The Quiet Loss of Civic Sway, and the Push to Regain It

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This week on the Andrew Yang podcast.

So Sway is a digital platform for people to amplify their political influence by organizing around shared views. And the core action on Sway is to vote with a leader on a particular topic and those leaders can coalesce into organic networks.

We're basically offering a path for people to get a. A digital shortcut that's easier and, and that's more aligned to their specific viewpoints.

Ultimately, we see ourselves as solving the problem of aggregating and showcasing collective wealth.

It is my pleasure to welcome to the podcast for the very first time, Claire Charell and Ali Partovi, the co founders of Sway. Welcome, Claire and Allie.

Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having us.

Al, you and I have known each other for a number of years. You're like a Silicon Valley super vet. You helped run and build code.org.

Yeah.

And all sorts of for profit companies as an angel investor and as an executive. You started out as a techie yourself at a company called Link Exchange way, way back. I think before that you might have been at Oracle straight out of college or something along those lines. So one thing I'd love to do is to have people give a bit of an origin story and then Claire will hear, yeah, hear yours. But how the heck did you wind up landing on democracy as the problem, which is what Sway is designed to help improve?

Well, just first from personal background, while my work has been in tech, you know, like everybody, I see how, how many problems there are in the world around us. And my, my, my own story. I grew up in Tehran, Iran, as a child where there was a revolution and a war, and I just saw how bad government can get. And I really viewed America as the, you know, as the promised land, a place where government works well and where, you know, where it responds to what people want. And then over my almost 40 years living here, I have seen that it's not as good as it could be and that there's room for it to be better.

Not exactly humming along.

Yeah. And also from a tech standpoint, a lot of people say, oh, how come we're not solving the important problems like housing the homeless or climate change or so on? And a lot of tech people have ideas for how to solve those things, but they realize all roads lead to the same core issue, which is that it's not a technology issue. It's a governmental political issue. And oftentimes there's obstacles or the government isn't even doing the will of the people. It's captured either by some special interest or by extreme left or extreme right groups that don't represent what the collective really want. Now, most of us, including myself, for years when we run into that, we're like, I'm just not going to bang my head against that wall. I'll work on something else where I can make a change, where I have some control. So I guess I've been aware for, for two decades that, like, this is the root of a lot of unsolvable problems and, you know, been frustrated by it. I've also been an advocate in a lot of different political things. Code.org and the hour of Code also has involved a lot of political advocacy to bring computer science into schools, which is how I met Claire. And I've done other advocacy projects of my own. I've never been shy to stand up for what I believed in Sometimes. Sometimes I've won, sometimes I've lost, sometimes I've been wrong. But I guess the core.

I don't think you're wrong on this one, my friend.

Well, the core thing I felt was that there's a structural issue. The issue in the US Government isn't just whether you like this or that candidate. The structure isn't working right. And. Yeah, and so that's kind of what led me towards this. And, you know, I want to let Claire share her background before talking about.

I have a sense sway is meant to reinvigorate democracy in a way that uses modern tools. So, Claire, you have been an educator. You also recently, I believe, were very active in The Kamala Harris campaign. And I think you at some point concluded something similar to Ali, where you're like, wait a minute, this system isn't working the way it's intended.

Yeah, I guess so. My background is I'm from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which is a political mecca in many ways.

I love Pittsburgh, by the way. People ask me underrated cities. I tell them, Pittsburgh.

I'm long Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh, actually my favorite city in the world. And I'm decently well traveled, so. And I think also the timing. So in 2004, I was a senior in high school, and I volunteered a ton on the Kerry campaign. And then in 2008, I was a senior in college and I went to an Obama rally, and he just happened to be talking about domestic service. And I was like, yeah, America. So I decided to teach for America, which is how I started my career in the classroom. Being in East Oakland, you see a lot of different challenges, but ultimately, Ali and I met because I was teaching computer science, and computer science was an elective, and we just knew something had to change where more students had access to it. In the Bay Area in particular, that's the source of most of the jobs. And my students, who were already at an economic disadvantage, weren't even having access to that. So that was my first real blush with advocacy. Did a lot of things in tech, joined Ali in venture capital. And I mean, frankly, just in August of last year, everything kind of felt pointless. And I'm telling you about my own politics now, but, yeah, no, no, no, it's fine.

I mean, we all are who we are. It's all good.

This feels really existential. So I moved back to my childhood bedroom and this time worked as a field organizer on the campaign, which was both some of the most fun work that I've ever done and most beautiful work, community driven work.

You talk to a lot of act.

So I knocked 1500 doors, made 15,000 phone calls, and helped unleash 90,000 door knocks in northern Allegheny county, which is where I'm from. You know, you hear so many things. Something that Ali and I both came to me, really, at the doors was, everyone cares about something. Everyone has something that they deeply care about. Apathy was relatively few and far between. And I will say, you know, this is not that. I knocked on every door and they were like, wow, I'm so excited to see you. You know, dislike of politics is certainly a form of. But yeah, so I did that campaign. I think we all know how it turned out. And I came back and I was like, this is the most worthy challenge that I could be working on. How do I want to work on it? And I thought about several different directions. And Ali has this idea for Sway. He called me up again and was like, can we talk about Sway? And I said, sure, take me to lunch. Pitch me. And Ali gave me the pitch, and I couldn't think of anything else.

