Season 2, Ep. 17 | For The Greater Good: A Conversation with Don Graves Transcript

​More Elephant Intro

[00:00:38] Jason Rudman: My guest on the More Elephant podcast and I met almost a decade ago, when he led corporate responsibility and community relations at KeyBank, overseeing a $16.5 billion community benefits plan attempting to bridge the gap between institutional capital and the communities that need it most. 

Don Graves has spent three decades at the center of American economic and national security policy as a trusted advisor to two presidents, a senior cabinet official, and one of the country's most effective practitioners of place-based economic development.

He most recently served as the 19th Deputy Secretary of Commerce in the Biden administration, where he shaped the Biden agenda on critical and emerging technologies, industrial strategy, national security, international trade, and the commercial space. He has led trade missions to Korea and Japan to deepen U.S. partnerships on semiconductors, AI, cybersecurity, and clean technology.

And President Biden named him Puerto Rico Economic Growth Coordinator, where he led a ‘whole of government’ effort across seventeen federal agencies that resulted in more than one hundred and forty billion in federal investment and one hundred thousand new jobs.

And if that were not enough, prior to KeyBank, during the Obama administration, Don was appointed by President Obama to serve as executive director of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, advising the president directly on economic strategy and American competitiveness. He was simultaneously tapped to lead the federal government's effort to stabilize Detroit during and after bankruptcy.

When I say it is an honor Don, it is truly an honor that you have found the time to join the More Elephant podcast, so we can both listen to your story and learn from you in this ever changing world that we're in. 

[00:02:27] Don Graves: Jason, I am so pleased to be with you. It is wonderful to be on the podcast and be able to spend a little time talking about really interesting issues, I think.

[00:02:36] Jason Rudman: We appreciate it. And as you know, because I know you did your homework, we always start with the origin story, a series of More Elephant moments. 

And what you and I talked about was what in your background, how you grew up, parents, grandparents, what led you to a career of service in the U.S. government?

[00:02:56] Don Graves: It's a great question. Frankly, service has been in my family's blood for generations.

A number of teachers, generations of teachers, so committed to serving the public in a different way. Folks who served in the military. But it's always been something that my parents imbued in me—a commitment to community—and I saw that growing up, so it was easy for me to do it. 

And, I just happened to have a few professors who took shining to me in college and one in particular, who was the former ambassador to the U.N. [United Nations] from the country of Grenada, when United States invaded Grenada, and after that, she became a professor. And she was just a wonderful, still is a wonderful person, and connected me to some leaders here in D.C. and they gave me an internship and that led me down that path.

[00:03:58] Jason Rudman: So we're going to go with a little dose of luck. I feel like we all need a little dose of luck in our life. But luck has to meet preparedness. So what did you study in college and what about that inspired you? 

[00:04:12] Don Graves: I went to college expecting that I was going to be a physics or astrophysics major. I have a love for science and math. But, I was wooed away by the dark side of politics; political science and history courses early in my career drew me to that path.

And, part of college is exploration. The learning is just as much outside of the classroom. It's interacting with colleagues or fellow students with professors. So, I honed my skills by getting in debates.

I remember just long arguments and discussions and debates. We would go to breakfast and the debates in the dining hall would continue. We'd clear our plates away. We'd still stay in the dining hall, and it would last until lunchtime or we'd take it to the snack bar, and it was that set of people that helped me cut my teeth.

And then, being in this class, I was from the Midwest, a more traditional conservative place in the words of others. Even though I spent a lot of my time growing up in the east, came to college and there's a lot of people with different views, different ideas, and willing to challenge each other, which I think is the great thing about college— the ability and the willingness to challenge and the ability to allow yourself to change your views and your minds based on the things that you learned.

The professor that I mentioned, the former ambassador from Grenada, she pushed me and really challenged me on issues related to politics and the economy, the US and its role in the Caribbean and in other parts of the developing world. And it was because of that, that I felt like I was prepared for the opportunity that was presented to myself to jump into the D.C. world more effectively and to not just take my own views and beliefs, but to go in with the type of open mind that you need, I think, to be a good policymaker.

