t, really — for not becoming a doctor. So when I went to law school, that was like a deep second best. When I became an academic, that was a huge disappointment to her. It was only when I became dean at the law school that she said to me, “Maybe you didn’t ruin your life.” That’s a quote. “Maybe you didn’t ruin your life after all.” And so then, when eight years later I called her to tell her that I was leaving the law school to become president at the Hewlett Foundation, she said to me, “Well, okay. I’m sure it’s a good decision if you made it, but if you ask me, being dean of Stanford Law School is a lot more prestigious and important.” To which I thought, “Well, of course, that’s always been the [00:21:00] basis for my career choices — what you think is impressive and important.” I didn’t say that. All I said was, “Well, Mom, go take a look. I have to go to a meeting.” I had to go tell the provost I was leaving, and I said, “So go take a look at the website and I’ll call you later.” And when I called her later, she was kind of in tears. And she got it.
Eric: Well, ’cause she didn’t like the website. It was a pretty bad website. Oh my God, you gotta redo your website, Larry.
Larry: We had this awful communications office then. We did redo the website. No, she had never… So what I said to the staff my first day here was, I love the fact that she had never heard of the Hewlett Foundation, but that when she understood what it did, she thought it was moving. Because I think, for me personally, I’m very consistent with the value this place has of not really wanting to be self-promotional. Although I will say, not because I’m that good a person — I want people to say great things about me, just not to my face, ’cause I find that embarrassing. So I wanna hear it secondhand.
Eric: You don’t [00:22:00] seem embarrassed when people say great things.
Larry: Oh, God, it’s so uncomfortable. I hate… No, seriously, it is one of the most uncomfortable things for me. So I want them to tell somebody else who could tell me.
Eric: Oh, that’s good.
Larry: Yeah.
Eric: Well, it’s funny, because people have always said — often you hear that we want the foundation to get its name out there to the public so that they better understand what we do. But I had never agreed with that, because I don’t think the public’s our audience. Did I ever tell you the story about my father-in-law?
Larry: No.
Eric: So one day when Meg Whitman became CEO of HP, my father-in-law called my wife. Well, first he called HP, because he thought I worked for HP. And there was no Eric Brown there. Amazingly, there was no Eric Brown at HP. You’d think they’d have—
Larry: I would think there’d be an Eric Brown everywhere.
Eric: Yeah, right. But there wasn’t. And so then he called my wife and said, “I think Eric’s been fired, because I called [00:23:00] HP and…” Now, he’s been my father-in-law 28 years, and he still doesn’t know what I did when I was here. And so I thought that that was okay. If the foundation had used its limited marketing dollars, however defined, to reach my father-in-law, they would’ve been dollars wasted.
Larry: So the problem I have is I agree with that, I do, but there is… I’m not that good a person, so there is that part of me that always gets a little jealous or annoyed when some other foundation gets attention and praise for stuff that I know either we’re doing, or we’re doing as well, or I think better than them, you know? But I get it enough that I don’t then try and do that.
Eric: Right.
Larry: But, yeah, like I said, I’m not that big a person. So that’s what I love: when, unprompted by us, people pick up that we’re doing something good and praise it. I confess I like that.
Eric: Right. Well, there’s a little bit of that in almost every foundation leader, but that’s okay.
Larry: Well, personally it would be the same thing. I would actually be really appalled to have lots of praise for [00:24:00] me as opposed to for the foundation, particularly knowing that I don’t actually do anything. My daughter said to me, “What do you do all day?” And I said, “Nothing.”
Eric: So you didn’t do anything?
Larry: I make decisions. I don’t know. I hire… If I’m doing my job well, I should not be doing anything, ’cause I should have hired people who are doing such good work that I don’t need to do much of anything. Which is pretty good. I came into an organization, I think, knowing nothing about philanthropy when I came here. I could take that whole first year to learn, because — other than the ClimateWorks thing — I wasn’t doing anything. And, yeah, so it’s a great job.
Eric: Well, deep in your heart I know you don’t believe that, but that’s okay. I’ll allow you to present false modesty.
Larry: It’s not false modesty, although yes, I obviously do something. But it’s a weird job being the CEO, because in that sense I don’t do anything, you know? I create a context in which people can do good things.
