How Matt Mahan Thinks He Can Save California
3/23/20261 hr 17 min
(0:00) Matt Mahan: Why He's Running for Governor
(1:51) How California Went From Bad to Worse
(12:05) Public Sector Unions & Lobbying in Sacramento
(19:05) California's Housing Crisis: Regulation & Fees
(34:52) California Energy Crisis: Gas Taxes & Green Policy
(43:57) The $1 Trillion Pension Time Bomb
(1:02:37) Trump, Tariffs & the Rise of Dangerous Populism
(1:09:14) Immigration Reform: ICE & the Path to Legal Status
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First 90 secondsDavid Sacks· Host0:00
Matt Mahan, welcome to All In.
Matt Mahan· Guest0:02
Thanks, David.
David Sacks· Host0:02
I have no idea who you are. Who are you? [laughs] I mean, you're a guy who kind of popped up running for governor of California last minute. How'd that come about, and who is Matt Mahan?
Matt Mahan· Guest0:12
Well, David, like everybody, I'm frustrated with a state that keeps spending more and seemingly getting less, which is why I jumped in. But to back up, I grew up in a little farming town here in California, a town called Watsonville, where your strawberries come from, home of- I do work in Watsonville ... Driscoll berries.
David Sacks· Host0:26
Yeah.
Matt Mahan· Guest0:26
You know it well.
David Sacks· Host0:27
I got greenhouses, yeah.
Matt Mahan· Guest0:28
Yeah.
David Sacks· Host0:28
Yeah.
Matt Mahan· Guest0:28
Exactly. Working class family, mom was a teacher, dad was a letter carrier. My lucky break in life was getting into a great college prep high school on a work study scholarship. I took buses about two hours each way, worked my way through high school and college, and, uh, came back as a public school teacher through the Teach for America program. Always was very community-oriented, was interested in politics, wanted to know how to make our city, our world a better place. Ended up in the tech sector and spent about a decade building civic tech tools to help people navigate their democracy.
David Sacks· Host0:59
What did you build?
Matt Mahan· Guest1:00
I was involved with an early Facebook application called Causes.
David Sacks· Host1:04
Right And then went on to start a platform called Brigade that was sort of like LinkedIn for voters, and the whole premise was to build grassroots, bottom-up power by connecting voters around issues they're passionate about, outcomes they wanna see, and help them organize to hold their elected officials accountable.
Matt Mahan· Guest1:22
After about a decade in the civic tech space, our company was acquired. I decided to run for city council, and I went out and knocked on 10,000