[00:06:24] Jason Rudman: Yeah. Don, it's so powerful and I think for anybody listening in the moments that we're in right now, in this world, your thought about being open and being open to your thoughts being evolved by somebody who could potentially be diametrically opposite to you.

I remember my first experience in the United States, I went to school in Texas. You’ve got this kid coming from London who gets plopped into the middle of Texas and, politically definitely different than anything I'd experienced, but I do have a fondness for how debate and looking at things from other sides has profoundly shaped how I view the world, and to your point, makes us better to engage in constructive dialogue, engage in the ability to solution, to compromise.

So your first foray into government—where did you start and what was the evolution from where you started to working in the Obama administration?

[00:07:24] Don Graves: I came to D.C. for law school actually, and that's really how I got more involved in the policy development arena, continuing to engage in debates and discussions.

I had come from a more politically left-leaning household, family and upbringing but needed to refine and strengthen my views to make sure that they held up.

In fact, one of the people that I befriended while in law school was this person who has since then become a very conservative republican. He was part of the effort in the first Trump administration to offer to reverse the election, so to speak. And so, the two of us came from very different places, but I felt that for me to learn, I had to understand where he was coming from, why he thought that way.

When I got to law school, I started working for a civil rights group part-time and then ended up going there and doing this crazy thing of working at the civil rights group while I was also working at my family's law firm coming out of law school.

I met the comptroller of the currency, which is the regulator of national banks here in the U.S., and he took a shining to me for whatever reason, probably because I was a precocious kid who was asking him questions and challenging him.

And, he's okay, he [Don] doesn't know anything but I like the approach.

[00:08:56] Jason Rudman: I think part of it might be because you're actually a standup human, a decent human being. 

[00:09:00] Don Graves: I appreciate that. For whatever reason, he suggested that I look at this new opportunity being created at the Department of the Treasury. I barely knew anything about the Treasury Department. I was like they print money, I think, and the coins and they do something with banks; that was about all that I really understood about the Treasury Department. Even having done the political science and history background, I still was much more focused on more traditional things and thought I was going to go and practice law.

I ended up working for the newly minted deputy assistant secretary who had been the senior advisor to Bob Rubin and joined the administration government for the first time. And it was eye-opening—it was fast-paced, it was so much fun.

And, you realize that you could have an outsized impact even at this low level starting position as a policy advisor in these agencies. The things that you actually do have real impact on the daily lives of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people across this country. So that was what really got me excited about this work.

And so, I did that and been in and out of government, worked for The Business Roundtable for the CEOs of the Fortune 200. Tried my hand at startups a few times. Went into the Obama administration because the deputy assistant secretary that I'd worked with and some other folks said, “Hey, we're putting the band back together. Do you want to join?”

And I was like, yeah, of course.

[00:10:45] Jason Rudman: Of course.

[00:10:46] Don Graves: So, that was my story. And it's been a phenomenal path for me, even though I didn't necessarily craft it that way to begin with.

[00:10:54] Jason Rudman: I think there's a level of curiosity, a level of openness, that's demonstrated in these winding paths that have been revealed in your great career.

I mentioned when I introduced you that you had been tapped to lead President Obama's, the federal government's effort, to stabilize Detroit during and after bankruptcy and then you also talked about impact.

The through line there for me is about inclusive growth, right? From where you sit now, there's the theater of saying we're going to do lots of things, and then there's the actual real impact. What separates impact from theater? How would you describe that period of time working with one of America's great cities that had seen better days.

[00:11:36] Don Graves: Yeah. I think almost everybody would've said that it had seen better days when we came in. It's just for folks that have had never been to Detroit before its bankruptcy, a little bit of context. 

Obviously, it's one of the iconic American cities: Motown, Motor City Detroit, when you think about U.S. manufacturing - a lot of people would say, yeah, that's Detroit at least in its heyday. Over the course of twenty years, the twenty years prior to coming into this role, the city had lost about a half a million people. In the five years before, it had lost about a quarter of a million people. It was blight; blight was rampant.

