Amanda Renteria – Let’s Hear It Podcast Transcript

 

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KIRK: Welcome to Let’s Hear It.

 

ERIC: Let’s Hear It is a podcast for and about the field of foundation and nonprofit communications, produced by its two co-hosts, Eric Brown and Kirk Brown. No relation.

 

KIRK: Well said, Eric. And I’m Kirk.

 

ERIC: And I’m Eric. The podcast is sponsored by the College Futures Foundation, which envisions a California where post-secondary education advances equity and unlocks upward mobility, now and for generations to come. To learn more, visit collegefutures.org.

 

KIRK: You can find Let’s Hear It on any podcast subscription platform.

 

ERIC: You can find us online at letshearpodcast.com. You can find us on LinkedIn and yes—

 

KIRK: Even on Instagram. And if you like the show, please, please, please rate us on Apple Podcasts so that more people can find us.

 

ERIC: Let’s get on to the show.

 

KIRK: So I have to tell you, this is exactly what I needed to hear today. This interview. This is exactly what I needed to hear today. I am so glad that we’re doing this podcast. I’m even happier that you do all the work, but the thing that makes me the happiest is that you find people like Amanda to talk to us because, oh my gosh, I needed to hear this today. This was like, what is it? It’s Chicken Soup for the Soul. That’s what’s about to happen here. This is what it is. It’s great. This is so great.

 

ERIC: I’m troubled, Kirk. Tell me about your cold open. It doesn’t—it’s disquieting for me.

 

KIRK: You don’t like it? Welcome in. I get it. Hey everybody, welcome in to Let’s Hear It. I just feel like that is such an automatic “fast forward 30 seconds,” you know? Try not to lose your balance on the treadmill while you do it. Like, that’s such a “let’s get to the good stuff.” You just gotta get that out of here. Yeah, you gotta get that out of here. That’s fine. But you know, if it’s disconcerting when you do it, hey, welcome in. You found us at—no, Let’s Hear It. Is that—is that what we need to hear? You were so conditioned to hear that for so many years.

 

ERIC: I don’t know. You’re right. I hated it for so long, but now I miss it. I know. It’s just like Stockholm Syndrome. It’s just like your relationship to this podcast. It’s true. It really is. It continues to be an everlasting labor of hate.

 

KIRK: Yeah, you just can’t—all doors are closed. The windows have been barred. You’d never get out of here. But this is—why? Are you kidding me? This is why. All right, back to the subject at hand.

 

ERIC: Yes.

 

KIRK: Yes, please. This is so good. This is so good. This work is so important. So talk about it, set it up, and then we will have a conversation about this. ‘Cause as I said, this is—I don’t know how anybody else is feeling, but this is exactly what I needed to hear today. Exactly what I needed to hear today.

 

ERIC: I spoke with Amanda Renteria, who was the CEO of Code for America, which is an organization that is working to make public services more effective, equitable, and user-friendly. Imagine that. But Amanda has this phenomenal career. She’s the first Latina chief of staff in the United States Senate. She was Hillary’s political director in 2016. She worked for Goldman Sachs. She went back to the Central Valley of California to teach high school. This is really one of the—such an extraordinary person, and her commitment to making government serve people is kind of amazing. And she’s fun and funny and fabulous and it was a great conversation, and so I can’t wait to talk with you about it.

 

KIRK: Oh, such a great conversation. So this is Amanda Renteria from Code for America on Let’s Hear It. Let’s listen and we’ll come back and we’ll talk.

 

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ERIC: Welcome to Let’s Hear It. My guest today is Amanda Renteria, the CEO of Code for America, an organization that works to make public services more effective, equitable, and user-friendly. Now, Amanda has had an amazing career in public service, and I’m really looking forward to this conversation because when this long national nightmare is over, I have a feeling that Amanda will be a part of it. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Amanda.

 

AMANDA: Thank you for having me, Eric. And it’s gonna be over, right? The long national nightmare—it will end. Listen, I think, yeah, I’m an optimist, so it’s hard not to imagine the rebuild and what is possible when the chaos slows down and people start to recognize what an incredible country it is when we are working together as an entire country and the magic that happens. So I am a believer that we will emerge from this stronger and better. It’s just a matter of when that’s gonna happen.

 

ERIC: I suspect it’s a matter of how we do it, and we’re gonna talk a lot about that in this episode. So let’s just dive right in. You grew up in the town of Woodlake, which is a small farming town in California’s Central Valley. Can you just talk about what that was like and how you got from there to a career in public service?

 

AMANDA: Sure. Gosh, I love my hometown. It’s right smack dab in the middle of California. It is the lowest income congressional district in the state, or has been for quite a bit—or when I was growing up, certainly was. Wonderful, beautiful farming community where my parents were there because they ended up in the labor camps. And at that time, you’d have trains running through the middle of California and you’d have farming communities, farm workers moving from one crop to the next all throughout the Central Valley. And that’s really what my parents did. And we landed in this little town called Woodlake because that’s where one of the labor camps had enough work for the school season, is the way you think about it. And so it was wonderful to grow up there. Small town America. It made you know all your neighbors. You were around with your family and it was a community.