Eric: You’re listening to Let’s Hear It, a podcast about foundation and [00:25:00] nonprofit communications hosted by Kirk Brown and Eric Brown. We are delighted to welcome our newest sponsor, the Stupski Foundation. Thank you for your support. You can find Let’s Hear It online at letshearitcast.com, on LinkedIn, and even on Instagram. If you’re enjoying the show, please rate us on Apple Podcasts so more people can find us. Thanks for listening. And now, back to the show.
Eric: So how did you end up in this? We’re sitting in your office, surrounded by… There’s a Spock—
Larry: There’s a couple of Spocks.
Eric: A couple of Spocks. There’s a Spock mug with his brain, and there’s another Spock brain. Remember “Spock’s Brain”?
Larry: That episode.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Larry: That’s what that’s supposed to be a metaphor for — the Spock mug. And somebody gave me that brain separately, but it just happened to fit perfectly.
Eric: I see. And you have some Supreme Court bobbleheads, I see. It is a rather nontraditional foundation CEO’s office.
Larry: What happened was, when I started teaching, the very first day of [00:26:00] my first class, I was so nervous I brought this little toy. It was a stuffed little Fred Flintstone doll. It’s gotta be around here somewhere. If I felt like things were going really badly, I would just hold it up and people would laugh, and I would be okay — which I did, and they did, and I was. But after that, students started giving me toys, all sorts of toys, and then it became the thing. So I have boxes and boxes of it. There’s like 10 boxes downstairs that I didn’t have room for in this office.
Eric: Really?
Larry: Yeah. And these are mostly things since I came to the foundation.
Eric: Oh. And including something I gave you. Maybe at the end of the interview—
Larry: We’ll play it?
Eric: We’ll play out Mr. Apology.
Larry: Yeah, sure.
Eric: But so how did you get here?
Larry: You know, I was an academic. The big move was from being an academic to being a dean. ‘Cause as an academic, I did my own research and my own teaching. I controlled my classroom. I was really doing it for myself. I enjoyed that hugely. I loved writing. I [00:27:00] loved teaching. I still teach. But it was clear to me that I was not going to be one for the ages. It felt good for me, but I wasn’t really contributing to the world. So the opportunity to be dean was a chance to really help shape an institution that I think is important. But it also meant — then, what’s the job of a dean? I had a pile of resources. My job was to give it to other people to enhance their work. That’s essentially this job. So it was less of a change to go from dean to president here than it was to go from professor to dean. Although, getting here, I discovered — like most people, I came in thinking philanthropy would be easy, and discovered really quickly that it’s not. And there was an awful lot to learn.
Eric: What do you think are some of the big things that you’ve learned in the six years you’ve been here?
Larry: In some ways, the heart of it is: when I was dean, I could ask you for money, and if you gave it to me, I could be responsible for making sure that it did what I said it was gonna do. When I give you money, I’m [00:28:00] still responsible, but I don’t have that kind of control, and if I wanna make you do it as well as you can, I can’t exercise that kind of control. So then how do I do that? So that’s one huge issue. Another huge issue was the whole idea of understanding how to use funding to make the world move without being overly controlling of grantees. So the idea of creating an ecosystem of grantees and moving a strategy forward is really complicated. And then there’s figuring out how to make all these judgments in fields that I didn’t know that much about, that I can’t get too deeply involved in. Quality assessments in social justice and social service work are really hard. That’s not obvious or easy to make.
Eric: You know, nowadays — now, you work at an old foundation, right? This is almost old-school philanthropy, which has been called into question. I don’t know, use your own [00:29:00] definition about what people think about old-school philanthropy, but there’s a debate going on about whether kind of new philanthropy is smarter and more nimble or whatever, and whether old philanthropy is tired and hidebound. And I know you’ve had fun, really interesting debates on this.
Larry: You know, I think most of that debate is idiocy.
Eric: Yeah.
Larry: I think most of the people who think they’re doing new things aren’t doing anything new. I think most of them are making claims for doing things differently and changing the world with no evidence or indication that they’re actually doing any better, and aren’t in fact doing worse. I think there’s so much… It drives me crazy. It is the kind of thing where every once in a while I wanna slit my throat or go back to the academy, ’cause it’s like, this is crazy. But then I remember, when I was in the academy, I spent a lot of time wanting to slit my throat and leave the academy. So what I’ve decided in the end is every profession has its affectations. It’s just built in, and the ones in the academy got comfortable to me ’cause I grew up in it, whereas the ones here, I’m still new enough that some of it drives me a little crazy still. [00:30:00] So in my most rational state, what I think is there’s a lot of new philanthropists coming into the field. They don’t know that much. If I do have a criticism, it’s that most of them show no desire to actually learn, which is unfortunate. I spent my whole first year meeting people, reading, talking to people, learning. I wish they would do more of that. But in their not knowing a whole lot, they are trying a bunch of things and learning. And so some of those things may actually turn out to be good, in which case we’ll start to do them. I think, in that sense, Bill and Flora Hewlett went through that too — the world just wasn’t watching them, because they didn’t start with $30 billion. They earned that money slowly. So what changes it for a lot of these new philanthropists is they’re actually under a lens right from the beginning, with a lot of lavish newspaper stuff from people who also don’t know much about philanthropy. And that’s unfortunate, because I think it actually impedes the learning process.