There were tens of thousands of vacant and abandoned homes, nevermind the equivalent number of vacant and abandoned commercial properties. Things like its bus system were non-operational or virtually there.

It would take people two hours to get to work even though it was only a couple miles to get to their work. If they had a car, they would be able to get there very quickly, but if you're relying on public transit, you can't do it.

Fire, EMS, police response times were averaging about an hour, and that's inclusive of those times that the response time was within minutes. You can imagine some people were never getting a response.

So that was the challenge that we were facing, and quickly became clear to President Obama and Vice President Biden that we couldn't let the iconic American manufacturing city go hit rock bottom under their watch. That we had to do something; there were still hundreds of thousands, more than half a million people in the city, who deserve to get the type of support from the federal government that they needed. And so, I walked into that thinking we need to make decisions that will have a direct impact on the daily lives of these people.

And, I should tell you that I have this value statement, if you will, that has driven a lot of my career— that people and the communities that they live, they have hopes and dreams and they want to get to a place of a life of dignity.

The challenge is the obstacles in their way and the lack of resources and opportunities and so my job, throughout government, is to provide those resources, those opportunities, and to clear away those obstacles, those barriers, so that people can get from hopes to lives of dignity. That was really what we were trying to do with the work in Detroit.

[00:14:20] Jason Rudman: Yeah, so that's a moment of, I would argue, massive change, a clear mandate to change outcomes on behalf of half a million people where we're also pointing to a steady decline.

It didn't happen in a couple of years. It had happened over a number of years, decades. In the context of what you were then asked to do and within the context of government, what do people misunderstand most about how big decisions actually get made?

[00:14:51] Don Graves: A few things. Maybe most importantly is the importance and impact of the people that I talked about before.

I was at a relatively junior level, they're the decision makers and this is not necessarily the political appointees and remember that the vast majority of folks who are in the government are career employees who've dedicated their lives. They've given up a lot of times on pathways to the most lucrative careers to do this work because they have a passion for delivering for people and for our country.

So, the work that we were doing that needs to be done, people I think, misunderstand how important it is to empower and support folks that are making decisions that most Americans would say that's not a high level position, or, those jobs aren't the decisions aren't that important, but they are so critically important when you're trying to implement policies or programs. You need to have alignment by a whole range of folks. And have a willingness for those people to see the big picture, but also understand how their piece fits in with that big picture.

Part of what I was trying to do was to make sure, for the team that I was putting together or pulling from across the federal government, that I had the right people who were smart enough, ‘can do’ folks who understood the vision, but had the real skillset at what they were focused on.

I am sure that I am never the smartest person on the team. I just want to make sure that I'm bringing together the best people that I can who believe in the principles that we set out, believe in the vision, and then empower them to execute. At the same time, and this is why I think it's misunderstood by a lot of people, especially going into the big jobs, you have to have alignment between what these people in decision-making capacities are doing with what people actually want. 

When we went to Detroit, we listened first. That's why I think we were much more effective than many other efforts around the country to try and change policies or programs and have impact—because we listened and then we developed our strategies based on what people were saying, and made sure that it was resonating and aligning with what they were trying to have accomplished at the ground level.

[00:17:30] Jason Rudman: I so appreciate that. And you hit on an important point there. So I wanted to pull a thread a little bit more. Private sector executives—what do they consistently underestimate about public policy?

And you've got two minutes as everybody kind heard, you take a sigh and say, how do I answer that in one hundred and twenty seconds or less?

[00:17:47] Don Graves: I'll do it even quicker than that.

They underestimate how hard it is to craft public policy; that you actually have to have spend time making policy and talking to folks who've implemented to fully appreciate what you have to do, the leverage you have to pull and the rules you have to abide by.

And the second thing is that government is not business and we shouldn't think of it as business. The bottom line is completely different. If you think that you're going to go in as a business person and have a business approach to governing and creating public policy, you're missing that public policy is meant to have as broad an impact as you can on changing the economy, on creating policies that are effective and have impact. You're not trying to streamline and eliminate, that's not gonna have the impact that you expect.