 

And so during the course of my life there, I really have seen this little small town—while it’s grown up, I’ve also seen it left out. Even though, you know, we have a banking industry that boomed, a manufacturing industry that boomed, a tech industry that boomed, little small town of Woodlake really hadn’t, or hasn’t even to this day, hasn’t really had all that modernization that you’ve seen around the country. So, but I still go back—I’m going back this weekend for a reunion—so my parents are still there and it is where my heart is.

 

ERIC: And so I imagine that you’re kind of—I don’t know, I don’t wanna make you feel whatever—but like a success story. You went, you ended up with a Stanford MBA, you went off to be a banker at Goldman Sachs, but then if I understand your history right, you came back there to teach high school. There’s gotta be a story in there somewhere.

 

AMANDA: I was the first woman, first Latina from my high school to get into Stanford. So it was kind of one of those big deals to get in. I remember it was on the intercom at my high school when I got in and I sunk in my chair ’cause I wasn’t sure. One, I was so cool—I didn’t want people talking about, you know, academics. I was an athletic girl. I remember just being like, “Am I even gonna go?” I had a lot of different places I could have gone more in the valley, and so Stanford was a stretch and far away. And my parents, you know, I grew up in a kind of a conservative household with my mom and dad. Conservative Latino dad, who was like, “Four hours away from my daughter? No way. And boys and girls can be in the same dorm? That’s never gonna happen.”

 

It was really a teacher who pulled me aside and kind of said, “You have to go, you know. People here need to know someone like you can succeed at a place like that.” And that really solidified this idea that I needed to go and figure it out, not just for me, but for folks in my hometown—that they can do that kind of thing, that a daughter of a farm worker can do that. So yeah, I went, but I left knowing that my job was to figure out a way to connect it back to my hometown.

 

After Stanford, I went to Goldman Sachs and worked on Wall Street and really understood how does money work, how does power work? And it was a time of the dot-com boom and super wonderful, interesting time to be there to really learn business and learn our capital markets. And I fell in love with it, but I wasn’t clear how it connected back to where I grew up. And so I really did go through this moment of, “I’ve been here now for, you know, four years.” At that time I’d gone public with them. So I was there during the switch of the euro and I actually did trade international stocks. So I had learned everything I possibly could, and I came to this point of, “Now what? Who am I doing this for?” And I sort of had that, I guess, midlife crisis at 26 years old and was like, “This isn’t why I left my little town. I’m supposed to find myself.”

 

And so that’s really when I went back to teach and coach back in my hometown to figure it out. At the same time, I also had learned at Goldman that you needed to get your MBA or that next degree. And so I went to go teach and coach in Woodlake and applied for business school. I ended up getting into Harvard, but that year for me was very pivotal because it was where my heart was in terms of how do you use the skills and tools you have to help the next generation of students or the next generation of folks from Woodlake. And so when I went to business school, I realized I wanted to do something that had the intensity and the scale of a Goldman Sachs or the markets with that reward of teaching and empowering others. And that’s how I landed in government. It really was. I felt like that was it.

 

ERIC: Let’s talk about that. You didn’t just land in government—you did a lot of government. Can you give me a little bit of your government story?

 

AMANDA: Sure. Well, the first funniest part is when I graduated from Harvard Business School and I was like, “I wanna go into public service. Where do I go? You know, what do you do?” You call your parents and they’re like—mom, I’m trying to figure this out. She’s like, “Mija, go to the front lines, you know, go learn the business.” Right? And so I went to go work at the city of San Jose right out of the gate. And man, was that so rewarding. And I did—I worked in, well, budget first, but then in their community-based organizations that are there, like a community organizer or leading community organizers in the San Jose neighborhood. And you could kind of see the real-world work.

 

And I went to Washington DC to Feinstein’s office to say, “Listen, we use Community Development Block Grants here. It’s really important for our communities and for our gang task force and all the things that we were doing.” And six months later, that office called and said, “You had this really strange background, but maybe you wanna be Senator Feinstein’s economic advisor.” And that’s how I ended up working for Senator Feinstein. It really went from one sort of one thing to the other, and all of a sudden I find myself in Washington DC. And I said, “I’m gonna work here for a year,” and that’s it. Yeah. And then, you know, nine, ten years later I’m still there.

 

And I moved from Feinstein to the economic committees, which is where Senator Stabenow of Michigan—she really sat on the banking committee, then the finance committee and then the AG committee. And so it really allowed me to utilize not only the things I had learned on Wall Street, but also getting my MBA and kind of meshing that all together. And I loved, absolutely loved my time in Washington DC working with people, trying to figure out how does our economy work for all?

 

ERIC: And you were the first Latina chief of staff on the Senate side, is that correct?

