Jared Cohen
President of Global Affairs, Goldman Sachs
Author, Life After Power: Seven Presidents and Their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House
I always say that what makes a great work environment or educational environment is curiosity. And you need to be intellectually generous. We all have something to offer. And everyone has something to offer us, and that curiosity and that generosity have to work in both directions.
Summary
This week, Alan was joined by Jared Cohen, the President of Global Affairs at Goldman Sachs, former CEO of Jigsaw, and best selling author of Life After Power: Seven Presidents and Their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House.
During their insightful conversation, Jared and Alan discuss Jared’s upbringing in Connecticut, the influence his family had on his career decisions, his experience working in the public sector in two presidential administrations, his fascinating entrance into companies like Alphabet and Goldman Sachs, and some advice we all can take from former presidents on moving to the next stages of our lives. They also discussed Jared’s deep interest in history and the books that he has written which helped him to become a New York Times bestselling author.
Mentions & Resources in this Episode
Guest Bio
Jared Cohen is Co-Head of the Office of Applied Innovation and President of Global Affairs at Goldman Sachs. He serves on the Management Committee and the Firmwide Client Franchise Committee. Mr. Cohen joined Goldman Sachs in 2022 as a partner.
Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Cohen was Chief Executive Officer of Jigsaw, which he founded at Alphabet Inc. in 2016. In this role, his work focused on applying frontier technology to the greatest challenges facing humanity. Prior to that, Mr. Cohen was Google’s first Director of Ideas and Chief Advisor to Google’s Chief Executive Officer and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. From 2006 to 2010, he served as a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff and as a close advisor to both Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton.
Mr. Cohen is a New York Times bestselling author of six books, including One Hundred Days of Silence: America and the Rwanda Genocide, Children of Jihad, The New Digital Age: Transforming Nations, Business, and our Lives, which he co-authored with Eric Schmidt, Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America, Life After Power: Seven Presidents and their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House, and the forthcoming children’s book Speaking of America: United States Presents and the Words that Changed History. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, TIME Magazine, Financial Times and Foreign Policy.
Mr. Cohen is a member of and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and also a member of the Trilateral Commission. He serves on the Board of Directors of Gilded, Stanford University’s Freeman-Spogli Institute and the Chapin School. He serves on the advisory boards of RAND, the National Counterterrorism Center, Schmidt Futures and the Anti-Slavery Collective.
Episode Transcript
Alan Fleischmann
I'm joined today by a visionary leader who has changed the way governments and the private sector embrace technology and innovation. For the past 20 years, Jared Cohen has brought ingenuity and a global perspective to the federal government, Silicon Valley, and now Wall Street.
A Stanford University graduate and Rhodes Scholar, Jared first broke headlines as a 24 year old recruit to the policy planning team of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He remained with the State Department under Secretary Hillary Clinton, and helped her leverage technology as part of 21st century statecraft. He was an early adapter of Twitter, and at one point had the third largest number of Twitter followers in the United States government. In 2010, Jerry joined Google to launch its technology incubator Google Ideas, which was eventually spun off as Jigsaw. Under his leadership, Jared led the company to apply cutting edge technology to some of the most significant challenges destabilizing the internet.
After a decade with Google and Jigsaw. Jared joined Goldman Sachs in 2022 as the firm's president of Global Affairs, and co-head of applied innovation. On top of his esteemed career, Jared is a New York Times bestselling author of six books, his latest Life After Power, Seven Presidents and Their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House was released this last week. It's a powerful must read book that I'm thrilled for us to explore together.
Jared, welcome to Leadership Matters. It is a pleasure to have you on.
Jared Cohen
Really, really happy to be here. Thank you.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, let's get started with a little bit of your early life in Connecticut, what was life like around the house growing up?
Jared Cohen
So there's really no specific reason why, as a young kid, I would have developed this kind of obsession with history, the US presidency, although this current book, Life after Power, has deep seated roots in growing up as the son of a psychologist and the grandson of a psychologist and the nephew of a psychologist. And so I've always been interested in behavioral psychology, I never could have predicted as a young boy that it would manifest itself in a book on the most dramatic transition in the world. But I grew up in a therapist's home.
Alan Fleischmann
And but you grew up at a therapist, with your dad. But your mom was also pretty amazing. She was the illustrator of children's books, am I right?