Eric: And [00:31:00] who are the ones who you think are learning? Is it—
Larry: Well, I think they’re all learning. The question’s which ones are learning well.
Eric: Okay, good point.
Larry: I think everybody’s learning, so it’s probably better not to name names.
Eric: Okay, you don’t have to name names.
Larry: I mean, there are relationships with people, as I say. But people who are taking the time to actually talk to people who have been doing this for a long time, to learn from other institutions — you know who they are. And the people who come in not having done that, with these impressions… One of my favorite ones is old versus new philanthropy. Okay, that’s ridiculous. None of these things are actually new. None of them, right? Or take some of my favorites, LLCs, okay? So people are like, “An LLC, what a brilliant new invention, ’cause you can do all these things that you can’t do in a foundation.” It’s like, well, that’s true, but there’s nothing you can do through an LLC that you couldn’t do just by leaving the money in your bank account. So you haven’t actually done anything except defer the decision about when you want to put something in an endowed form and get a tax benefit or [00:32:00] not. And that’s fine. Take your time. I’m okay with that. But it’s not some new invention, and it doesn’t do anything. And so on. So you can go through each of these things, and some of them strike me as interesting, some of them strike me as potentially interesting but people haven’t thought them through enough. So for me, the big difference is who is really trying to find out what other people have done and what’s worked for them or not, as opposed to just making assumptions. You know: “There’s still poverty in the world. Obviously, philanthropy has failed.” And it’s like, come on, that’s ridiculous. Sadly, we’re not gonna solve poverty, and certainly philanthropy isn’t going to with our tiny little resources, but we can do some good stuff.
Eric: Yeah. Does that… You know, you like to get things done, I know that. And you have big ideas, which sometimes seem unmatchable by philanthropy. So saving democracy almost is tilting at windmills on a good day, and just sheer insanity on a bad day.
Larry: So here’s the way I [00:33:00] think of it. We’re clearly not gonna save democracy by ourselves, but it has to be saved. I do believe that. We can nudge a few things that, if a whole bunch of other things go our way, we’ll have played a role. So if I thought it was hopeless that those other things would go our way, I wouldn’t have suggested that we start this. I think they could, but I also think that if they do and the things that we can do haven’t been done, then it also won’t work. So it doesn’t feel to me quite like tilting at windmills. Somebody’s gotta try, right? And there is that thing about philanthropy, that we can do things that are hard for market-based organizations and governments.
Eric: And we just have a couple minutes left, but do you kind of cluck, self-satisfied but cynically, to yourself when all the cybersecurity problems came along? ‘Cause you started a program in cybersecurity somewhat before the Russians attempted to hack the U.S. [00:34:00] election.
Larry: Same thing with the democracy stuff.
Eric: But democracy was already a big problem starting—
Larry: Absolutely. Well, see, but to me, cybersecurity was too.
Eric: Was it?
Larry: Yeah.
Eric: But not on this level. I mean, people are now making a big fuss over it.
Larry: It was. I don’t know. It was like… There had only been a few of the big incidents, although if you were paying attention, Stuxnet had already happened. Sony, I think, had already happened.
Eric: Really? Oh, okay.
