Ezra Klein

And I think the way particularly the AI conversation has gone and the often quite merited anger that is building at AI leaders and AI companies, I see that as actually farther away than I did at the beginning of 2025.

So with all that on the table, our book begins with housing.

I think housing is the place where you see the most legislative action, where you see the most governors and politicians talking about it.

A lot of the examples in the book are from California, where I'm from, where I was when we wrote much of the book.

The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has very much embraced the abundance critique.

And so I want to play this clip of Gavin Newsom on Jimmy Kimmel.

Is California over-regulated?

Because it feels like there are a lot of well-meaning laws, rules, et cetera, that get in the way of building your house, of opening a restaurant.

You know, I've experienced this myself.

What do we do about that?

We weren't able to get it done.

We finally were able to get it done this year in a meaningful way.

But this is a meaningful topic for Democrats to recognize.

Derek, what do you think when you hear that?

Well, here is, I think, also another way of thinking about this that I've become more sensitized to in the year after publishing the book that I'd like to hear your thoughts on.

So whether a housing project gets built can depend on a series of things, but I think you can often break it into three things when there is demand for it.

So one is just legally, can you get the damn thing built?

Can you get the permits?

Can you get the agreements?

Can you get through if it's a big enough project, the city council or the planning board or whatever?