[00:18:47] Jason Rudman: And your shareholders are ultimately the American people. 

[00:18:49] Don Graves: Completely agree. Yes.

[00:18:51] Jason Rudman: So talking of shareholders, at the end of the Obama administration, and this is how you and I met, you joined KeyBank, which was I will say a return home of one of Cleveland's great leaders…that would be you.

What drew you to KeyBank and I know your work there because we partnered on some of it;  if you just give the audience a flavor of your return into private enterprise and what you were attempting to achieve on behalf of Cleveland and the other cities that KeyBank served.

[00:19:21] Don Graves: One of the things that KeyBank I think has consistently shown to be a leader in, is recognizing that its business strength is built off of the strength of the communities it serves.

And that, particularly if you are building a brand, a company that has a lot of underserved communities, you're not necessarily a Citi[bank] or a JP Morgan, that's built off of these Wall Street, major markets.

If you're looking at small markets, if you're looking at communities where small decisions can make or break that entire community, you actually have to be more invested in your community. 

And so, Key Bank, for many decades, had been one of the recognized leaders in understanding the need to get that balance right of commitment to community support, engagement in community and the impact that it has on the bottom line of the business.

As a result, I came to an institution that was really committed, including through that sixteen and a half billion dollar record-breaking community benefits plan that you mentioned to making a difference, growing its community at the same time that it was growing as an institution, that the two went hand-in-hand.

[00:20:40] Jason Rudman: It feels like, as you described it, a natural extension of the work that you had been doing in the Obama administration. And then you had no foresight that the pandemic was going to hit. 

However, Biden successfully wins the election. Give us some highlights, if you can, on rejoining government, a global pandemic hitting and you are the nineteenth deputy Secretary of Commerce. One can only imagine what it is like, again, how nobody can be prepared for that, as a leader, I don't think—how did you approach that moment?

How did you, within the context of the Biden administration, approach that moment based on everything you've learned and what are some highlights and some challenges that you'd share with the audience?

[00:21:28] Don Graves: Several different things. I guess the thing that was humbling and grounded me every day that I walked into the Commerce department, we talked a little bit at the beginning about my generations of service, but I had generations of connection to the Commerce department.

My four times great grandparents had been enslaved people and they were able to gain their freedom and found their way to Washington, D.C.

It was a place where, if you'd looked at the communities across this country where the African American community of that time was flourishing, more so than almost any other place. So, they were able to start some businesses; their main business was a hack carriage, business hack taxi cab and they could get hired out with their horses and their carriages. They purchased the only land that they could afford and where they could actually own the land because as an African American, you couldn't just buy land all over the place. That land happened to be the site of where the U.S. Department of Commerce now sits today.

So for me, it was very grounding to be able to go in every single day and know that I am getting out of my car and walking into the very footsteps that my ancestors walked on, and they were engaged in commerce, in creating businesses and supporting the economy. So that was humbling, and that kept me rooted every day. 

But you're right—the challenge that we were facing at that time, we had an economy that was stagnating, tens of millions of people were out of work, you have a raging pandemic across the globe and we had to figure out how to get the economy started again.

And, I think that it was really important for me and certainly for the President, and I talked with him a lot, to focus on the people and recognize that we had to build an economy, we had to create the conditions that economic growth could be broad-based, that it was more inclusive, to go back to the through line of the podcast. That what we had to do was make sure we were creating the types of jobs and investing in places where people were sometimes forgotten and where jobs had sometimes flown over.

That was really one of the first things we wanted to do— to stabilize the economy and make sure that we were getting Americans across every community back to work. 

[00:24:22] Jason Rudman: So instinctively, Don, how do you do that? I'm sure there's something you could lean on in the prior decades of your work, but with a global pandemic, there's no playbook for that.

So instinctively, how did you and others in government go about that work?