Larry: I think so. By 2012. I don’t remember. All I know is they both seemed equally obvious to me. So it’s not so much clucking. Actually, it’s more the opposite, which is: even now, there’s almost no funding in cybersecurity. There’s almost no funding in democracy. There’s almost no funding on climate, right? To me, I look at the world and I say, “Okay, we are facing a handful of existential threats.” And take democracy, okay? We could take for granted that we had this strong democratic system, and that enabled us to [00:35:00] indulge in the kind of work that we do, which is important when you’re sitting on that firm base. So now the firm base is not firm. It’s cracking, and it could potentially dissolve, and people are continuing just to do the same thing. Boggles my mind. To say, “Okay, don’t stop doing that — that’s obviously important, but we also need to shore up the foundation here or none of this is gonna matter.” Same thing for climate. What is the point of making progress right now on things like biodiversity, immigration, when it’s all gonna just be swamped by climate change? So you’ve got to address that. Cybersecurity to me was just the same. All these institutions that you’re working to improve, to do better — they could all be undone by this obvious threat. And there was a thing about cybersecurity that was so interesting: there was this gap that’s a classic for philanthropy to fill. Not too expensive, right? So you have government pouring money into building defenses and weapons, and you have industry pouring money into building walls and so on. [00:36:00] And that’s all fine, but the sort of thinking about how this is all supposed to work together — no one does that. And that’s a classic thing to… So that’s what we were just trying to build: that capacity in the field. And you’re not supposed to tell people what to fund. It’s, like, bad manners, right? And I get that, so I try not to. But I don’t understand — and we keep doing all of our other stuff — I don’t understand how any philanthropist cannot think that part of their work has to involve dealing with climate and has to involve dealing with the failure of democratic government. Cybersecurity I think is important. I would expect a few more funders in there. It’s not on the same level as those other two. I don’t know.
Eric: It’s funny, though. The idea that when you were dean of the Stanford Law School, which is a pretty good perch on a whole bunch of different places, climate didn’t raise to the top of your list of things that people need to care about. And you [00:37:00] could say that it got a lot worse in the last six years, but I don’t know. People knew what was going on back then. So some of it is just perception and perspective, right?
Larry: Well, I’m not talking about the general public. I’m talking about people in philanthropy. There’s nobody in philanthropy any longer who is not making a conscious choice to say, “That’s just not my priority. I’m gonna keep doing these things.” And again, I don’t wanna say to somebody, “Stop doing those things.” Those things are important too, but I think if you don’t deal with this, you’re just wasting your time and money over here, because it’s just gonna be undone. Literally undone — that’s the thing about it. And I think what holds people back is this sense that, you know, it’s like if I drop a ball, it takes a few seconds till it hits the ground. So what we’re dealing with now is dropping the ball. Yes, it hasn’t hit the ground yet. That’s not gonna happen till the future. But it’s going to happen. So if it were happening now, and I said to you, “You can solve all of this if you just do some work,” every philanthropist in the world would do it. I’m convinced it’s that sense of distance [00:38:00] and time that makes it feel less urgent. That’s the issue, even though, as I said, it’s mechanical. Ball’s gonna hit the ground.
Eric: Well, on that helpful note, with the ball about to hit the ground, I’m gonna pull out our Mr. Apology.
Larry: Okay.
Eric: We can go out on a… This is the gift I gave you. “It was all my fault.” This is the gift I gave you when I left the foundation, ’cause I knew you were gonna be apologizing for lots of things.
Larry: It’s like you never left.
Eric: That’s right. Wait, does Mr. Apology wanna speak? No, I guess he’s tired.
Larry: Oh, you have to talk to him.
Eric: “I screwed up again. I don’t deserve to live.” So do you use it a lot?
Larry: I used it a lot at the beginning, I confess. It has faded a little, although your being here reminds me to pull it out. I’ve been using my no button instead. “No. No. No. No.” I love this thing. It has 16 different ways to say—
Eric: Never mind. No. Well, thanks again, Larry. It’s been a lot of fun.
Larry: Thank you, Eric.
Kirk: Wow. Expert, right?
Eric: And Larry will tell you it’s probably [00:39:00] also been 30 years of therapy as well, and he hasn’t figured it out either.
Kirk: So the three things I think we have to say for the word go: number one, what a generous use of Larry’s time. So let’s just be clear about that. That was really nice of him, that he spent that time with you. Two, again, our purpose here is not to critique Larry or any guest, right? We’re not gonna do that. And I just wanna—
Eric: Just don’t analyze him. He won’t like it.
Kirk: Correct. And so I wanna make sure we—
Eric: Like, “Larry, tell me…”
Kirk: Yeah, exactly.
Eric: “I wanna talk about your mother.”
Kirk: I wanna make sure that we are perfectly respectful. So can I tell you the huge hit, though, that I got from this early on? It’s after you guys stopped talking about the Beatles, which by the way was in itself fascinating.
Eric: Oh, God, he loved the Beatles.