Wow. And it worked on Claire, it worked.

On me, and now I.

Just to be clear, before we go into it, Sway is a neutral platform. We're not. You know, Claire might have spent time trying to help Kamala Harris win, but what we're building is not to help one citizen empowerment.

Yeah, yeah.

It's. It's meant to be infrastructure and it's meant. The point is for government to represent what people want and whatever that might be, and to do so better than our current, you know, our current system isn't really doing that.

Yeah.

Yes. So let's reenact the pitch. Ali and Claire, what the heck is Sway? What are we talking about?

Well, so Sway is a digital platform for people to amplify their political influence by organizing around shared views. And the core action on Sway is to vote with a leader on a particular topic, and those leaders can coalesce into organic networks. And ultimately the network piece is really important because we see ourselves as forming a governance graph which, if done well, will restructure the fabric of democracy.

Yeah. You can imagine if everyone had their views expressed, maybe because they trust you or me or Jonathan Haidt or whoever the heck the person is on a particular viewpoint. So I think Jonathan Haidt is a great example. I had dinner with him a number of weeks ago. So for those of you who've been under a rock, Jonathan Haidt wrote a book called the Anxious Generation, saying, hey, great book. Yeah, hey, our kids are getting really anxious and depressed. And it's almost certainly smartphones are certainly smartphones, and we should really try to get smartphones out of schools before age 16, let's say. And that has taken the country and the world by storm. And so there are now parents going to school boards saying, hey, we should do this thing. So you can imagine an issue, let's call it children's use of technology. And then everyone would say, I now will vote along with whatever Jonathan Haidt says. But you're thinking at any level. So it could be someone who has a viewpoint on their kids education. Yes. Or taxation or women's reproductive rights, or really any issue under the sun. And then other citizens would say, okay, I'm not as up on that issue as you are. And we all know these people that someone knows better than us, and then they come and tell us and they're like, yeah, yeah, I like, I believe you, I agree with you. But I'm not sure what to do right now. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to give my support to you. And then when you go to the city council meeting or whatever it is, you're not just an individual. You have 200 of your fellow citizens saying, I've essentially agreed to vote with you on this particular issue.

Yeah. So this example is a great microcosm. Right. So the example of Jonathan Haidt and his point of view on this question of technology use in schools, this is a new political issue. Right. Technology use in schools wasn't an issue 40 years ago because it didn't exist. Right. And government's role in theory is to kind of become aware of problems like that and figure out a solution on a timely basis. But the reality is our elected officials don't necessarily do that. And I was actually listening to your interview with Bradley Tusk from several months back. He said it so well that the. What motivates elected officials is not to do what's right for their constituents. It's just to win the next election, which often means to cater to a special interest group or to extreme left or extreme right. And so that's, you know, if you go to your city council or mayor or so on with a new issue like this, rather than thinking about what's right, they're perhaps thinking about, how many votes will this win me or cost me? And oftentimes they might not know now. So that's on the advocacy side.

This will help them do the math is what you're saying.

This will help them do the math? Yeah, it'll help them to do math. The other part, though, that this example shows is voting is difficult. You know, everyone does care about issues. So you might be the mom who really cares about the policy on smartphones in schools, or you might really care about bike lanes in your neighborhood, or, you know, everyone has some issue they care about. Claire wants to add a crosswalk on, you know, the corner corner that she walks past. But you have issues you care about. It's very difficult to connect the dots in the ballot box to say, oh, which school board member am I supposed to vote for?

Should I vote for?

You have issues you care about, but most of us can't even name our school board member or our city council member or our State senator, the people who make the laws that impact those issues, we can't even name them oftentimes people can't even name the office. They don't even know what that role is, who's in charge of that issue. And this is where the intermediary or the, you know, the middle link that's relevant here is that there's often someone who knows a little bit more than you about the issue and who knows which official is involved with that.

Really ginned up and passionate.

They're.

God bless them.

Exactly. And so if there was a way for you to place your trust in the person that you know, oh, this person is more passionate than I am about this issue, they'll go advocate for me and I will. So the atomic action on Sway is vote with. So I could vote with Andrew Yang on UBI policy or I could vote with Jonathan Haidt on phones in schools or I could vote with Claire on the crosswalk in our neighborhood or, you know, safe crosswalks for San Francisco. And then what happens here is that this transaction benefits both sides. She, the advocate in this case gets a registered voter added to her count so she can go to the city council or so on and say, I represent this many registered voters living in San Francisco because we'll, we'll verify ID and check that you're a registered voter. This will give her the power to speak with the voice greater than her own.

