Interview: Ram Ahluwalia & Angelo Robles (Family Office)

[00:00:00] Welcome everyone. I'm Angelo Robles and welcome to Family Office TV and Family Office Masterclass. Very excited about today's interview, a return guest, and I believe on my Family Office TV platform, which is really only a couple of months old, the first return guest. So that says a lot about our special guest.

I've known him for many years as a wonderful investor and much more deeper thinker. It's very excited to have him on. And I think the topic is very timely. To a lot of the things that we've been talking about this week at Family Office TV, and really it's a timely topic for any investor, family office, or really person who's interested in entrepreneurship, investing, and understanding that it's a unique time at the moment.

So we titled it U. S. Comparative, really to the world, a little more focus on U. S. and BRICS because that's been the dynamic. That has been playing out from a lot of different perspectives lately. You could all [00:01:00] follow me on my social media platforms and go to AngeloRobles. com to learn more about the work that we do specifically in Family Office Masterclass and the work that we do with single family offices.

Our special guest today features Ram Aliwalia, CEO and co founder of Lumida. Ram, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me, Angel. It's always a pleasure. Great to see you. Thank you. Let's get right to it. Is the U. S. in decline? I never thought that a non consensus position would be to say, U. S.

is still the leader in the world, and I have to defend that position. No, the U. S. has challenges. The U. S. is I think the US is a bit overweight. It got a bit sloppy. The debt to GDP ratio is too high. We need to improve upon things like public education and rationalizing spending and addressing issues like entitlements.

But no, the US is not in decline. If you think about what [00:02:00] are the KPIs for national strength, what are they? One would be economic strength. Second would be technological strength. Third would be military, fourth would be demographics and then fifth would be a kind of catch all for other forms of strength, including, biotechnology, culture of entrepreneurship, institutions, rule of law, and property rights.

On all of those dimensions, the United States. is the leader in technology. The number one hub globally for technology is still the United States. In terms of military, it's still the United States. The number one Navy in the world is the United States. The number two Navy in the world is the United States Air Force.

So no, the U. S. is not in decline. Okay, you say some things a little bit in passing as if they're a little bit inconsequential, a 33 trillion deficit, growing political bifurcation, I [00:03:00] can make the argument, not the greatest political leadership in the country, although maybe compared to the world, I'm not so sure but I think that relative to its position, if I look at the Bretton Woods many years ago, coming off the gold standard in 71, the advent of the Cold War, the ending of the Cold War, the late 80s to 90s, and some of the things you're mentioning about U.

S. hegemony, if I could use that word, and nothing else, yes, is it probably still the leader, but is it the leader? The same percentage of leadership, broadly speaking, versus the rest of the world that it might have had 10 or 20 years ago. Is it closing the gap? And is competition good? Great point. So first off, on political cohesion, you're right.

That's an issue. It's also called Democracy, it's not perfect and yes, we need more leadership and that's a challenge, and of course you saw then the brinksmanship around the debt ceiling, that today in terms of the, what's happening around Congress and finding a Speaker of the [00:04:00] House and so forth that's an issue.

But it's not a primary consideration when you're thinking about what marks national greatness. The debt to GDP is an issue as well. And within that, it's really entitlements, especially around 10 to 12 years from now, where that starts to become felt. But we have time to address that. And that takes political leadership.

It's not a pressing concern. You brought up Bretton Woods and you brought up other periods in American history, which are actually far more challenging than now. Think about the civil rights era. Think about the challenging political dynamics during that era versus now. Or the Civil War. Far more challenging times than you had now.

Or when the United States went off the gold standard. Or had 1970s inflation. We haven't had unemployment this low since the sixties, so yes, there are issues, but American global dominance is not in decline, and international competition is healthy. [00:05:00] Competition brings out the best in individuals, it brings out the best in sports teams and athletes and communities, and also at the country level too, where capital is rewarded is where capital will flow, and the United States is still the, Least dirty shirt in the laundry basket.

What are the KPIs of national greatness? And perhaps for the younger ones and those that may not understand the acronym, what is a KPI? Yeah, so KPI is a key performance indicator. You use this term when you manage a business. And I'll list a few. So one is technology leadership. So great civilizations have a leadership position around technology.

If you look at throughout history, the development of the phalanx or the legion or gunpowder that conferred some competitive advantage or the discovery of new metals on the civilization. Second is military dominance. Third is the health and the quality of the banking system. Fourth would [00:06:00] be demographics.

And do you have a demographic pyramid? The rest of the world? Is aging, and China especially has serious issues around the demographic pyramid because of the one child policy. They can't recover from that quickly. And so does Japan and Europe is aging. Other attributes that you want to look for are a culture of entrepreneurship.