Kirk: I think that when the head of the Hewlett Foundation, after being on the job for I think six years now, can say to a professional communicator, “By the way, I didn’t really understand this communications thing,” I think that is an indictment of [00:40:00] communicators.
Eric: On me. It’s an indictment on me.
Kirk: No, not on you.
Eric: If I’m a communications person, I’d know what it means.
Kirk: No, no. See, this is… What I just heard, I’m like, “Okay, wait a minute.” So Larry is a con law scholar. He could probably give you multiple theories related to constitutional government, governance, how we interpret the Constitution, how we use that as a tool. Multiple theories, ’cause there’s a lot of discussion, et cetera. I think what’s interesting for us as communicators is that we have yet to give the field at least different frames for how to think about communications. You know?
Eric: I agree.
Kirk: That he’s not sitting down saying, “Yeah, I had, like, four or five different things I could draw from, and this is what some people said and others said, and then this is how I’ve shaken that all up into a menu that works for me.” I think the fact that we still talk about that word, communications, without any real guardrails around what it means — I think that’s not about you. I don’t think that’s about Larry. Again, I think that’s about the field and what we’ve done as communicators. Don’t you think? I mean, what do you think about that?
Eric: [00:41:00] Yeah, no, you’re right. It’s on us. It’s on us to frame… And communications is a terrible word. It just confuses people, or it gets in people’s way. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a better one yet. I can’t come up with it. But you’re right. It’s true that when we say communications, people don’t know what we’re talking about. They don’t know how foundations can use communications to advance their work, particularly. They don’t know the role that communications plays for nonprofits. And it’s a different role for each kind of organization, I think. But it’s a black box — which, in a sense, can be good, because then you get to frame something too, and then you can define your terms. But these are strangely, amazingly early days on defining our terms.
Kirk: Well, yeah, right. It’s a nimble tool that needs to adapt to the circumstances, but I think that amongst ourselves, the fact that we kind of lack some language… It’s almost like, we now know there’s a difference between good and bad cholesterol, even though I don’t know anything about cholesterol, but I can say those things and think I know what I mean. And I think that there’s a weird thing about communication. So then [00:42:00] my other thing, though, is that your ability to just have a really upfront, close, personal, and honest conversation with Larry, and just the authenticity of it — I just thought it was so awesome. Because, well, here’s the thing. I just got to listen in on a conversation with Larry that personally I’d never be able to have, not because he wouldn’t be open to it, but because we just don’t have the background or track record with each other, right? And so I almost wanna take all these interviews and not publish them. I wanna do them all and then publish them together, because there’s a certain — I don’t know — there’s an informality to it, right? There’s a warmth to it that I hope that we don’t lose as this whole thing progresses, ’cause I just thought that was incredible.
Eric: Well, I only have one other former boss that I haven’t interviewed, so there—
Kirk: Like, a two-part series of philosophers.
Eric: Yeah. But it’s gonna be interesting here, ’cause you’re right. We’ll start with the folks that… It’s kind of like a first [00:43:00] novelist.
Kirk: Uh-huh.
Eric: Or a first album.
Kirk: Yeah.
Eric: You throw every idea you ever had into that one and then you’re done. We’ll see what happens when we run out of people with whom we have deep and abiding relationships, and see if these conversations stay interesting. But that’s kind of the experiment here. It’s true, though, that having someone with whom you have some kind of personal relationship makes it fun and interesting, and you can ask questions that you would not otherwise know to ask.
Kirk: You know, and you guys jump around the different content areas that Larry’s involved with, and of course, as a leader in all those spaces — the thing that struck me in hearing that part of the discussion is, I wonder if we could actually almost have small working groups of like-minded professionals that are in some of these arenas. So the conversation about climate communications — oh my gosh, right? There’s so much that could [00:44:00] be done there. The democracy discussion — and by the way, my personal side, I think these two things are tightly linked. I think that energy politics is all in our democracy right now. As it is in our cybersecurity too. So I just wonder if at some point we wanna play with that, not just talking to the individuals, but maybe even actually getting some of our colleagues who work in these fields, maybe that don’t have a chance to collaborate together that much. I just think it might be interesting to see if we could have conversations with those folks as a whole and see how that might go. Again, it might be too hard, but maybe that could work.
Eric: Well, that’s really interesting, and this is a conversation for another day too, because I just came back from the PopTech conference—
Kirk: Mm.