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This is not hypothetical.

Yeah, this is a real example. And actually it's a chef's kiss example because so it is. What I actually want is a camera for right hand turns on red. Cause there's a crosswalk, and this intersection is at a highway, and people come whipping off the highway.

It's dangerous.

It's really dangerous. If I had a stroller, I would never use it. I always run across that road just because I want to limit the time that I'm actually on that street. Okay. So I put up QR codes on either side. I said, hi, I'm Claire. I'm a neighbor, and I'm a runner. I find this crosswalk dangerous. If you want to help me fix it, scan this. And right now it has about 60 people. And what's exciting is we can actually drill down and look at their voter registration, because, of course, this road is on a border.

Okay. So when they scan the QR code.

They go to Sway.

They go to Sway co and they go to my page, which says vote with Claire on.

Is there a picture of you?

Yeah, it's my real identity. In order to be a leader on Sway, you need to be an actual person. So it's my real identity, my real photo, and the way that I identify myself is as your dog patch neighbor and runner.

All right, check it out. So I scanned the QR code I think it brought to page on Sway with a picture of you and a message from you.

Yep. And a little bit about what I intend to do with the leverage that people would be giving me.

Okay. So then I say, okay, this Claire seems reasonable.

Yep.

I will now click. I will support you. And then I give you my information.

So the platform handles this separately. I actually do not know who these 60 people are who are supporting me. They are anonymous.

You have the choice to remain anonymous. As a follower, the leader cannot. The leader must be public, must be trustworthy, you know, and must be transparent. But the follower must have the option of anonymity and privacy.

Yeah. And so they go through and they verify their voter registration as Sway. We don't collect that information. We just check that you are a voter and then store your GEO ID as a hash. But we can. Safety and privacy matter a lot to us.

So how long would it take me to give you the information I need? Is it like, my address?

Have you ever checked your voter registration on, like, a vote dot Org.

Yes, I have.

Okay. This is actually even easier than that. The whole interaction, we are thinking about building this as a modern consumer platform. We're really inspired by things like particle, things that are very simple. Yes. Very simple to sign up for. So this whole interaction takes under a minute. And now you have given me a little bit of leverage, and I will update you as I go to.

All right, so check it out. Now you have 60 people, some of whom you have their name, some of them you do not. And you're like, oh, now I'm superpowered. I have 61.

Superpower is the right word.

Superpower is exactly the right word.

She can now go to the city council and say, who wants to receive 60 votes? And fix this crosswalk, and you will.

Have some very happy constituents.

Yeah. Now, this idea of who wants 60 votes? Meeting on the city council, the person who's clicked that button, vote with Claire. Besides giving her the number, they'll receive something in return. The transaction benefits both sides. Claire gets their vote. The follower will receive a future election alert with a voter guide written by Claire saying who to vote for on the city council.

So if I'm one of her supporters, what kind of communications do I get? Do I get email updates from you? Do I just get a voter guide when it's voting time? What do I get?

So it's actually particle is a really good example. Think about when you RSVP to a party. You know, it's like one click. I'm going.

Yeah.

Now the party organizer can send a few texts over, you know, hey, everybody, don't forget to bring your whatever.

Whatever it is.

It's a costume party or bring it. Yeah, bring a gift or it's tomorrow or it's rained out, we're changing the date. There's mechanisms for the organizer to communicate with the people attending. In this case, it's not a party, but there is an event which is the next election. And so that might be a year from now, but the organizer has a way to send you some notifications of other actions you might want to do or so on. But the most important part is when the election comes, whether it's a primary election or a general election or special election that's relevant to the particular topic. In this case, your crosswalk safety. The organizer can send a voter guide saying, this is who to vote for, for the offices that are relevant to this topic. And what this does for me as the follower, as the voter is for the first time, I get a voter guide that is completely personalized to the causes I'm passionate about. And by the way, I might receive if I follow two or three different people on different topics. I might get your recommendations for state senator as related to ubi, and I might get Jonathan Haidt's recommendation for school board and her recommendation for, you know, city council. And now I can go into the ballot box and vote in a way where I see how these offices relate to the things I'm passionate about.

So could I do that in the absence of this micro example that Claire's demonstrating? For example, could Andrew Yang go on Sway right now and say, hey, come to Sway and just like get my voter guide on? You know, I just make a laundry list of issues and then people could then say, essentially, hey, I want to hear what Andrew Yang thinks about various races, even if it's not issue specific or even community specific. Is that a thing?

Sure. In the bigger picture, this is creating the new infrastructure for political parties. And, you know, and you know, no.

Wonder we're having this conversation.

Yeah. If you think about it, you know, there's a whole bunch of people who care about your beliefs and your causes and want to be part of a movement with you. Right. If they all clicked.

Exactly.

If they all click the button with Andrew Yang, they're essentially saying, andrew, tell us who to vote for.