[00:24:39] Don Graves: Part of that was looking at the…I go back to the challenges that people face, the things that are preventing them from being successful. And we think back to the early days, well, throughout the pandemic when people were working remotely that had a very disparate impact on who were the haves and who were the have nots.

I can't tell you the number of parents that I talk to, and I'm sorry, I get a little emotional about this. Talking to parents who had to make the hard choice of which of their kids got to go to school that day because they were doing it remotely and they only had enough bandwidth for one of their kids to go to school. How do you make that choice?

And so you think about that or you think about the seniors who didn't have access to telehealth. You think about the small businesses in rural parts of our country, and even in many of our urban cores, who couldn't afford access to high speed internet, who didn't have the equipment to be able to use it effectively.

That meant that we had some companies in some communities that were high flyers, and then you had a large swath of the country that was dealing with real challenges. And so, you play that out over various issues. 

That was what we were really focused on— how do we make sure that we're, in the words of my friend Joe, anytime I tell, he's “Don it's Joe, Hey call me Joe.” Joe would say he wants to deal people into the bargain, give them a fighting chance. And that's what we were really trying to do, was to create pathways, part investing in workforce, investing in infrastructure, so that we had communities that were better connected to the world and could get their goods and their services from where they were out to the rest of the world.

And, on a global standpoint, make sure that the rest of the world was abiding by the rules of the road, the rules of the economic order. So, those were the things that we were really focused on at the beginning.

[00:26:51] Jason Rudman: I promise you that it will be President Biden to me. And you have first name status, so, if President Biden is listening, great.

So taking in what you said, a pandemic reveals some of the underbelly of America—the wealthiest country in the world, we have abundance and yet, you describe in twenty twenty, on the backs of a pandemic, people struggling to determine which kid is going to school because of lack of access to bandwidth. It’s incredibly important that we remember in a country where there is so much that there are many that still have relatively little, and we still have to solve for that. That's the social compact that, I think, aligns you and I together in terms of the work we are privileged to continue to do; that work on behalf of people that do not have it as lucky as we do.

So when it comes to innovation and economic growth in the US, what's the elephant in the room that leaders then privately acknowledge but rarely say publicly?

[00:27:55] Don Graves: Innovation typically leads to greater dislocation and more inequality than the reverse, at least in the short- and medium term. That yes, great leaps and bounds in innovation can lead to great wealth creation but that wealth creation is disparate

You look at something called the Gini coefficient, which is a measure of inequality, and the United States leads in the Gini coefficient, which is not a good thing if you believe in a society where you have economic wealth that is broadly based. So, I think leaders assume that innovation is always a positive thing, but they realize quickly that you can't be politically savvy and talk about the impact that innovation is going to have because you're going to also have to talk about job destruction; the change that will happen will be negative and I think has been felt over the last several decades by many in the middle class and working class in this country.

[00:29:02] Jason Rudman: Do we face our next challenge then with the AI era that we're in and the implications that would have to what you just described, which is disparate wealth distribution—how do you reflect on this next revolution in terms of what you just shared about the challenge with innovation being a leveler, an ability to actually solve some of those social gaps that we talked about?

[00:29:28] Don Graves: I think AI—and especially AI paired with quantum—is the biggest game changer in industry and our economy that we have or will face in our lifetimes and probably for several generations.

I think the challenge is that it is going to be a massive job destroyer. Now, every industrial revolution that we've gone through before now, you've had a period of disruption. You've had a period of job destruction that precedes a period of massive innovation and job creation in new ways.

The question I think that a lot of us are grappling with is what are the types of jobs that will come on the backend of AI and during this AI and quantum revolution that will require human capabilities as opposed to computer capabilities?

And I think that a very valid question is [to] whether humans are necessary for as many things as we've needed them before. Then, if humans are no longer necessary to do everything, if the technology is driving the economy, if the jobs are being handled by AI with maybe some small group of human managers and overseers, then what does that mean for the vast majority of the population, particularly in a society where work is the enabler to create family safety, stability and wealth? Nevermind the notion of humans needing work to find value in their lives and find dignity.

