On June 25, former U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo launched Raise Us, an initiative to address what she calls America’s missing piece: a people strategy that matches its technology strategy. Raimondo explains how he raised a $500 million war chest, secured bipartisan support, and signed on launch partners from Bank of America to Anthropic before the ink was dry.
The problem of AI displacement is serious, and Raimondo’s solution is nothing less than a collective reinvention of how the United States trains, transitions, and values its workers. The window, he warns, is narrower than most people think.
This is an abbreviated transcript of an interview with Quick Responsepresented by the former fast company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of the scale podcast, Quick Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders facing real-time challenges. Subscribe to Quick Response Wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you never miss an episode.
So he launched a new organization called Raise Us, an initiative that partners with governors, employers and higher education institutions to redesign how the United States helps workers in the age of AI. You have been talking for some time about the need for a new approach. You wrote a New York Times opinion article about it. So what will Raise Us actually do?
Raise Us is an independent, non-profit, bipartisan and non-political organization. We will work with governors to see if we can change policies and experiment with new ideas about how we train employees, and at the same time we will work with employers to be creative about how we can ensure that an AI-driven economy is also an economy in which everyone can thrive.
Our fundamental thesis is that AI is an exciting technology. We want the United States to lead the global AI competition, but I think there is a good chance there will be a transition. And in that transition, as jobs change, millions of Americans may have to change jobs or their jobs could be eliminated. What we want to say now is: employers, governors, universities, training partners, unions – everyone in the boat – let’s innovate so we can manage this transition without millions of Americans falling through the cracks.
Do we already know which jobs and skills are resistant to AI when the technology advances so quickly? Some people think we need to rethink the whole idea of work.
I don’t think we will. One thing I want to point out is that many American companies have excellent job training initiatives. Maybe they sponsor credentials or maybe they have initiatives to help small businesses get started. That’s not what it is.
This is some of the best companies in America, including technology companies, and some of the best governors in both parties in America saying, “We’re not entirely sure how this is going to be implemented, but we’re committed to making sure that we take care of American workers and that everyone participates in an AI economy.” And that means innovating, changing and iterating as you go.
AI companies are raising billions, even trillions. You’ve raised around $500 million. Where does that come from and how much do you need?
I look at this through the lens of, as a former secretary, what does the United States have to do to lead this global AI competition against China and against the rest of the world? And we definitely need a technology strategy. You just pointed it out. These companies are investing tons of money in chips, computing, data centers, talent, models, everything.
That is our technological policy and we need to win. We also need a staffing strategy that says, “Hey, I’m a call center worker. Hey, I’m a mid-level accountant and I understand that maybe an agent will do my job, but I deserve a chance to get another job. I deserve a chance in this country to have another job chapter, even if AI changes my job.”
That’s what Raise Us is designed for. We’re starting with, as you said, $500 million. It will take a lot more than that, but I’m happy with the starting point.
We want to run a series of experiments and pilots and see what works. Much of the money comes from companies. Amazon has made considerable progress, as have Anthropic and OpenAI. These companies are truly future-oriented. Bank of America, UPS… these are companies saying, “Hey, we’re in this. We’re in this to work with you to make sure there’s a place for every American worker in an AI economy.”
When you talk about experimentation and pilots, it’s a very Silicon Valley business approach, something we don’t usually associate with government. . . . There have been many debates about whether we have a clear technology strategy. We really can’t wait for that to solidify before tackling the human side.
Look, I’ve been governor. I have been a secretary. The government is moving slowly. There is very little incentive for an elected official to take risks. That’s why I think we need a new type of organization like this. And that’s why I think we need a significant amount of philanthropy.
Because if I go to a governor and say, “Let’s test a new form of apprenticeship. Let’s test a new form of tax incentives for companies to retrain and redeploy people instead of laying people off. Let’s test a form of wage support so that workers can take a lower-paying job but get paid more,” a governor will say, “I’ll try it because it’s good for our people,” but you’re going to have to take on a lot of the risk. capital, so to speak, before any governor or state legislature opens up the public fund and tries something new.
Because ultimately the dollars are going to have to come from the government, but first you have to prove it using philanthropic and, I guess, corporate money.
That’s our theory of the case. We figured if we wait (certainly if we wait for the federal government to do something), my goodness, we’ll be waiting a while. And even the states, I think, will take too long. That’s how democracies work, especially today. We don’t have the most functioning form of democracy. Things take too long to get done.
So we’re saying let’s use private capital and private industry, working with governors one at a time, to innovate, then see what works and scale what works.
I don’t have a crystal ball, Bob. I’ve spent most of my time over the last year or more talking to the best economists in the world and the CEOs and technology leaders of these AI companies. You ask everyone, “How is this going to turn out?” And the honest answer is: I don’t think anyone knows.
But every time we introduced a technological shock, there was a disruption. I would like to take this moment of change to change the way we use our public money, as I said, to incentivize companies to train people so that we have a better system for training and transitioning workers who, no matter how it is divided, will have to transition more frequently in an AI economy.
His partner in Raise Us is Eric Holcomb, the former Republican governor of Indiana. How aware were you of needing a partner on the other side of the aisle?
Very. Very conscious. First of all, I love Eric. I worked closely with him when we were both governors. Also, truth be told, of all the governors, including myself. . . His apprenticeship, community college, and job training initiatives were truly the best in the country, and he had a phenomenal track record of working with companies.
But yes, I wanted a Republican. By the way, [former House] Spokesman [Paul] Ryan is an advisor for Raise Us and we will be working alongside his foundation. I’m sure some corporate CEOs who support us are Republicans. I don’t know. I really don’t care. I just want to come together to solve America’s problems.