Well, the reason I say this is because I gave a talk in this case was Austin, Texas, love it. And a bunch of people came together. I was talking about Forward and whatnot, and they said one of them raised their hands, a techie actually, and he was like, okay, I get it, I'm down. But I don't know what the heck to do when it comes election time, like voting this, blah, blah, blah, like, what do I do? And then my recommendation to him was, and I don't know how satisfactory this was or if he did it or whether it worked even. It's like, look, join the Forward Party mailing list. And then when it comes to election time, like, we'll send you some stuff. And there is a Forward Party of Texas. And so I don't know if he did that, but this sounds like much, because that is a smart question. It's a question that you do get.

Well, and one advantage of Sway would be you are clearly the face of the Forward Party. And so a lot of people would come to align with you. Right. Vote with Andrew Yang on Forward, but every individual state party could also have their pages. And then Forward Party candidates or activists or advocates on the ground can also have their pages. And as you all follow each other. Now, you are networked. So some people who only know you as the face of the movement will be following you but still receive hyperlocal recommendations because we will surface things essentially down the chain and attribute them as such. But because you follow Andrew Yang, your city council recommendation is blank person via the Forward Party of Minnesota. Yes, or like, you know, whoever. Whoever the local on the ground people are. And I think that this is what gets us sort of beyond the typical abstraction layer of like the two parties to these micro parties or large parties as well that are based more on policy than traditional politics.

Yeah, I love this on many levels, but I love how it actually tries to tie outcomes and results to voter action and officials getting rewarded or whatnot. Because one of my main frustrations right now is that there's not that much of a relationship really. We do a good job, we do a bad job, sliver of a sliver, gonna vote. We know who those voters are. You've got special interests who can turn people out in that. And as long as I stay on their good side, all good. Even if people are leaving because it's too expensive, people are leaving because of this issue or that issue. It's like no skin off my back because I've still got the majority of my sliver or whatnot.

And with the example you just pointed out, it's fashionable to blame the politicians for this. But even if they want to do the right thing, if they don't cater to the special interest, they're not going to win their next primary unless somebody brings out the voters to actually support them for doing the right thing. Right. And right now, voters don't have a mechanism to be informed on which candidate did what I want, which candidate opposes what I want, and they don't come vote in primaries, you know, so, yeah.

That alone would be a big deal. If you have more people amped up and educated and participating in primaries, you might change.

Part of reminds you when there's an event that you don't want to miss. This sway is going to remind you when there's a primary election that you don't want to miss if it's relevant to an issue you care about.

Quick thing about candidates too. So in tech, we often talk about like what's a 10x better experience or what's in 100x better experience. You know, these special interest groups, they have ways of reaching candidates and candidates and electeds and electeds, just, you know, know how to get that content from them. But if you are a typical citizen Just emailing. The best proxy that they have for how legit you are is your email. Right. You know, they could look at where you work or, you know, whatever it is. Sway has the potential to be able to surface. This is actually a local leader, and you do want to talk to them. There's. There's really no good way to do that right now. And working with a bunch of younger people on the campaign, a bunch of them had been interns, and they just sit there all day and they go through the inbox, like, trying to ferret.

Out, figure out who's who.

Yeah, exactly.

Legit. Yeah.

I mean, I have heard from local candidates and local elected officials that if someone in this interstitial layer between them and their represent or whoever.

Constituents.

Yeah, their constituents. Yeah. That word comes with 10 people that they're worth talking to.

10 is enough.

10 is enough for these local reasons. Yeah.

You could also think that 10 probably means more than 10. So they got 10 in, and it's like, all right, this speaks to a group.

Right. And Sway will be able to identify who those people are incredibly easily.

Yeah, I would say so.

I think, actually, you know, ultimately we see ourselves as solving the problem of aggregating and showcasing collective wealth.

Yeah. You can imagine what this matrix network, slash lattice would look like if everyone from national down to local, and then you had a real sense as to who's doing what and who I should be.

I think that's our future.

Yeah. I mean, that's the vision. I can see that clearly. I mean, what you're hoping to do is restore the incentives that people kind of imagine might be there, but are not really there. And wonderful thing is that it is a vision of citizen empowerment.

Absolutely.

Because if you are a person trying to get something done, it's a bear. And most of us hope that someone around us will have the industry and energy and passion and dedication to put up the crosswalk sign. And then after they get ex followers, actually go to the city council meeting and be like, yo, this intersection is a hazard. It's just a matter of time before some stroller gets run over because people are coming off the highway and people are like, oh, yeah, that's. That's totally the case. So I'm sure the 60 people that actually scan the QR code and sent you their info, there's another 600 people that hope you succeed. That we're just too lazy to.

An interesting analogy to think about or metaphor is that this enables, whether it's a micro issue like the crosswalk or A much bigger issue, like, you know, UBI or phones in schools. It enables the people who are passionate about that cause to have the same kind of influence that organizations like, say, the NRA has for guns, because they can mobilize voters. And in this case, it's mobilizing voters around a very, you know, like a micro cause. And. And it's allowing for a mosaic of different causes. Meaning I might. I totally agree with Claire on her crosswalk safety, even if I disagree with her on some school policy. I actually agree with you on school policies. But the point being, you can tell he's groping for.