All of those questions are need to be thought through as we're going through this very rapid change in and with AI and quantum. 

[00:31:29] Jason Rudman: I think that's right, Don. I think also reflecting on AI cutting at the heart of knowledge workers, that's very different than plumbers and electricians.  I think we'll see an uptick in vocational output because that can't actually be done by a machine.

It cuts at the heart of what has been the engine of growth for this country for over a century— knowledge work—and the connection to, and the challenges to, a society that feels already fractured and how can we maintain a society that I am my brother's keeper and I look after my neighbor and in a way that is about making society better. I think we have lots ahead of us to try to figure all of that out.

So, you went from the Biden administration and you founded Highland Creek Advisors, and I always like to say what's in a name because I'd love for you to share, there's a historical, personal connection to the naming.

You touched a little bit on it because you're walking the very halls in the Commerce department on which your ancestors had land. But if you'd provide the audience with two things—a little bit more depth about what's behind the name and then what your advisory group is seeking to do?

[00:32:42] Don Graves: Sure. For me, having grown up with this knowledge of my family and history and this understanding of what allows for haves to have and have nots to not have, Highland Creek is named after this particular community in Maryland, just outside of Annapolis. 

It was a community founded by the son of Frederick Douglass and some of his friends and similar families of the day from the black community. The community in Washington at the time, it was very swampy. It was very hot in the summers, and if you had some wealth and you were white, you could find your way to a beach community, a resort community, a getaway place where you could at least cool down somewhat. And so you'd spend your summers there.

For the black community there was no place like that. They were excluded from owning a lot of properties and certainly not getting into any of the resort communities. So these families, Charles Douglass and my ancestors, bought land from a farmer, subdivided it and created a safe haven, an escape for the black community of the day, where they could go and spend time together, learn, let their kids run around and get to know one another.

It's bounded by two creeks and we thought that in creating this firm, we wanted to create that safe haven where we were creating economic opportunity, creating support for any company or any organization, not just the haves, but also the have nots. And so, that's really what's behind the name.

Part of what we're trying to do with this firm is to provide strategy to navigate in the very challenging shoals, avoid the challenging shoals that we're facing, the pretty stormy seas on the economy. Giving guidance on things like trade and investment, national security and export and tariff policy economic growth, economic development.

But also, two things that I think are critically important. It's really a family of companies. We have a data platform that provides some of the best insights around—things like economic and geospatial information for a market; things like housing, health and workforce and whole range of data sets. A hundred plus billion data points because you can't make decisions unless you actually have data to guide you.

And then, another part of the firm is about storytelling because the thing that I learned coming out of every administration I've served is that if you don't communicate, if you don't effectively tell your story, then you're not actually doing anything because someone else will tell your story a different way and either they'll claim credits or they'll undermine what your story or you won't have any impact. And that's what we try to do on a daily basis.

[00:35:58] Jason Rudman: The art of storytelling. I'll throw this one in. In your time with the Biden administration, what's the story you're most proud of and what's story do you think was the one that got away and it was undersold?

[00:36:13] Don Graves: Oh my goodness. The story that, and just going to the Obama administration, the thing that we did that I think—and there are a handful of these things that had impact—the one that I think I am most proud of is tied to the work that we were doing in Detroit.

I will never forget the day that Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur and the folks from the Cuyahoga Land Bank, and I was at Treasury at this point, but the congresswoman and the folks from Cleveland came to my office and said, “we have this idea on how to do these swaps, and we're dealing with all this blight in cities across the country…what if we created this product?” And we're like, look, we're not doing any swaps. We're not doing anything like that. We just came out of a challenging era because of complex instruments like that. I understand the challenge. Let me and the team go back and come up with an approach. 

So, we took this program called the Hardest Hit Fund Program, part of the TARP program—the Troubled Asset Relief Program—focused on housing and communities, and we said part of the issue in these blighted communities is that if you try to invest in upgrading those homes and repairing those homes, the value of the home is, because there's so much blight…will never pencil out. It'll never get to a place that you can actually get a mortgage on that home because the value is still underwater. So we said, let's take these dollars, and instead of repairing homes, let's first clear away the blight, because once you remove the blight, you raise the value of these homes. People can actually get loans, they can get mortgages.

