Matt Mahan

And then the next frontier, the really big piece that's left is starting to tackle cost.

Some of that can come through innovation.

I was just down at a modular construction factory where they're building the components of apartment buildings in a factory on an assembly line, and they can deliver the overall project in half the time at about 20% lower cost by just using a different construction method.

Having it in that controlled mechanistic environment is much more efficient.

But we also have to, I think, and one of the things I would do as governor is,

cap the fees that cities are assessing.

Some cities increase the cost of housing by up to 20% by assessing just a totally unreasonable number of fees that aren't really fees, in my opinion, and are maybe largely functionally there to stop housing from getting built.

And I think that's wrong.

Sam, I'm just curious maybe to ask you a quick question.

I have to, but as you think about the governor's race, politics in California more broadly, we have this

threat, I think a threat to our democracy from Donald Trump and his administration on the one side.

We've gotten in, we've talked a lot about some of the failures of progressive governance in California.

I think we're both interested in solving real problems from a maybe more pragmatic position, but it doesn't feel like there's much of an appetite or maybe there's a declining appetite for that kind of politics in America right now.

And you've thought a lot about

civic discourse, the information environment we're in.

I'm curious what, if anything, gives you hope about how we get through this moment we're in.

Well, I think we're about to find out.

My bet right now is that people are frustrated enough with the high cost of living, the high levels of taxation we have in California, and the objectively poor outcomes that we're getting, that they may be open to a mayor, someone who's been accountable in an executive role, who is solving problems every day, has a track record of

in a large city, the largest city in Northern California, San Jose, setting goals that are ambitious and creating a culture of execution and accountability that actually moved the needle.

We've led the state in reducing crime.