What do I ask him to do?

We have disagreements.

We definitely have disagreements.

But we disagreed on the graphic on the homepage.

No, we have political disagreements. But the. But part of what's frustrating with politics is everyone hates the political parties because they are like a grouping of policies that nobody fully. You know, it's hard to align with a whole political party on every issue. I like these things about the Democrats, but I dislike these other things. I like certain things about the Republicans. I dislike other things. And the whole thing feels kind of disdainful.

These parties are nonsense at this point. They are, you can tell, because of the fact that they've sliced the country up into red zones and blue zones. And so, like, tens of millions of us are on the outside looking in of whatever's going on locally.

It's like, oh, people were like, wow, that's so great that you moved to Cal or. So you moved to Pennsylvania last fall to work on the election. And I feel very lucky to be from Pennsylvania, but would have been nice to stay with my partner and my pets and be able to have the same impact. But California, Irrelevant.

That.

Irrelevant in the.

Yeah, but the point I was trying to make is it's just fundamentally hard to agree with a political party on all issues. It's much easier to agree with one individual on one issue. And that's how the Internet already works. I see a tweet by somebody who is compelling on a specific issue, and I'm like, I agree with her on this issue. Now you have a mechanism to. If they have a sway page, I will vote with her on that issue, even if I disagree with her on other issues or I want to vote with Andrew on something.

Intersection is a perfect emblem because it's like, look, you know, I. I think this road's unsafe, and it doesn't. It has nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans. I mean, you know, the exact street being unsafe is unsafe. And you must have been up on this entire abundance discussion that Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson have kicked off where they were like, yo, why, why is housing so expensive in all the blue zones? Like, you know, why aren't things. And so there's an efficiency argument and problem solving argument that goes well beyond the parties. And again, this is a frustration I have with both parties is that they want us to play ideological tug of war. And it's like, yo, I just want the street to be safe and the schools to function and that person to be in some housing and not on the street.

Big asks.

And maybe like a sense that my tax dollars are being used effectively and responsibly and blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like there's an efficacy argument that is very, very much nonpartisan, cross partisan. And I think Americans of every stripe can get behind that.

Yeah. I think we have the opportunity to inject transparency and accountability into the system in a way that thus far makes it really difficult. Right. Digital platforms are faster and they share information and yeah, like, government should work. And there's not a great way for individual citizens right now to keep track of the things that they care about. And we will create that pathway.

Amen. Sway Co. So if you were to describe this, is it social media network? Is it a website, is it an app to enable me to support individuals? Is it all of the above?

Well, I wouldn't use the word social media because we're not going to be in the news dissemination. What's that?

Turns out there are places to talk about politics all the time.

Yeah, there are already social media networks. And by the way, they really are part of the problem and should be and I hope will over time get better because where people get their information and where people's opinions are formed, if it has, if it has perverse elements, you know, that that will lead to bad outcomes. But generally speaking, we're not, we're not thinking that we will replace that. You know, people already get their information from all sorts of different sources. Where, where the, the transaction occurs. Where you say, oh, I have discovered somebody I trust, whether I discover them on TikTok or they're my next door neighbor and I went to their home.

Or if I were to be. Want to be helpful, which I obviously do, would I join Sway?

You would create a profile on Sway. All right, because you're a leader, right? You're not.

Oh, well, thank you. No, there are different interactions.

You would create a profile and you would tell people, whether on your podcast or on your Twitter, vote with me and Put a link to your URL on Sway.

Okay, so I do have like a page on Sway.

You would have a page. Yeah. So. And it would be. I mean, the design won't be.

It will. It will be created by the time this airs. Nice.

I love it.

I hope so. And yeah, the design, the design won't be as, you know, as frivolous as particle, but it'll be as simple where people can just be like, oh, yeah, I like Andrew Yang. I will vote with Andrew Yang. A quick, you know, verification process. And now you have millions of voters and part of, you know, the part of the power with that is that now you can quantify how many United States registered voters have said they will vote with you and have essentially subscribed to your election alerts and voter guides.

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And they would all coalesce, like linking back and forth.

Yeah. So by following you would get the relevant info.

The premise is that it's. The Internet is naturally, you know, hierarchical and, you know, has this graph aspect and it doesn't have to be the official Texas forward Party. Right. It could be just some mom in Texas is like, I love Andrew Yang and I'm going to collect 100 votes for Andrew Yang. She could make her own profile public and go around her neighborhood and say, vote with me to support Andrew Yang. And so you could have this entire digital infrastructure that is like a party but without the all the trappings of a.

You mean you don't want to pay lawyers lots of money to figure out all of the mumbo jumbo in each state?

