Winning AI *Without* Losing The American Dream — Fmr US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo

AI is here. The layoffs have started. Does anyone have a plan?

Gina Raimondo does. Two-term Governor of Rhode Island, former U.S. Commerce Secretary, the person who shepherded the CHIPS Act through Congress and personally negotiated chip exports with Chinese leadership. Harvard, Oxford, Yale Law before any of it.

Her plan: a new grand bargain between government and business. Workforce training that's continuous, employer-led, and funded by outcomes. Wage insurance for workers retraining mid-career. Tax incentives that make it more expensive to abandon workers than to retrain them. The same urgency we've poured into chips and models, applied to the tens of millions of American jobs about to change.

In this episode, Connor and Gina get into the plan, the warning ("do this wrong and we will have automated our decline"), why UBI is a cop-out, and her honest reply to whether she'd like the job of President in 2028. There's also a phrase she banned in her own cabinet that we can't in good conscience print here. Connor gets her to use it on camera. Stay for that.

Chapters

00:00:00 Intro — The woman betting on America's AI future

00:01:16 Finding your Andy — Love, partnership, and non-negotiables

00:05:46 Faith, spirituality, and the work arena

00:08:01 The AI crisis nobody's preparing for

00:10:33 Winning AI without losing America

00:14:34 The grand bargain — Changing incentives for companies

00:17:55 More women in charge would help