 

AMANDA: That’s right, Eric. You’re embarrassing me. I’m sorry, I apologize. Yes. And, you know, when you think about it, it took quite a long time to have that. You know, I often say, “Gosh, it should have happened sooner,” but I did feel like, again, a sense of responsibility to bring a perspective that wasn’t always around, and especially when we were talking about things like the Affordable Care Act and people were asking, you know, “Where do permanent residents—how do they get healthcare?” You know, when we think about agriculture ’cause we did the farm bill, right? What does it—how does it work? And when you grow up in the Central Valley of California, you take a huge pride in what we grow there and what—and I had a perspective on how do migrant kids get educated there and how do fruits and vegetables work that are different than the commodities? And what does it mean for a community to have programs that are making sure we have organics, that are making sure we have healthy foods, and what that means for school lunch programs.

 

And so yeah, it really was an interesting time to be there, and especially when you think of the Latino community that is young and growing and we need more and more to pay attention to what’s happening because it’s such a big part of our population. It’s such a big part of our public school kids, as an example, all across the country. So I felt both honored and proud and a sense of responsibility to figure out, “How do I make sure that this perspective is in the halls of the Senate?”

 

ERIC: And there are 100 Senate chiefs of staff on the planet Earth. That’s right. There’s 100 of us. It is a very, very small club, and needless to say, since senators can’t be everywhere, often their chiefs of staff are their proxies or kind of their power partners. What do you learn about power in Washington from being in that position?

 

AMANDA: I used to say this always. Senator Stabenow of Michigan was the perfect social chair. She loved bringing people together and really trying to figure out, “How are we gonna make this work?” And I learned from her, “How do you really collaborate?” And so I was on the steering committee of the bipartisan chiefs group—one of my favorite groups because it really is people whose name is not on that door but know how to get things done are there because you believe you should get things done to make people’s lives better. And there was nothing more beautiful than working with folks of different perspectives, trying to push something forward with that sort of social chair kind of way, which is, “How are we gonna do this so it fits that state and that state, and how are we gonna make this body work?”

 

And so it was really an honor to work not just for Senator Stabenow and Senator Feinstein, but an honor to work at that time where we did have a very strong bipartisan group of chiefs who did a lot of the hard work. Right? Many times the senator isn’t gonna have that tough conversation—you’re gonna have to have that tough conversation. And to have partners in that space helping to lead national policy, it really was quite remarkable when I look back on that time and everything we did from the Affordable Care Act to the reorganization of the auto industry, really updating so that we had a modern farm bill. It is one of the most—one of the times in my life where I was most proud of doing some real work that I know changed lives. People might not know who were the people behind it, but I do, and I look very fondly on that group of folks who got together to figure it out.

 

ERIC: Well, okay, I’m gonna bring one more resume thing up and then we’re gonna talk about Code for America, I promise. You were also national political director for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Had that election gone a little differently, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation because you’d be an ambassador somewhere or something else. But that seems to me to be almost like the apotheosis of a political staff thing to do. Can you just help us understand what it is like to work on a presidential campaign at that level?

 

AMANDA: Yeah, well, one, I’ll just say it’s your entire life, and then when you look back on it, it’s this very strange blur. I was in 35 different states, many more than once. I didn’t know what time zone I was in. And at the same time, while you are traveling all about the country, you really do get this sense of who we are as a country ’cause you are at the doors, you are knocking and saying, “Do you know this? Or what is policy? Or what do you care about?”

 

And so for me, I felt like I was on this whirlwind tour of who the United States is. And that, while intense, there’s something really inspirational and loving and motivating about being able to do that in your life and try and help. Usually candidates are about trying to be the president for everyone, and that’s what we have seen, at least in most of my life, in modern politics, is your candidates are actually trying to, you know, bring the country together as part of their presidential run. And I loved it. I loved it.

 

And I really could see, though, the division or the sense that people were being left out. And so in some ways, Eric, it made me feel like at that time, like I was visiting my hometown a little bit when we would go to these places in Iowa or we would go to these small town places in Michigan or—take your pick—where people really did feel left out from what was happening in this industrialized world, right? Technology, college, like everything, just feeling like, “Hey, that’s not me, or the government doesn’t see me.”

 

So I left that—when that campaign ended, I left in a real place of recognizing the division that was there and understanding that my job after that for the rest of my career was, “How am I gonna bring the world back together again or be a part of trying to bring the country back together again?” And it was so real to me because of the place I grew up. Right? It’s pretty rural, quite a lot of Trump supporters there. And at the same time, you know, I know the Hillary supporters there. And I recognize that division and “How are we gonna figure out a way to bring it together?”

 

But there’s nothing quite like being on a presidential campaign. To this day, it just does teach you so much about being—what power is like, how you wield it, how you work with it—and at the same time, how you try your best to connect to people in this very national and local way at the same time.

 

ERIC: Well, that is a perfect lead-up to our conversation about Code for America. I don’t wanna lead the witness at all, but I have a sense that you’re bringing all of these elements together into the work that you’re doing today. We’re gonna take a very, very quick break. We’ll be back with Amanda Renteria, the CEO of Code for America, right after this.

 

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If you are listening to Let’s Hear It, a podcast about foundation and nonprofit communications hosted by Eric Brown and Kirk Brown—if you’re enjoying this episode, you may just be a rule breaker. Tune into Break Fake Rules, a new limited series podcast with Glenn Gualco, CEO of the Stupski Foundation. Hear from leaders in philanthropy, nonprofits, government, media, and more to learn about challenges they’ve overcome by breaking fake rules and which rules we should commit to breaking together. Check them out wherever you get your podcasts.