Well, the reason you need a political party, the purpose of a political party is because voters want a shortcut. When you're going to vote for the, you know, all the down ballot offices that state senator, state representative or county clerk, most people don't know who to vote for. And if I belong to a party, I vote for D or I vote for R or I vote for the one that Andrew Yang recommended in the digital voter guide on my phone. And we're basically offering a path for people to get a digital shortcut that's easier and, and that's more aligned to their specific viewpoints. Because I might get my Andrew Yang recommendation for who to vote for state representative, but for the crosswalk, I get Claire's recommendation because that is more important to me than, or you should know about them both.

And I get them. Certainly I might not have any opinion on the city council person.

Right, exactly. Right, exactly. And this way people can ultimately make their own decisions, but informed by leaders they trust as it relates to causes that they're passionate about.

Yeah, it would give rise to various movements or various causes at every level. You know, the intersection is important. It's going to save lives. You're hero, Claire. David. I love it.

I love it.

There's certainly someone who.

Now I will tell you the accountability piece works though, because now I feel like if this intersection is not fixed by, you know, in the next couple of months, I have failed the Sway vision.

It is on getting this, this crosswalk implemented. So one of the things that some people are wondering or thinking when you decide to put the QR code up and say, hey, support me, does that cost you money? If I am like supporting you, does that cost me? What does it sound like it would? But then if the answers to those questions are it doesn't cost either of us money. How does Sway make money? Does Sway make money? Is Sway a company? Is Sway like a non profit? What is. So those are things that people would wonder.

Well, let me start by saying that no, it does not cost you money to put up an issue. It does not cost you money to support. We're following in the footsteps of some of the most important companies of all time by focusing on growth first. So we are looking to grow the graph and grow political influence and then we will monetize.

Yeah. So it is a for profit startup. And you know, and if you think about it, Google didn't make money for the first many, many years and Facebook didn't make money for many, many years. Amazon didn't make money for many years. Yeah. And you know, in pursuit of building something larger, building an asset. And in our case, the asset we're building is what we're calling the governance graph. And it'll be this mosaic of who votes with whom and who, you know, essentially who has influence at some point. You know, if it reaches, you know, our focus is how to go from tens to tens of thousands to tens of millions of people. And if we reach that point, there'll be no question that there'll be ways to monetize. I think it'll deeply disrupt the billions of dollars spent on politics today, much of which is really inefficient and wasted.

Oh, it's so dumb.

It's so dumb. And, and so there will be ways for us to tap into that as revenue. But we're going to be really thoughtful.

Not only are you anti lawyer, you're anti consultant, you're anti political marketing firm.

Wow, we're like just straight evil, huh?

It's not anti billion billion that got spent in such, you know, great outreach. Like.

If this is our impact, the main reason there's money in politics is it currently you need money to influence who people vote for. If you're running for office, you need, you spend that money to influence what people vote for, cable TV ads or whatever and get out the voter operations, people to knock on doors. And both of those things can be done more efficiently on a smartphone. Right. Like Claire telling me which city councilor supports the crosswalk. That's more powerful than if the other city councilor had a cable TV ad or so on. Right. Because it matches it to issues I'm.

Already passionate about and local. It really would be meaningful having a number of voters because that isn't a race where typically it's like margins are small. Yeah, margins are small. There aren't huge ad budgets. You know, the ad budget is really people walking around with like mini signs, you know, if you're lucky enough to have volunteers. So if someone is listening to this or watching this, say, okay, like I'm down to give this a try or I've got a crosswalk in my neighborhood or some equivalent issue.

Yes.

So they would just go to Sway Co and then create a profile. Or if they don't have an issue that they're going to be advocating for, they could look around, maybe they could find my profile.

Because, yeah, they can follow your profile. They can. You know, right now, at the current moment, it's on a wait list, but by the time this airs, it might be open for anyone to create a creator profile or to clone somebody else's profile and say, you know, I want to, you know, amplify this, amplify this other person's perspective and so on. So part of it is that, you know, just like take a social graph like Twitter, I might follow you and I might have my own followers. The same thing can work on Sway where someone will say, I'll vote with Andrew Yang and I'm going to also have my own followers that roll up to Andrew Yang's total numbers.

So to the point about, hey, we're going to worry about making money after we grow. So right now, are you footing the bill for the development or do you have some well meaning friends who also think democracy is jacked and want to do something?

It's a bit of all the above. So, yes. So I personally put in quite a bit of money. My VC fund, which has third party LPs, has also put a bunch of money. So between myself and the fundamentals, we've put in two and a half million dollars to start. We have a number of other individual investors who are asking to invest and we're. Yeah, and we're being thoughtful about making sure it represents the full political spectrum rather than, you know, too many from one side or the other. And. Yeah, and so one thing I'll say is this is not a project that needs a lot of money. We're not.

It needs a lot of people energy.

Exactly, exactly. But it doesn't need GPUs. It's not like we're building, you know, yet another AI. Exactly. People power. Yeah, yeah.

It's infrastructure for stuff that already happens in trusted relationships. And organizers are out there doing this work. But now we get to showcase how many people are actually behind them.