Then you can actually have an impact on lifting up the values in those communities and the homeowners, the folks who are still there, now they have a home that has value. They can redo their mortgage if they want, or if they want to sell, they can sell at a higher value than they ever had before.

Detroit took it and ran with it, and frankly, I think that is the most important thing that Detroit did in its stabilization and its recovery. And anyone who's been to Detroit recently versus ten, fifteen years ago is going to see it's just a completely changed community. So, that's the program or the thing that I feel like we had the most impact and people loved it, and it was great.

Man, the problem with I think, the thing I wasn't directly involved in the early stages, but I was involved through the Jobs Council—Obamacare. Maybe the thing that we, by far, was the thing that we undersold or mis-sold or the story was we just did a really poor job of explaining it. And now that you look back, people today, they love their Obamacare.

[00:39:17] Jason Rudman: We're in a moment right now, right, where we've got the current administration trying to do all they can to limit access to Obamacare. And to your point, you and I are not stating a personal fact here, people have come out and just said, without this, I actually don't have access to health insurance. And an unhealthy population is a sick economy, the connections to healthcare and economic growth. 

[00:39:45] Don Graves: You have tens of millions of people who hadn't had access to quality healthcare. And then they got and it's life changing. 

They have the financial wherewithal that they can do other things for their families. And, when you try to take that away, that is also the game changer in a negative way. And, it's playing out, unfortunately, for millions of people 

[00:40:06] Jason Rudman: What's the project you're most excited about?

We've talked a lot about purposeful impact, driving growth. You mentioned the need to not just continue to solve for the haves, but also this through line through your career, about making sure that the voices of those with less are heard and we can create policy and we create solutions.

What's one thing in the recent past or something underway right now that has you really excited?

[00:40:33] Don Graves: Two very quick things. I talked about the data and I talked about the storytelling. Part of what we're doing with the data platform is we're building it with purpose and impact in mind.

And part of what we're doing with this data platform—Galadriel is what we're calling it for now. Don't hold me to that but that's the name for now—it's going to have a data commons as part of what we're doing. That data commons will provide access to the type of data that we used to be able to get from the federal government that we're no longer getting in a really good technology platform that will allow nonprofits, researchers, local governments to make better decisions, more informed decisions, and have access to that at reduced or free cost. So that is something that I'm really proud that we're going be able to do is offer that to folks who absolutely need it to be able to serve more folks. 

The other thing that we're doing on the storytelling side is being able to connect stories from places like the continent of Africa. So, we are working with storytellers across the continent. We're hoping later this year to bring stories like the stories of African soccer stars and women leaders to the western market.

And just importantly, we're making connections between the U.S. and other parts of North America to the continent so that we can reduce these perceptions and the assumptions.

It's the fastest growing continent in the world. The demographics: it's a younger, it's gonna be much, much younger at a time where countries like us are getting older, so we need partners on the continent.

I'm really excited about both of those projects and they are not something that I would've ever thought I would be doing coming out of the Commerce department.

[00:42:29] Jason Rudman: And what excites you outside of Highland Creek Advisors?

[00:42:34] Don Graves: I'm really excited by the way that people in this country are reengaging in the civic space, reengaging in the public sphere, understanding just how important it is to be well-informed about what's happening at, not just at the national level, but what's happening all the way down to their local communities.

And it feels to me like that is what this country has needed. We've lost it. People were, I won't say zombie-like, but they were not fully appreciative of how decisions at every level of government can have a direct impact on their daily lives. And so I am really excited about what I think is coming.

You look at the numbers of the race in Texas, the people who showed up for a primary in a non-presidential year election; that tells me that people are really excited to reengage in ways that they haven't in recent past.

[00:43:32] Jason Rudman: Reengage in a era of necessity. I think we would argue, given what we're experiencing, and that's okay on the More Elephant podcast. We can say that.