 

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ERIC: And welcome back. Welcome back to this really fabulous conversation with Amanda Renteria, CEO of Code for America. We just heard this phenomenal resume and like I said before the break, I have a sneaking suspicion that you are taking all of these things and rolling them up into the work that you’re doing. Can you first just start by talking about what Code for America is and what you’re up to?

 

AMANDA: Yeah. So Code for America—we partner with governments to help modernize their systems so that they work for everyone. And what that means is over the last at least five and a half years, it means we’ve been in the place of safety net benefits, tax benefits, things that when you think about economic mobility, when you think of low-income communities, we are trying to make sure government works for them as well.

 

And so that means we’re really sitting with state partners and saying, “How do we help you with your systems?” At the same time, we’re sitting with people in kitchen tables, living rooms saying, “What did it take to apply to that benefit and how can we make that process easier?” And so I love this work. That’s what we’ve been doing, and it is a way of—I like to say we’re really trying to change the relationship between government and the people it serves by making it easier, respectful, simple—all those things we expect of any other interaction with any other institution in our lives.

 

ERIC: I think I’m really, really confident about their government right now and its ability to provide services. This must be a really easy job, right?

 

AMANDA: I know. This has been—for most of my career, I have tried to get people into public service, right? To try and say, “Hey, this is an honor to serve.” And we’re in such a different time right now in how people are looking at government, right? It is changing right before our eyes—the militarization that we’re seeing in some of our cities. These aren’t—these are unprecedented times and not just for Democrats, for Republicans too. You’re just not used to seeing that in this country. And so we are at a different time.

 

And I still believe democracy is won by the everyday interactions of how does government help people in that moment of need? How does government show up when you need food assistance or when you need college assistance, or when you need to figure out, “Can I buy my first home? And what are the programs available for it?” And so I sort of look at it and say, you know, “Does our mission at Code for America change about having a government that works for everyone?” It doesn’t. But I recognize the ecosystem around us has certainly changed and more of what I hope we can do over these coming months and years is tell more of the story of those governments, those caseworkers that are helping people through and saying, “This is the vision of government.”

 

ERIC: My guess is also that, you know, we have lots of governments in our country. We have local and regional, state, and federal. Right now, the confidence in the federal government is, I’m guessing, about one out of 900, if not zero. But cities and states and localities and all these other folks have to still get things done. There’s potholes that have to be filled. There are services that people need, and the only way you’re getting reelected is if you provide those services. How do you think about the various strata of governments and how do you build maybe confidence in those parts of government that actually do deliver on a daily basis for people?

 

AMANDA: Yeah. And our work has spanned—when we first started, we were very much at the city-county level. And then as we’ve moved over to the state level, more recently we worked at the federal government. But mostly we have, over the last eight years or so, been living in that space of federal programs but administered at the state level. And so we do see, like in the state of California, the county administration of food assistance.

 

And so that is—when I look at where we are right now, this 50-state experiment is incredibly important as we are redefining what government looks like at the federal level. We have 50 different states where we get to help create the vision of what we want, right? Or what, at least, Code for America believes is a government that should work for everyone. And we’ve got 50 experiments, right?

 

So in the state of Maryland, just recently, we helped people who were applying for food assistance or energy assistance—we helped to have one common application. So when you apply, they’re looking at five different benefits and now you don’t have to go to five different buildings, but instead it should be as seamless and easy as that. And so we are seeing, you know, different innovative ways of childcare in the state of Illinois as an example of the governor trying to figure out how do we match childcare services with childcare need.

 

And so, you know, you are seeing around the country different approaches to how do you serve people better. And the good news is any governor—red, blue, you know, you do wanna serve people well. And so we always have a shot when things happen at a different level—at the federal, let’s say at the federal level—that states and cities and counties who are closer to the people, they do want it to work. And so I love the fact that we get to—our chance to work with public servants who are on those front lines and saying, “How can we help you just do what you do better?” And not really get into the policy or the politics. Oftentimes, we’re not in that. We actually take it for what it is. This is the policy. Now, how do we make it work best for the people it’s trying to reach?

 

ERIC: You talked about communicating about the value of government. And since this is nominally a show about communications, can you talk a little bit about how you are able to do that in blue and red and purple places?

 

AMANDA: So one of the things I think is so interesting, when particularly when I talk to my private sector friends, is recognizing that government doesn’t have marketing. That’s not what they do or what they have, right? A lot of the comms departments or your press office is about inquiries or speeches, but not really product marketing or service marketing.

 

And so just the fact that we have helped folks build up—and this really happened in COVID where a lot of agencies were wanting to figure out, “How do I tell people here is this benefit? Or here’s where you go get food assistance, or we have this new program to help you make your way through this moment?” And that really launched much more of our texting and communication with states around the country. Like in Louisiana, when policies changed, they were able then to text their entire eligible membership that they had, right, who were in their food assistance programs to say, “Hey, this policy is changing, or if you need to renew your benefits, here’s where you go and here’s how you do it.”