Eric: —which is kind of like TED. And I’m there because I’m working with an organization called N Square, which is working on nuclear nonproliferation, and they’re partnering with folks who have nothing to do with nukes. So the Norman Lear Center — they’re working with them on getting storylines into television shows around nukes. So [00:45:00] they had a storyline on Madam Secretary with the Norman Lear Center. So the idea that these folks who are in different fields can learn from each other and use their special skills to advance issues in ways that can’t go outside their guardrails normally is really interesting. So the climate folks working with other folks who can either use communications differently or social change in a different way is infinitely interesting.
Kirk: Well, completely, because it also brings with it that discipline. I just think that sometimes — many times — I think we run the risk of getting into, air quotes, “our issue,” and now we’re running conversion events for the rest of our lives. We’re trying to convert you to our way of thinking, our worldview, right? We’re trying to move you. And instead, what we need, I think, is a better ability to listen and position these issues in the context of what really matters for people in their lives. It feels like that’s what moves the needle. But again, that’s a [00:46:00] hypothesis that we can maybe test with people as we walk and talk through this. Well, that was awesome. My last takeaway when I was thinking about this — while I was listening to it, I actually did a little search on YouTube and Google just for Larry Kramer. And it’s actually interesting what you get but what you don’t get. And one little aside: I would love to see, on the Hewlett Foundation webpage, little videos of their key people, including Larry, right by their names. Because you can get to the contact info, you can hear about them. But this whole notion of how we personalize philanthropy and how we make it more accessible — it’s interesting, like, there are readily accessible videos of just these staffers on the websites. And maybe there’s good reasons behind that, but it just struck me that that would actually be an interesting thing maybe over time.
Eric: Well, I no longer have the keys to the Hewlett website, so we’re…
Kirk: Well, we can ask Vidya—
Eric: —who does.
Kirk: We’ll throw that into the [00:47:00] ether. And then finally, I encourage anybody who’s interested to look for the @realLarryKramer Twitter handle, and actually look at the little @realLarryKramer bit that’s on the Hewlett Foundation website. It’s really, really funny. It’s basically Larry Kramer tweeting as if he’s another famous person who always wears red hats all the time, and it’s hilarious.
Eric: Whoa. I don’t even know about that.
Kirk: Oh, are you guys— It’s for April. It’s for April.
Eric: That’s nice. That’s gonna be my first read every day.
Kirk: Well, again, there’s so much we could talk about. But Eric, I just have to say personally — I’ve worked around Matt and had a chance to do a few things with Larry over the years, but that was really awesome. I’ve never had a chance to have that conversation with him, and I’m frankly grateful I got to hear it, so thank you. That was awesome.
Eric: Well, yeah. And a huge thanks to Larry, who is… I don’t know if he’s fearless or what, but he’s such a great guy. And so much [00:48:00] fun to talk to. He is one of the smartest people on earth. Do you know how horrible it is to have a boss who is smarter than you by 8:00 in the morning? It’s just so difficult. It’s like working for Thomas Jefferson or something like that.
Kirk: Yeah.
Eric: But he’s also extremely down to earth, so it made it worth it. It was fun. It was really, really fun to work with him. It was great to have that conversation.
Kirk: And if people jump to the end, make sure that you’re listening around the 23-, 24-, 25-minute mark, ’cause he really hits his stride in some of the substantive stuff he wrestles with. That’s where we could do the PhD-level conversation going forward, ’cause there’s real stuff going on there that he’s grappling with, which is very interesting to hear about.
Eric: Yeah.
Kirk: Well, thank you. I think that’s— anything else you wanna say, or is that enough for now?
Eric: No, that’s it. First episode’s in the can. How’s it feel?
Kirk: It feels great. Again, it’s so fun, and congratulations, Eric, again. It’s just awesome. Fun to be doing this with you. [00:49:00]
Kirk: Okay, everybody, that’s it for this episode. Please let us know if you have any thoughts about what you heard today or people we should have on this show, and that definitely includes yourself. And we’d like to thank John Allee, the tuneful and inspiring composer of our theme music.
Eric: Our sponsors, the Stupski Foundation and the Lumina Foundation.
Kirk: And please check out Lumina’s terrific podcast, Today’s Students, Tomorrow’s Talent, and you can find that at luminafoundation.org.
Eric: We certainly thank today’s guest and, of course, all of you.
Kirk: And most importantly, thank you, Mr. Brown.
Eric: Oh, no, no, no. Thank you, Mr. Brown.
Kirk: Okay, everybody, till next time.
Eric: Let’s hear it.