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Now.

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This makes a world of sense because you know where people go right now to sort of showcase how many people are behind them. Particular issue X, which is really not spot ridden to one at all.

No, no.

Because then it's like who the heck has, you know, followers on X? I mean it would just be. Yeah, it'd be. It's the wrong measurement. But right now, and you don't know.

How many of them are human beings, how many of them are registered voters. Are they registered voters in the right jurisdiction?

I mean, it's a proxy, but that's like, it's a terrible proxy is my point exactly. Because you look and you're saying that.

Stuff, we will be 10x better than.

You will be a lot better very quickly.

Exactly, exactly. This is a much needed innovation. This is why when Ali pitched me, I couldn't do anything else. It's a privilege of a lifetime to be working on something this big because we also have been sitting here talking about the impact on the US but this is inherently global on day one as well. Yeah, this is so yeah, this could be the people powered movement that changes governance globally.

Yeah. If you think about it, there's unsafe, you know, crosswalks in Shanghai or in Cape Town. Right. There are people in schools in, you know, in Stockholm who worry about phones in school. These are the issues we've been talking about aren't specific to, you know, New York or California or Texas. They are people everywhere, I think have some of the same concerns and also the same frustrations that the government isn't actually aligning to the issues they care about.

I have a joke to tell, but it'll be fun. You know how there's like a little bit of a land rush on certain new social media platforms where people become, you know, big on Clubhouse or whatever it is. Then you get there like, oh my gosh, this person's like clubhouse. I feel like there should be a land rush on Sway where it's like if people come in and you know, I mean, you know, it'll be fun but it'll definitely build on itself.

Yes.

But it's one of the things that I'm amused by because you Know what I mean? Like, that's like a new. And then Threads tried to make it happen by putting in your Instagram people, and all of a sudden it's like, oh, all your people are already here. Do your thing.

Yeah.

And whatnot. It's a big opportunity for early adopters.

Oh, for sure. Yes. I am very excited for your political future on Sway.

So, yeah, I mean, I'm definitely going to be a Swayer. Huh?

You just made it happen.

Yes. Let's go. Oh, I just want to commend both of you for doing something that I really dearly wish more folks in Silicon Valley and technology did, which is check it out. And I'm just going to tell a little, like, personal story. And then you. I mean, but it's in some ways analogous to you guys. So in 2004, I went to a John Kerry rally, and then I held a little fundraiser at a bar in Manhattan. I was whatever. I was late 20s. We just got some people together and sent a few thousand bucks to. I believe it was Ohio, which at the time was a swing state, which is to show I just have how much things have changed. And the way that so many people participate in politics is. So first you're apolitical, and then you're like, okay, I'm going to pay a little bit attention. And then you maybe start deciding, like, where, you know, I like this candidate. And then you maybe even tell your friends. And then the interaction up from that would be donating. And then you hold an event and get people together to donate. And at the high end, if you're, you know, well moneyed, then maybe you start showing up to fancy events and you meet some of the figures and you get these pic, these photos with them if you want. A US Senator said this at an event I was at, and I just winced and. Which led me to believe. I was like, you know, I'm probably going to have to do something where we asked him, say, hey, what should we do? And then he said, vote. And I was. I winced because I was like, oh, man. Like. Like this crew voting is going to make zero difference. And like this environment, it was like a blue state, like, blah, blah. It's like, who cares? So there are all these behaviors, and then there are these institutions being like, oh, do these behaviors. But you're like, wait a minute. There's something like, more fundamentally.

Yeah.

Amiss.

Right.

You know, like that. Like, even if I do what. What you're asking me to do, especially now in an era we're all getting harassed by freaking text messages and emails. There was a joke that was going around where this is, this might be too soon for you, Claire, or, you know, or, or for me, but it's like, should someone tell Kamala that the election's over? Because, you know, emails and messages. So, so you know that there are like these institutions that are putting out these appeals and messages and more and more Americans like, yo, that's not. Yeah, you know, I mean, heck, you like dropped everything and went to Pennsylvania, knocked on like, you know, hundreds or thousands of doors, reach out the. I mean, and there are a lot of people, but. And this is one of the, the big problems I have with this system is that it's channeling people's energies and passions in various directions. And if you were to put it in a particular way, it's like they're kind of like canceling each other out or like, da, da, da, da, da. But more than that, though, they're animating folks in a way that is really dark and like, polarizing. But then they're like, no, more, More. You know, the problem is you didn't respond to that email. You didn't like, send me enough money. It's like, no, if I sent you more money, it was not going to do the trick here. Like that. There's like a.

If only.