 

So over the last five, five and a half years, we have seen around the country that communications from government has vastly changed in a way that is really not necessarily educating people about programs, but educating people about what they need to do in order to be eligible for programs. I am thankful looking back on that and really have loved our partners in all of this because now that we’re seeing major policy changes that are going to happen with work requirements and Medicaid and SNAP, et cetera, food assistance, that now that channel is even more important. And what I know is that channel now exists in a lot of the states that we worked with, and so that’s the way they’ll be able to communicate.

 

ERIC: Now, obviously as you just said there, there are gonna be some headwinds for people who are trying to access services, access programs, or even find the program, find what’s left of the kinds of programs that are serving people in need in this country. How are you dealing with that?

 

AMANDA: We look at it as it’ll be a 50-state strategy because every state is different in how they administer these services, and so trying to really meet states where they are in order to communicate how this is gonna change for the people they serve. And that’s what makes this so difficult is because the change is happening with not a lot of guidance at the federal level. So states are gonna be left communicating what they think is gonna be guidance to people they serve. And listen, states and cities and counties are gonna get squeezed ’cause people are gonna say, “What do I need to do now?” And they’re gonna need to answer that in some kind of way.

 

I mean, the worst case scenario is everyone’s kind of left on your own with very little guidance and that’s gonna fall on states and counties to figure out, “How do we make sure people have healthcare, those that are eligible, right? How do we make sure that people are understanding how do you track your hours so you can prove the work requirements?” I mean, this is the biggest change that in my lifetime that we will have seen to the safety net benefits programs. And while we’ve done a good job of helping states communicate changes, the change here is so big and different that you’re not just informing people of what they need to do—we need people to change behavior right now. All of a sudden when you work, you need to get your tracking sheet and say, “Can you give me the hours that I just worked or volunteered?”

 

Those kinds of things are brand new and different. So we’re doing our best and I wanna give a shout-out to all the public servants who are gonna have to also manage this and nonprofits where this is gonna lean on nonprofits to also help their membership communicate. So it’s gonna be an all-hands effort of communication when these work requirements get put into place.

 

ERIC: Now you’re in response mode, but you’re also a creator and a designer of programs and systems thinking, I would say. Now, Rahm Emanuel, I think, was famously quoted as saying, “Never let a crisis go to waste.” Let’s just say that when the dust clears, we have a chance to come up with new ways to do certain things. Is there a way to use this crazy situation to some kind of long-term advantage?

 

AMANDA: Well, there’s no doubt that three years from now, two years from now, whatever—whatever the momentum changes—things have changed already enough that we aren’t going back to an old system, that we do need to redesign the safety net system. And it is, or at least it feels like it’s pretty much changing all the way down to its foundation. And when something changes that much, I think what we are focused on is how do we create that vision for what could be? Because it is unlocking some of the barriers that used to exist ’cause people would say, “We have a legacy system. This is the way we’ve always done it before.”

 

In a year, year and a half from now, it won’t be “this is the way we’ve always done it before” ’cause everything is changing. And so that in conjunction with emerging technologies like AI have really opened up a more creative and open way of thinking in government. And that I think is an optimistic way of looking at it. Now, we’re not there yet, so I hope we have this conversation, you know, a year and a half from now and we’re like, “Now’s the time to rebuild.” I think there’s a lot more, unfortunately, hard harm that’s gonna happen.

 

But from that, from the leveling out of whatever these policies are gonna come through, we will have a chance to then rebuild it. And so at Code for America, we do a lot of thinking of what is our rapid response, our crisis that we are addressing at this moment, and then how are we redesigning it so that we are better and stronger on the way out?

 

And Eric, the reason why I have so much confidence in our ability to do that is because when COVID happened and we jumped in along with our other civic tech partners, we jumped in that crisis moment to figure out how kids could get school lunch programs. Today, five years after that, you have about 35 states now that when you apply for benefits, you’re applying for all the benefits in the state. I mean, that is a huge leap from where we were pre-COVID. And so I have this belief and confidence that in these moments, they’re hard while we’re in them. But if we think about what are we doing to help with the crisis while building for the future, I think we will have a better government coming—or governments coming out of this.

 

ERIC: Are there one or two kind of systems changes that you see are either likely to happen or would have a disproportionate benefit?

 

AMANDA: I think we will begin to see more integration between food assistance and Medicaid and income. So the idea that you can fill out your taxes, then right after you fill out your taxes, you can say, “Hey, have you applied for this benefit? Or do you want this benefit?” Or, “I see that you’re now, you know, in college—do you want this?”

 

So I do think that I can imagine a much more proactive government that links tax, Medicaid, SNAP, FAFSA, you know, all these different programs that are out there that are intended to help you in these moments of transition. I think one of the biggest places I see changing is childcare. I think what we have seen, and there’s a bipartisan desire to make sure that families—that you can raise a kid in a very expensive country right now. I think we will see that in two to three years look very different. The Child Tax Credit that the Biden administration put in, people saw a real benefit to lowering childcare poverty, and now you’re beginning to see a Republican administration also talk through, “What do we do for childcare?” So that one feels to me as very hopeful. But the other is really more integration as people are applying for benefit.