The best place to build a business is still the United States. We attract the finest entrepreneurs globally. And the United States has the institutions, capability, and policy in place to assimilate people of a broad range of backgrounds. Sergey Brin was born in Russia, and he's moved to the United States.

Meanwhile, China is criticizing Jack Ma, who could have been a hero for the population. They have a very different set of values. Other KPIs include capital flows. Where is capital flowing? To the United States. [00:07:00] Where is capital growing and rewarded? It's the United States. What's the best performing market globally over the last 10, 20, 30 years?

It's the United States. Where are the finest educational institutions? Now, there are quite a few global world class institutions. Of course but rivals to the United States send their kids to Stanford, to Columbia, to Harvard, to Yale. It's the United States. Advanced technical education, biotechnology, 99 percent of new biotechnology IP also originates in the United States.

So those are the KPIs for national greatness. Let's dive a little bit deeper into several of them. I don't know if we're going to be able to touch you all because we have a lot to talk about today and making it. What I know is going to be a very engaging dialogue for the community. So one of them, you mentioned the educational system.

We've been talking about that for decades and decades. And I understand. Is it a challenge? And this is both a [00:08:00] education and immigration question lumped into one. Are we educating the finest intellectual minds, talents in the world? And then, Encouraging them to go back and take what they learned here, and I get it, what they paid for in American school.

Where's the advantage to us? Don't we want them, as in the past, to be motivated to build companies here, to have commitment, to have a family here, to grow here in the United States? It's a great question. I'd say, first off, I think the balance of trade on talent, Benefits United States, the United States benefits from the brain drain.

We import talent on net to the extent we train them here and they head back home. That also has a global benefit to, American values are noble values, rule of law institutions, how court systems work, other countries. Model off the United States and how we govern. And I think there's a benefit there as [00:09:00] well.

One of the interesting things about education with the United States, a lot of issues and public education is one of them. If you look at how the United States scores on, say, STEM, science, technology, engineering, math, we're never in a leadership position. I would bet that China far and away exceeds the United States on that dimension and public education, other attributes.

But it turns out that's not a primary consideration for national greatness. It's quite interesting. Now, certainly at the elite education levels, the United States excels in there. What matters is leadership and American leadership, American management, American capital markets, entrepreneurship, which are premised on trust and shared values and communities.

The ability to make an investment in someone else and make a bet. On them on good faith is something that's unique. I would say that the United States excels and it's not unique to the United States, but we have multiple angel [00:10:00] markets from Silicon Valley to New York City to Miami to Dallas to Boston to Austin and so forth.

That's a sign of that. We'll move off this part of the subject in a second, but I think I'd be remiss. And I want to be careful how I spew my verbiage. So I'm going to be a little bit on the Biangelo standards, a little bit overly politically correct. I hear what you're saying. We have some of the greatest universities on earth, many of them that go back well over a hundred years.

And there's some amazing talent, both in country and out of country, that come here and are educated. And again, like you said, even those that leave may still have a sense of, wow, that was a great experience during my time in America. And it helps to counteract what they might have been told about only the negative.

I completely get it. But it does seem, a little bit looking from afar in, that advantage to some degree is eroding as I look around the world. But on a deeper level, it appears to be [00:11:00] very skewed to one side of the aisle. And I would say the same thing if it was overly skewed to the other side, that's not good either.

Do we have a system here of tenure, tenured professors, and the general thematic premise, including at some of the amazing universities that you noted, that, and we're seeing some of this in a little bit of political, Internal strife and bifurcation happening now at some of these universities that is it indoctrinating quote unquote young talented people both born here and born abroad to one specific way of thinking?

It's a great question. Yeah, no, it's a phenomenal question and I should clarify a bit more what I mean by higher education. The deeper idea behind U. S. 's leadership is that we have one of the most specialized economies in the world. And we have leadership positions in that specialization, and that then links back to, among other things, not just [00:12:00] entrepreneurship, but also the university level, we think about the leadership of Caltech, and MIT, and Stanford engineering, so that's really what I'm referring to there, on the humanities, I think humanities have an important role to play, I went to a And I think that's where your question and comment is coming from.

And you're right. I found myself consistently in the non consensus camp. On university in various classes. And there is diversity of thinking, I would say although you can get punished for having an out of consensus view on a college campus. We see that today. I spoke with a a professor who teaches at Columbia yesterday night, and they are aware of the consequences of taking a non consensus view, let's say [00:13:00] around, the issues surrounding Israel and Palestine.

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