And I've shared this, Don. Alvin we met some amazing people in Texas that are still part of our lives. We left, we are a family that moved from Texas because it was not safe.

[00:43:52] Don Graves: Right.

[00:43:53] Jason Rudman: I think when people hear that they struggle with that. But as two guys, you know us, right?

We've been together for twenty eight years, we're raising a twelve-year-old and a ten-year-old. And when you're telling my mixed race kids that they can't learn about their history, and you're seeking to investigate parents of trans kids who are clearly identifying that they're non-binary or they're trans and they're feeling different.

It's just, you know, that for marginalized communities is not a safe space. It absolutely is not. We could go on, but we won't.

As we approach the end of this conversation, Don, I could probably talk to you for hours. What's a leadership habit you have come to rely on when consensus seems impossible?

[00:44:34] Don Graves: The thing that I always do is I try to understand the time constraints under which a decision has to be made and I ask as many questions as I can and get as much information as I can.

I know that there are other leaders who say, “now, just gimme the basic facts and I'll make a decision.” I want to hear what people have to say, and I want to get different viewpoints, even from people who wouldn't necessarily, as the deputy secretary wouldn't always get the chance to be in the room with me or a different leader. I saw early on that some of the best ideas, the best approaches, came from folks who were the most junior or who were the most out-of-the-box type thinkers. And so, I want to get those viewpoints.

And then, if it's anywhere close, if I truly am having trouble making a decision, I always do my best to support the position that my team is recommending because presumably I've hired people who are smart and capable, who have done a lot of, you know, have a history in whatever that issue is and who are incorporating my value set and my principles into their process of making more recommendations.

So that's the approach that I take when I'm making any sort of decision and I brought that to the work that I do and the way that I advise clients.

[00:46:05] Jason Rudman: Excellent. One final question. So we've talked about being in a position of power, the intersection of innovation and policy where progress has accelerated, where it is also stalled.  

And truly, you're a change agent; that's this entire arc that we've talked about ideas that change people's lives.

So as leaders, founders, citizens, think about the next decade, what's the one truth you believe we have to confront if we are to want innovation to translate into lasting impact?

[00:46:40] Don Graves: Nothing can be accomplished alone.

I think that whether that is individuals in their own companies, or in their own communities, or at the nation level, you may think that you are the best at what you do but realize that only gets you so far. That you as an individual, you as a company, you're going to have challenges if you haven't built the right environment, the right ecosystem, if you don't have the right partners.

We certainly are seeing that play out across the globe as we alienate in this country, as we alienate more of our partners and allies, they are saying, shame on us the first time for not believing who we thought you were, or shame on you, and now shame on us. So, shame on the U.S. for doing this, but we'll forgive you.

Now, it's like you're going to impose crazy tariffs on us, or you're gonna change the rules of the road midstream mixing metaphors here. Why would we want to continue to work with you? We don't trust you anymore.

And so trust, at the end of the day, is the biggest thing to build. If you lose trust, doesn't matter how good you are as an individual or a company or a nation, if people don't trust you, then you're gonna have absolutely no value. People aren't gonna wanna buy your brand.

[00:48:01] Jason Rudman: And that brand would be the United States that we're talking about.

[00:48:06] Don Graves: Exactly.

[00:48:06] Jason Rudman: That's a great place to end. How do people learn more about Highland Creek Advisors and the incomparable Don Graves?

[00:48:13] Don Graves: They can go to highland creek advisors dot com or you can go to don graves dot us. And find out more about me.

[00:48:23] Jason Rudman: See, Don Graves us. Boom. You drop the mic right there. Not dot com, but dot us.

I said at the beginning how honored I was to spend an hour catching up and I knew some of the story. The beauty of the podcast is I don't know all the stories. So, just listening to you has been an honor and a joy.

Thank you for joining us, sharing some of your wisdom, and can't wait to see what you continue to do with Highland Creek. Thanks again.

[00:48:49] Don Graves: Thanks, Jason. So good to be with you.

​More Elephant Outro