 

ERIC: All right. So you say you’re an optimist. I actually—I’m an optimist too, but I have little moments when I’m not quite so optimistic. Would you take us out with a pep talk?

 

AMANDA: With a pep talk? Sure. I think about my coaching days when you’re like, “Okay, we’re down by 10, but there’s a way forward even though we have a minute left.” I do believe that we have a new, younger generation emerging. So when I think about my 15-year-old, when I think about my 13-year-old, and while they’ve lived in a world—my 13-year-old just said this the other day, she’s like, “Mom, is it always gonna be like this?” And I said, “What is ‘this’?” Right? And she says, “Well, it doesn’t feel like it’s fun.”

 

And here’s what I believe, which is as I see my 15-year-old really think about the world, going to college, getting a job, and I see him at 15 say, “I can’t wait to be in charge, right? I can’t wait until we can take over because we can see that the world needs to be different and we can be in charge of that.” In a way that gives me hope because a new way of thinking about this, recognizing that you can actually do it together, feels really hopeful to me.

 

And I will say as I look at our world and think about history and I think about moments like Frances Perkins right in the middle of the Great Depression, and she went to Congress and said, “Listen, no one’s gonna die poor in their golden years.” And she rallied the country. She rallied Congress and said, “If we can do it together,” which was all about comms, “we can actually make sure that we have Social Security in this country.” And 90 years later, we still have it and 15 million seniors are not in poverty because of that.

 

And so I keep believing that that is the spirit of America and we will find our way in the same way. Now it might not be exactly like that, but we have that in us. We’re all ancestors of that moment. Our Constitution is ancestors of that moment. So I am hopeful and I tell my 15 and 13-year-old every day that it is up to them, and they seem to be taking that challenge.

 

ERIC: I’m glad for that and I’m glad for you and thank you for the pep talk and thank you for your work. And I am hopeful because we have extraordinary public servants like yourself who will have the ideas and the energy to help us through this thing. So Amanda Renteria, CEO of Code for America. Thank you so much.

 

AMANDA: Thank you, Eric.

 

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[POST-INTERVIEW DISCUSSION]

 

KIRK: And we’re back. So could you have a better person as a messenger for optimism than Amanda? I was thinking about—and I love how you do the biography, the autobiography, you know, “Tell us about your life story.” And Amanda describes moving with Amanda’s family through labor camps following the work in the Central Valley. Is there any other person that we need to hear from to remind us that everything is possible? Everything is possible.

 

ERIC: Yes. And this is one of those things where you don’t want to—this is at the same time, and I think Amanda would be the first person to tell you this—this isn’t a story about an extraordinary human being who overcame all odds, and she’s a special snowflake there. There are folks all over the place who have the skills and the aptitude and the talent and all that other stuff, and we have to make this world more hospitable for them. And in that sense, yes, I hope the answer is yeah, there are lots of folks out there who have a similar story to tell, and our job, I think, is to ensure that those voices all get heard.

 

KIRK: Well, I used to think about this a lot in one of my prior incarnations about—

 

ERIC: You mean when you were a ballet dancer?

 

KIRK: Exactly. You know, there’s a common denominator actually in a lot of the communications work we do around government and policy, which is regardless of your perspectives about policy, it’s very easy to describe what’s wrong with government and government policy. And in fact, it’s such a steady drumbeat and it lends itself so well to that fear-based framing that we know creates so much activation and so much support for change. And of all the things that Amanda’s doing with Code for America, this notion of trying to make government work more effectively, more efficiently, more kindly, more respectfully for all of its constituents—the many things that Code for America is doing. Embedded in all of that is, how many voices are out there actually saying, “Guess what? This notion of government and what we can create together—it’s a good thing, right? This work we’re trying to do, and we can make it better.” And to your point, we don’t need special one-in-a-million experiences to pull that off. We actually just need common sense, hard work. And so I’m with you. Yes. Amanda’s not a special one-of-one, though. I’m gonna make a case that actually—

 

ERIC: There’s no question I—I’m not saying she’s not—

 

KIRK: And I get the undercurrent to that point, but I also—every word of Amanda in terms of Amanda’s experience, I resonated with because so much of what Amanda’s talking about both in Amanda’s experience growing up, Amanda’s work across the political spectrum, and then of course, coming to Code for America is this notion of identifying segments in our society where people, communities, places are feeling left out, left behind, and creating tools and resources to help bring people into the process, not separated from. And again, this notion of creating a positive frame and positive momentum around what’s possible. I can’t imagine a better spokesperson for that than Amanda. And this work is so fabulous. It’s incredible.

