Okei, nii et ma lähen nüüd inglise keele peale üle ja head kuulamist. So, switch to english and our guest today is Joel Perk, hello, Joel. So, ja, let, let's start with you. The book, I just say quickly, the book is called Rebooting a Nation. The incredible rise of Estonia, e-government and the start-up revolution. So, it's basically about all the things we hold dear in our hearts about Estonia and, and it's all the stories that we tend to tell when having dinner with, with people who are not from Estonia, so. It's our pride, you have, you have rütten down, but how do we connect you to the topic, you used to work for e-residents, am I right?
Ja,exactly, so I, I made my way to Estonia a bit randomly, to be honest with you, so I had started my career in Silicon Valley. I was early at YC and Dresdenback start-up and then I went to Berlin to run a venture for Rocket Internet, which is this kind of company builder VC, VC firm. And, frankly, I. Didn't like it, I wanted to do something more, more impactful. And I stumbled across a job ad on Jabbatical, when they were still kind of focused on job sabbaticals for e-residents. And I thought, it sounded super cool, I had never heard of seda innovated program. And I had once been to Estonia like ten years prior on a road trip with my dad for about twenty four hours. So I did not, did not have a real deep link to the country, but I was like, I vaguely remember the old town being beautiful. And then I read about this program and I was already in Berlin, so I said, why not. And fortunately enough, they hired me, I guess, maybe I was the only person who was willing to move to Estonia and I think it was februari, so it was, it was a little bit chilly. And when I got there, I was quite impressed, I mean, as you can imagine, an American, who grew up mostly in California, Nevada. Didn't have that much knowledge about, you know, e-government systems and not, not that much experience with anything other than, than the DMV and pretty negative. Negative relationship with government services, so I was quite impressed with, with Estonia, but. Frankly, you know, it was, it was very cool, I had done a one-year contract, I ended up staying a little bit longer, but I made great friends and I was, you know, I was still connected in some way to the country, but. When I went back to the US, during COVID, I joined this program tech congress, which takes tech people and puts them in congress. And so I started advising. Members of congress on tech policy and it was there that I was like. Oh, we are in deep trouble in the United States, like I, I did not realise how, how bad it was. And how much we lacked our knowledge of, of digital or let's say technical state capasite and so. It was from there that I decided to do some writing, partly, with the intent of talking about Estonia, but.Frankly, my, my other reason for doing this is to try and get America to, to pursue government modernisation, better. So sorry for the long winded intro, but there it is.
So, with, with the major caveat, that, you know, I'm not, I'm not in the government, I'm not, you know. I, I, I, I certainly think that so, so it does seem like from the public side that, that the focus has been on cost cutting and certainly that's where most of the media attention is, but. I have heard that there is some development of, of technology and I think on incentive side, there's one really interesting thing that I heard about, so there's the GAO, no, is it the GAO. I, I'll find the, I'll find the right, the, the right divisional, sorry, it's the GSA, not the GA. We have too many akronyms and too many agencies in the United States. And the general services administration is basically responsible for kind of broad IT. And so they put in place a program just, just a couple weeks ago, basically trying to incentivize people to, to find and eliminate waste, themselves. So I think that, I think that. You know, we, we'll see if this leads to a culture change, but I think this is an interesting idea, like starting to change the, the incentive strukture to get people to, you know, to cut waste themselves and, and to, and to, and to change the way that business is kind of usually done. Where as like, you know, you, you have very little incentive as a civil servent to say, like, even if you know that, you know, this program in my neighbors, you know, in my neighbors category, or even the one I'm working on, doesn't work, it's not effective at all. I mean, what benefit is it to you to, to cut it or to call that out and now maybe there actually is a benefit, so I'm hoping there will be some, some tangible change. And certainly, speaking more from a, a Vibes'perspektive, I think in Silicon Valley, it has become. I don't wanna, me, maybe not cool, but, but at least accepted to either be in-governed or be doing business with the government. There's this kind of American dünamism practice that Andreessen Horvitz, championed, and no, no, there's lots of folks who are kind of involved in this space, but, you know, government contracting is, is, is seen as a huge opportunity. So I think, you know, Doge, Andreessen, and, and many of these guys in kind of Silicon Valley, embracing. Government and, or the Trump administratsioon, depending on your perspective and trying to reform it, has opened up an avenue for Silicon Valley to get more involved in a way that I don't really remember. Except for, you know, maybe president Obama's first term, when at the time there was also a lot of excitement from the Silicon Valley community to do, you know, some of these things like. USDS and, and 18F and some of these, some of these programs to also make government more efficient, but what, who are a little bit more. Slower going and methodical, et see.
