To make that efficient.

That’s the flywheel you want. If, through barriers of entry, you’re limiting the supply, it’s not just denying people the opportunity to make money. The whole system falls apart.

Ultimately, we don’t have carpooling yet in Taipei, which we have in many parts of the world, what we call UberPOOL. I think the big public policy benefit is convincing people now not just to leave their car, but they’re willing to share a ride with somebody using technology to ...

The other thing is, you want to...and I know this can sometimes be counterintuitive, but the larger ride‑sharing gets, the better effect you’re going to have in terms of reducing congestion. Why? No matter where somebody is in the Greater Taipei area, they know they’re going to be able to ...

But the real growth comes from people who are just doing this in a very supplemental way and in understanding that there’s ways to provide regulations that give the public confidence in public safety, but also understanding that to have somebody who could be making additional money for a period ...

What we see is there’s plenty of people...we only want our platform to work for people, so, "You know what? This is how I’m going to spend most of my time and this is going to be my major source of income," it’s certainly going to work for drivers like ...

I appreciate that sentiment, and we look forward to more discussion about that. I think that’s important, because the model is really based on the ability...again, driving is something most of us can do. The technology has made it even easier for someone to turn on their phone, turn on ...

That’s where our philosophy comes in. It’s a very strong principle that there’s ways to do the regulations that ensure safety ‑‑ things like insurance, things like vehicle requirements ‑‑ that have lower barriers of entry, so the people are able to...without taking a long time. Within a week, they ...

Again, our view is citizens going out and making a little bit of extra money, while you’re still ensuring public safety, is a wonderful thing. Most people are, all over the world, not as satisfied as they’d like to be with their income situation. In some cases, they just need ...

We are doing, as we do elsewhere, criminal checks, driver checks, insurance checks, the vehicle requirements, all things that we think are appropriate. The notion of someone having to then commit to become a professional driver, go to different government offices, that’s something that generally we see as a deterrent.

For someone who’s just working, they’re not going to make this a career, and maybe they’re doing it just for a period of time...we have a lot of students in the summer time. All over the world, people just drive for a few weeks in December, on the holidays.

We have a very good business in France, but again, it makes it harder for someone who’s just looking to augment their income. You have all the safety requirements involved. We’re not suggesting that. I think that there’s a misconception that we don’t want to be regulated. We’re regulated in ...

That, from a proportional standpoint, there’s nothing like it in the world. It would be the most extreme situation in the entire world that we’ve ever seen, and we’ve seen a lot. (laughs)

I think that’s where the issue is. We’re happy to share some ideas with you more specifically about what we’d like to see here that would enable what we do, than have this threat of...my understanding is it’s closer to a $1 million US fine for drivers.

Well, no. I think getting a professional drivers’ license, I think registering with a taxi company, these things I think are inconsistent with where you see platforms like Uber. It’s not just Uber. There will be other ride‑sharing companies. Ecosystems emerge around it that really are interesting part of creating ...

But again, to basically say a teacher or a retiree, someone should go through a tremendous amount of hoops to drive their own car for a few hours a week, that’s where I think the tension is.

It’s more about how do we fashion new regulations. By the way, a lot of people have looked at how to re‑regulate things with the taxi industry. Whether it’s given them more supply flexibility or pricing inflexibility, there’s a lot of things that we think make sense. Our view is ...

Someone who just wants to drive their own Toyota Prius for four weeks ought to be able to do that in their own car, as long as they go through the right checks. I think that really the tension here ‑‑ and I appreciate that you guys have looked at ...

Right, but again, to suggest that we should register as a taxi company is not the way it’s been done anywhere else in the world. It will create too high of barriers to entry.

We’re not a taxi company, and no one regulates us in the entire world. We are a tech company, and the transportation that’s provided ‑‑ criminal, and driving checks on the drivers, like insurance, vehicle requirements, all that’s part of the regulations around the world. But understanding the other advancement ...

They’re not that complicated. At the end of the day, I would look at ride‑sharing as pretty much a known thing now. They’re just the normal issues that we have to go through.

Our hope is we can figure out the regulatory situation, so then we can sit down with legal and development and say, "OK, let’s think about mobility, transportation, economic growth, your activity, economically, for retirees, for women." Those can be the conversations we’re having with government right now in those ...

I think that would be a really damaging both signal to send, but also a terrible thing for those people. They’re retirees, they’re teachers, they’re entrepreneurs, just trying to make a little extra money. Hopefully, that won’t come to pass.

I hope that, as you guys think through how to regulate ride‑sharing, obviously you’ll look at what other countries have done, and work out an extension here. But we are really concerned with where the courts are. They’re thinking about doing astronomical fines for people just driving their own car, ...

It’s really interesting, because our tech’s just not living in the cloud, monetizing from above. So much of the economic activity is staying on the ground here and improving people’s lives.

Basically, the market’s going to grow. The way people get around cities changes. We’re growing a pot. We’re not to dividing a pot. Again, I think that it sends the message of being friendly towards innovation, understanding that this device is so powerful. It’s creating a tremendous amount of work, ...

Well, right. Our deal is, "Let’s look at every way to make our cities more local." But I think that this is a really important bridge to that autonomous future, maybe flying cars. In understanding that, the way you regulate that, as every law around the world has, understand some ...

Well, eventually.

Obviously, I’d imagine part of the road map here is autonomous transportation, making cities congestion‑free and emissions‑free. I think this stage is pretty important in getting people used to sharing cars, because ultimately we’d love to bring car‑pooling here, which is two or three people on an Uber ride.

Then obviously on the driver’s side, it’s creating a lot of economic opportunity here. Our hope would be that, as many countries around the world have found a new regulatory framework embracing ride‑sharing...because I think it’s important.

There’s some competition for a taxi market, but we don’t really talk about the taxi market in our company. We talk about the personal driver market, and how we get people to turn more of those trips into ride‑sharing, maybe in connection with public transport.

That doesn’t compete with...I know the debate here in Taiwan and a lot of places starts with the old way ‑‑ taxi versus ride‑sharing ride. Every piece of data we see around the world suggests that the market grows.

Well, we’d love to do it. If I can give you the elevator pitch, obviously we’re a technology company. Our technology, here in Taipei and elsewhere, is creating economic activity on ground in cities, both on the rider side, so people have a different way to get around, and ultimately ...

Where were you living when you were out there, by the way?

I’m sorry. Silicon Valley in Asia. It’s my lack of sleep.

How do you see some of the debates around ride‑sharing, the technology aspects of that, how it fits into the government’s broader goals and ambitions?

I’m curious, jumping into how you see ride‑sharing specifically and some of the debates in government, and how that relates to...obviously, the government’s very clear that they want to have Taiwan be a go‑between, a Silicon Valley of the West, and really be a place of innovation.

The data efforts that have been terrific, I think, just getting more tech talent not to make necessarily the current government, but to apply in a few years, both on data, but also the user experience. To make people’s interaction with government as consistent as it is with the best ...

Youth council?

I’m just curious, what areas specifically are you spending most of your time on now?

Hence the recording.

How are you finding your time in government?

Yeah.

Formality still has its place, correct?

Last night. We were in Hong Kong and Tokyo.

It is raining out, after all.

Hello. Keeping busy. How are you?