 

ERIC: Yes. I could not agree with you more. It’s interesting. We will have a show coming up in the not-too-distant future, I hope, with Kristin Grim, in which we talk about very similar themes here, and this is about how do you look forward with optimism, building on things rather than trying to fix a problem, but actually trying to meet people’s needs in affirmative ways so that you can bring people together. And that’s what is going to have to happen in the “after times” when we get—when the long national nightmare is over, when we decide we’re gonna throw down the things that divide us and talk about how do we do a better job of delivering for everybody because a lot of folks feel like their needs are not getting met. They feel like the government isn’t listening. They feel like their experience isn’t being ratified or cared about. And that’s what creates disaffection and that’s what folks use as an opportunity to divide. And that work, that affirmative building work to come up with a better system that does a better job of doing everything for everybody has to be next. And we have to be a part of it. And as I mentioned to her, Amanda is gonna be in the middle of that conversation.

 

KIRK: Well, and guess what? People feel that way because it’s true. Like in so many respects, they’re right. They are being left behind. So yeah, it’s not bad marketing. That’s right. That’s right. So this—you got into such an interesting set of considerations then, as you kind of got to the conclusion of your conversation around this moment that we’re in and that notion of people not being heard, not being listened to, being disaffected. Amanda talked about one of the consequences of this crazy disruption that’s happening and—and I even hate having this conversation because here we are in the shadow of Silicon Valley that we used to feel one way about, now we feel a different way about—but this notion of disruption and disrupting old systems. Well, what does Amanda reflect on? That these disruptions are actually creating space where these barriers, these legacy systems, the barriers that existed from these legacy systems are now being undermined and so something new and positive can grow up. And it’s almost like I don’t even wanna say it, you know, because it’s so hard, this moment, and there’s so much hostility and needless just mean-spiritedness being projected at so many people unnecessarily. And yet you get that nugget, you’re like, “Wow. But this is a shock. There’s a shock to the system happening right now. And if we can collaborate, work with intention, follow the leadership of people like Amanda, there’s actually extraordinary opportunities that could unfold from this to actually deliver things in a much better way.”

 

And it made me think about—Amanda talks about one of the consequences of COVID. There’s 35 states now where if you apply for benefits, you get to apply for all of them. It’s amazing. It’s an expert in this world that for many of us, we’re vaguely aware of it, but the expertise to manage it and manage it effectively, we just don’t have. So it feels like this is what Code for America is doing. They’re saying, “Hey, let’s walk right behind this crisis and let’s fill in wherever we can mechanisms, systems, technology-based approaches that create this more respectful, helpful, responsive government that we all know and believe we should have.”

 

ERIC: Yes, and for sure she is working at local, at all levels of government because, you know, you just go where the opportunities are. And right now she’s working at a variety of levels—at local and regional—and trying to help those folks access federal funds, whatever’s left of them, in whatever way they can. And it’s hard to get people to have confidence in their governments. But in many ways, their governments are—it is the thing that we need in order to make the trains run on time, to, you know—when you drive down the street and there’s a light, it turns red and you stop and then it turns green and you go, and someone turned that light on and made sure that it worked. And that’s—our, all of our lives are—here we are able to live the kinds of lives that we live because someone is providing necessary public, common good services. And doing that well is how you get to continue to do it well. And trying to, I think, build a sense of confidence in the ability of people to design good systems and to help our communities function well is part of the deal. I mean, it’s what we signed up for 250 years ago, for heaven’s sakes. And, you know, this experiment is being tested right now, but there are so many ways to deliver on the promise, and I think that Amanda and Code for America are trying to come up with those creative ways to build back some confidence in our collective ability to do well for each other.

 

KIRK: And I love that observation that that’s where democracy happens, right? Democracy takes place in the interactions we have with government as we engage it to provide certain services, and we have to make sure that works well. And again, who’s out there talking about “let’s make government work well?” So I do wanna step back to the life journey though a little bit and just comment on and reflect on how challenging it must have been to be declared you’re the first Latina from our community at Stanford, right? You’re the first Latina chief of staff. So to hold that with grace. I can’t even imagine the pressure that comes along with that. And again, we see clearly in how Amanda talks about the work, approaches the work, the weight of that. You know, Amanda found a way, whatever, through her experience, her own ability to process, doesn’t carry the weight of that. But I can’t believe that there wasn’t a weight that went with that.

 

ERIC: Yeah, it is obviously an amazing set of achievements, and you’re right, if she is carrying the burden of these achievements, it doesn’t show. And I do think that she is providing a great place or a space for other people to continue to do the kinds of things that she’s doing. And, you know, sometimes when you’re the first, that’s so that somebody can be the second and the third and the tenth, and she’s such a good leader in that way. It’s kind of cool. I mean, she is—it was a really fun conversation. She’s just a terrific person to talk to.

 

KIRK: Smart, funny, engaging, leads with a lot of heart, you know, and so this is—this is the part two for Code for America that I think is so interesting. Like, it’s so easy to have such a cynical, grim, almost dystopian view of technology, its impact. Like we say, we see the avalanche of what’s happening in our social landscape. Like I’m preparing to set up a series that I’m gonna force you to do on this podcast that just details the scale of what’s happening—

 

ERIC: Here we go. Our social scape, here we go again, it’s very important—

 

KIRK: But there goes Kirk with his paintbrush and his can, and he’s gonna hand it to me and I’m gonna paint his fence, but—

 

ERIC: But in that—

 

KIRK: Basically Code for America is saying, “You know, actually we can harness technology for the benefit for us all. We can harness technology.” And so it’s this “technology with the heart” notion. I think that’s what, you know, many of us as all these new ways of communicating and harnessing this digital landscape first came forward. That was the promise, actually. That was what was so inspiring. I remember back in the day we used to talk about convening all of the senior people from all of these then-nascent social companies ’cause it was so clear they were gonna have this outsized capacity to create positive influence in the world. And so it’s just nice to hear another voice saying, you know, actually there’s a grounding in this technology that we can draw on that actually can bring us together and surface and raise up the best of us. And Amanda is the absolutely right voice to carry that message forward.