Jah, so, so something that, that surprised, so a couple of things. Very bold leadership, willing to do, you know, bold leadership, willing to do unpopular things in, long-term thinking, in kind of coming to, I don't know if it's necessarily societal, but at least like a, a leiconsenss on some of these things. So just to give you a couple of examples. I mean, and your Estonian audience will be very familiar with all of these, but like, I, I think about in the United States, like the, the fact of making digital identity mandatory. For instance, I, I assume this was not, not the most popular thing at the beginning, probably. Yes, and, but like, you know, so, so politis, you know, the people, who did it, paid a political cost. For doing, what they thought was the, the right decision. So, you know, doing things that were politikali unpopular, but were necessarily for the country. Long-term investment, so I think about like the Tiger Leap campaign, for instance, so even though, ja, ja, ja, I mean. If you're, if you're thinking in four-year presidendental term cycle's in the US, like a Tiger Leap campaign, it's not matter for, for you, I mean, the, the benefits will be reaped down the line by. You know, future generations or, you know, in some decades, but you know, of course, it's, it's, you know, worth it to invest in kind of create a, a work force for the future. And then just this idea of being bold, I mean, prime minister Mart Laar and like the economic shock therapy that, that he did, I mean, there's, there's this documentary, I think it's rodeo taming a wild country. And just talking about some of the, some of the things that they all did, is, is, is incredible. And I mean, you know, espesally on the. Saate toob teieni Docobit, kõik ühes digiallkirjastamise portaal.
Ja, ja, et I was lucky enough to, to talk to a, a few people, like president Ilves, for instance, and I don't know, if I ask him about, like, why did you do, do some of these things that were. I mean, he, he's, he's talked about how the teachers'e unions were not a huge fan at the time of the, the Tiger Lippe campaign, for instance, which. You know, I can totally understand, I mean, if you're, if you're, you know, have limited budget and you're saying, well, we need money to connect schools and do this, do this, you know, crazy thing, instead of, you know, paying better teachers salaris, I can see why you might be a little bit miffed about this, right, but. I, I, I think, I, I'd, I'd, I'd use a lesson actually from, I, I think it was. Don't, don't hold me to, I think it was Sten Tomkivi, who said this, but there's, there's this irational patriotism in, in the tech and startup community. And I think you see it with, you know, the Skype guys, many guys from the tech sektor, who are, you know, instead of going and playing jaats and, you know, basketball teams or something, you know, doing something ridiklust and moving to the South of France. You have, you know. People constantly reinvesting and building back the tech community in, in giving back in some way. There's, you know, the coding schools, I think, I think Stead and some other folks just announce another, another real-estate development. I know, Taavi, you've done a lot of work in kind of educating younger people. I mean, there, there's so many examples of, of people who are reinvesting in their country or giving their time or their money and I just think, I, I think, frankly, I, I mean, a big part of it boils down to. Patriotism and trying to do what was necessary for the long-term survival and, and thriving of the country, then, then looking out for self-interest. In, in this way, I think, you know, Estonia reminds me a little bit of, of, of Israel, right, I mean, it's, it's an unfriendly naiberhood, not that many natural resources, other than the people, themselves. And you, you have to get by on, on innovation and support from the people.
Jaa, it's interesting that people seal have wrong perception about e-voting. The fact, they think it's mouly, mostly youth, young people who will start to vote, which is not true. I mean the increase is actually more in, in elder, elder age. Pluss, we have not been able to increase our participation rate, it's more like it has been stable. Compared with other countries where it's declining, so. Keeping the current one has been the main major, I think outcome or success. So, yeah, I mean with many of those reforms. People have like different perceptions and the same was like for example with e-residents like we build it for people outside of EU. And we never thought that there will be more than fifty percent e-presidents inside EU, so, so jah, you never know.
This is one of the things that I, that I liked too about, about Estonia, I mean, it seems like there is more flexibility sort of built, built in, I think. It was probably a quote from, from you, at the beginning of EU residency, talking about, we did not know exactly how it would be used, but we knew that there was something interesting here and I think this idea of like, no. Eccionally, it, it doesn't make sense to have a solution in search of a problem and this can create quite interesting results is, I, I think it's quite a cool mentality.
I, I mean, I guess this is, this is the odd thing is that, I, I mean, I guess everyone else's tiger hasn't even woken up so, so your tiger looks. No, I mean, I mean, see, see on meil, like, if I look at, if I look at e-residents see, for instance. I remember, you know, when, when I was working there, when, when I start, 2018, so. Seven years ago, now. You know, there was a lot of excitement around, you know, doing, doing, doing some, like, pretty radikal stuff. I mean, there was, like, discussion's about, like, S-coin and, you know, giving, you know, giving. 3rd country national seas, like, like, like, like, like, like, different, different things that were not, not just kind of uh, creating the, the Delaware, the Delaware for Europe, which I think is quite useful, like, don't get me wrong, but I think there was a, a lot of, you know, kind of grander ambitsioon around, around the program, that have um, you know, slightly fallen away. And I'm piki on e-residents just because, you know, I, I used to work there and I know, I know the context just a little bit more, but. I, I think that, I think it's somewhat natural for these cycles to occur, right. I mean, you, you have like a big, a big spurt of innovation and then people get used to it. And then there's the freak out moment, where you, you start, you know, you're like, oh, shoot, did we, did we lose the secret sauce, did we lose everything. And then, you know, the people, who had gone to the private sektor are like, ah, maybe there's an opportunity here on this, you know, someone invents something cool and the cycle repeats again, right, because, you know, a bunch of attention gets, you know. And, and pidevaltki, money, gets lavishud on the, on the problem of, is our tiger dying, we should take it to the vet, right, and so. I think, I think these cycles are somewhat natural, I, frankly, I am quite, quite interested and curious and like what comes back. And, and what comes in the next stage, right.
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