Yeah, if only. And so the people in Silicon Valley have built massive solutions and innovations among a whole panoply of market driven commercial problems. Like, I can order food to my apartment from at least three different places, and they're all like, pretty high level. But if I want good information on who to vote for or political options, it's like, you know, and, and then the incentives are all rotten. So the fact that you guys have done something that very, very few other techies have done. So, so, and you know, look, I'm friends with a lot of techies and, you know, the rest of it. And the good ones. But you know what? The good ones almost never do that. You guys have done the equivalent of what you did in pa, which is like, I'm gonna drop everything. Actually, like figure it out and then try and build a solution and spend my time. Because, you know, a lot of them, it's like, look, my time, I can like, build another very valuable company and make oodles of money. So why am I going to. Now you guys have managed to venn diagram where it's like, look, this could be a very successful company, which it could. I mean, there's a lot of money in this space, right? Hundreds of billions getting spent. I mean, billions are getting spent on the media and the consultants. Hello to that. If you manage to supplant that, it's going to be great for society. And as you say, this is a global problem, so this could go everywhere. But I just want to commend you guys on going to the heart of the problem and then giving your most valuable resource, which is your time, energy, network, reputation, brain power, et cetera. Because so few people of your ilk have done the same, even though a lot of them share their frustration. I mean, I've been at tables with a pound of the table being like, guys, come on, we're better than this. You're smarter than this. Why are we accepting the nonsense factory?

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah.

Because you probably were at the tables too, and been like, guys, this is a hella dumb. And then, you know, thank you for.

Using the word hella.

And. And then these same people who on some levels know that it's stupid, will still occasionally just write a big check to some, like, you know, event and just show up and just to like, schmooze the person who's not going to change a damn thing.

What I'll say, and what you were saying kind of brings us out is if you look at our. Just in our lifetimes, how much has technology changed the way we shop, you know, the way we eat, you can order doordash and have food delivered to you. The way we consume entertainment. Right. You know, when I grew up, you went to a movie theater or waited for the movie to come on at a specific hour on tv. Now you can watch any movie anytime you want on Netflix or get any song at any moment. And, you know, and even technology has even disrupted those, you know, like tick tock, disrupting YouTube and so on. Things are moving in that direction. And meanwhile, the way we select our leaders, the way we select our stone.

Age, relatively speaking, it's like stone age.

It's still running the same way it ran like hundreds of years ago, essentially. And maybe with the addition of unwanted texts from Kamala, you know, but what would representative democracy look like if you could throw that all out and start over and like, what would it look like if you designed it for the digital era where everyone has a smartphone in their product in their pocket, you know, and that is a. Or another way to think of it.

It would be the issue and affinity and voting graph.

Yeah, exactly. It would look like that. And so we're essentially building that, even though we can't change the Constitution or the, you know, the, the Capital P polls, you know, of how people are actually elected. This is a different form of polling of finding out where is the election, by the way.

It'd be much more accurate.

Exactly. And I'd say it is empowering the citizens, but it's also empowering the elected officials because they, as long as they'll stay in office, they want to do what people would want. You know, I think that this is just allowing them to better align what they do with what their constituents actually want. And I think they would view this as a service. And so the really interesting thing is there will be an inflection point for Sway where it might start out with these micro groups, crosswalk safety or phones in schools or so on, but if it grows large enough that it represents a representative cross section of the population, meaning you could go to the, to the database on Sway and transparently see who's following whom and who's going to vote for whom and who's recommending whom. You could have predictive power of saying, oh, guess what, this mayor is not going to win the next election. We can see exactly how many people are going to be voting for a different candidate. And, and that means you can also go to the mayor and say, here's what you need to change. If you want to win, you need to change these policies, flip these key influencers, add the crosswalk camera or whatever it is needed to do, then you will win your next election. And when this happens, if that happens, what's happening is that that elected official is becoming a servant of the people again. And that's something I think we've kind of lost along the way with our current system.

Yeah. The easy explanation is that these people are corrupt or these people are crooks, but like, the more nuanced explanation is like, like they're just trapped in a bad system with bad incentives and bad visibility. And if you can improve the visibility and the incentives and everything else, then be like, oh, I actually am totally for that crosswalk.

Exactly.

Like, I don't have an issue.

I think that's Sway's thesis statement, so.

Well said.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, by the way, that's what I believe. It's like, I know as you do too. It's like, you know, these people, it's like they're fine for the most part, and a lot of them even got into it for the right reasons.

Exactly.

And then they're there and the best of them are really frustrated.

Right, right. Yep. And we have a way to fix it.

Yes. It's time to set them free. Set them free to do what their people want them to do. So if people would like to get involved, be supportive, is it gotosuay co? Exactly. All right. Sway co. You heard it here first. It's the particle of activism.

Making voting a party.

Yeah. Making voting partiful. We'll work on that. We'll workshop that a little bit.

I do appreciate for the people who have listened to the whole conversation, it's probably Sway fix the crosswalk, but we really think it's Sway. Reimagined democracy.

Yeah. Reinvigorate democracy.

Reinvigorated as well.

Claire Alley, thank you so much for taking on this mission. I can't wait to see Sway grow and grow and people will all be a part of it and we'll see it in real time.

Thank you so much.

Really appreciate it. Thank you for having us.

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