 

ERIC: Well, here’s the thing, and I’ve said this before, I will say it again. You will get tired of me talking about this, but the benefits of technology have not been widely spread across the people. The benefits of technology, and when we had the technological boom at the turn of the century—we were gonna—email was gonna save us time and make our lives efficient so that we could do better things with our, you know, all that kind of stuff—has not occurred. Instead, all that efficiency went into the pockets of about 20 people. And looking forward, looking at AI and all of the efficiency it’s going to create, the movement has to be for that efficiency to be returned to the people, not to be stuck in the pockets of the 10 or 20 people so that they can go on bended knee to the White House and get some kind of goodie from an extractive government, you know? So like that’s—we have to make sure those benefits go to everybody. Yeah, those benefits ought to be able to cross party lines, and they ought to be able to cross cultural and social lines because everyone deserves a little piece of that rather than handing it to 20 people.

 

KIRK: Well, if those benefits were widely—every, if they—if you could participate widely in those benefits, also think about just the scale, the sheer volume of greater good that emerges from that too. You know? ‘Cause that’s the other thing about these kind of like black holes of wealth, if you will, right? It’s like these black holes form around certain individuals, these massive pools of wealth to grow as a result. Like, it doesn’t really activate a lot of positive change in our society.

 

ERIC: No. No. And we’re gonna have the first trillionaire before too long. Yeah. And the first trillionaire is just happy to then become the first two-trillionaire. Yeah. And that’s just not—that’s not conducive to a happy, healthy society.

 

KIRK: Well, you know how we always play the game? It’s like, what are people gonna look back on this era and think, “I can’t believe they did that.” You know? So it’s like you look back, you’re like, “I can’t believe people were handing cigarettes to, you know, people when they were 16 or 18 years old,” right? You know, like, “I can’t believe people drove in cars without seat belts.” You know? It’s definitely—there’s definitely gonna be, “I can’t believe you were handing people, children, phones that had social media apps on them that could track, that could shape their minds.” But I wonder if this notion of just extreme wealth is gonna be one of the other things that in retrospect, people look back on and say, you know, “I can’t believe that was—that just seems so obviously not a good idea.”

 

But the last thing we should say before we go, and I know we’re at time, but the level of technical expertise that Amanda is bringing here is breathtaking. And I’m not just talking about the technology piece where she’s just very quickly moving between, “Oh, it’s texting, it’s, you know, how do we integrate programs here?” But also her understanding of the systems, the aid systems that can be linked together in the delivery in a more effective way. And you really feel the depth and breadth of that experience, you know, coming from first, her first-person experience growing up, but then going through the education that she received, working at a city, being part of, you know, the—my gosh, chief of staff of the Senate, you know, just working the econ, the committees. We could have a whole conversation about what happens in our congressional committees and actually how important the work that happens there is. And of course, being part of a presidential—but just that depth and breadth of experience. It’s just—it’s being manifested in so many different ways in terms of the work that Amanda is doing. And so I just—I don’t wanna leave before we comment on that too, just the level of expertise that Amanda is bringing is really impressive.

 

ERIC: Yeah. It’s really spectacular work and I encourage people to check out Code for America, to find ways to partner, for sure. This is a partnering type of place and to learn from them and to use them as a great model for other ways that we can continue to use government to help people and to make their lives better.

 

KIRK: Amanda, Code for America. Thank you for the great work. Thank you for coming on our podcast. Thank you for your great pep talk at the end of that conversation. I personally needed to hear this today. Makes me feel again, so glad, so pleased we get to do this podcast. And Eric, so thankful for you and grateful that you have such great access to these wonderful folks and Amanda Renteria. That was just an incredible essay and generosity that you would come here and share everything that’s going on with the Code for America. That was awesome, Eric. Thank you so much.

 

ERIC: Anytime, Kirky. We’ll see you next time on Let’s Hear It.

 

KIRK: Okay everybody. That’s it for this episode. Please let us know if you have any thoughts about what you heard today or people we should have on this show, and that definitely includes yourself. And we’d like to thank John Ali, the tuneful and inspiring composer of our theme music, our sponsor, the Lumina Foundation, and please check out Lumina’s terrific podcast, Today’s Students, Tomorrow’s Talent, and you can find that at luminafoundation.org. Certainly thank today’s guest, and of course, all of you, and most importantly, thank you, Mr. Brown.

 

ERIC: Oh, no, no, no, no. Thank you, Mr. Brown.

 

KIRK: Okay, everybody, tell.

 

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