Jared Cohen
That's right. My mom was a children's illustrator, illustrator when I was younger. And then when my sister and I were born, she took time off. As we got a little bit older, she got into real estate. But I grew up in one of those homes where I had a ton of love for my parents. And they taught me a very valuable lesson. I dedicate the book to them for this reason, because they really are my North Star, but they taught me to wake up every morning, have a sense of what I'm curious about, and to double down on it. And that's what I've done my whole life.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, I've also heard you talk about your grandmother, you've spoken about the influence of her extensive travels to Cuba, before Castro to Iran before the revolution. And how that sparked your interest in travel and Foreign Affairs. I mean, you get to have a pretty interesting dynamic here between both your parents, and your grandparents. That said, sounds like–
Jared Cohen
Yeah, my grandmother used to love traveling all over the world. And she had this shelf growing up, where she had a little knick knack from every single country that she had been to. And what I learned from her is that your curiosity can extend beyond books and extend beyond your household and extend beyond your neighborhood and the community that you grew up in, and she really taught me to go out and explore a world as much as I could, and I've loved traveling ever since I was a young kid.
Alan Fleischmann
Did you guys travel a lot as a family when you were growing up?
Jared Cohen
I would say that we traveled an unusual amount given the state of the tourism industry at the time. I remember, you know, we went to Egypt in 1990, which was not that common. We went to Morocco, you know, not not long after that and that was way less common. Now the infrastructure and the facilitation of tourism has changed dramatically, but I feel really blessed as a young kid to have gotten to take some of these trips. And when you're little I see with my own kids, you take them to see places that look and feel different from where you grew up. And it sparks an enormous amount of curiosity that I think stays with you for a long time.
Alan Fleischmann
Any brothers or sisters?
Jared Cohen
I have an older sister. My sister lives in DC. She works for the Justice Department. And I would have always thought I would be the one who ends up in DC and she would be the one who ended up in New York, but we actually reversed it.
Alan Fleischmann
That's pretty funny. And you went off anything from high school that you want to share. You want to share any great mentors along the way that kind of illuminated the path for you?
Jared Cohen
Oh, I had lots of great mentors. I loved my history teachers in high school and I'm actually still in touch with at least one of them. And look, when I was sort of a difficult kid I misbehaved a lot in class I would get in trouble a lot but my history teachers really saw the curiosity that I had and they really, they nurtured it, I kind of didn't really hit my stride until I went to college.
Alan Fleischmann
And what made you decide on Stanford? And what made you focus, I guess, on History, African Studies and Political Science?
Jared Cohen
So Stanford was sort of random. I had my heart set on going to school on the East Coast. And but I'd always been kind of fascinated by Stanford because I didn't know anybody that went there, and I thought California was kind of cool. And my mom said to me, you can apply to Stanford. And I said, “Well, do you know if I would like it?" And she said, “you'll definitely like it, if you get in, you'll want to go there”. She said, “The good news is you're not going to get in there”. And so I still remember the day where she showed up at my high school with a thick envelope from Stanford, and it was exciting to go there, because it's a very west coast heavy school. And I don't think anyone from my high school had gotten into Stanford in over a decade. And so I liked doing something a little bit different.
Alan Fleischmann
No, yes, I can see how that became a big part of your thinking and your worldview? Because on the entrepreneurial side of you as well, I mean, everybody around you was creating curiosity, something, the combination of both kind of has been your journey to going far away from home. Was that exciting that you did that? Was that a fun experience? Did you like going to Stanford, I guess I should ask.
Jared Cohen
I really loved it. It's interesting. I reflected a lot on my time entering Stanford when I started at Goldman, because there's very few times in your life where you'll walk into a new environment, and all of a sudden, hundreds of people become part of your day to day who you literally didn't know existed before you started. And it's something that happens a lot when you're a kid, right? It happens with summer camp, it happens with college, and it happens with graduate school, and it happens with your first job, but if you sort of think about this question of what's next in your own transitions at different stages of life, it becomes a much more rarefied experience to kind of walk into a new setting.
And as I reflect back on a year and a half ago, at Goldman Sachs, there's so many people who are part of my day to day life, who, a year and a half ago, I didn't know they existed, they weren't part of my day to day, it's a really incredible part of making a change at any stage in life. It's just the new people that you get to become friends with and that you get to work with and that you get to learn from.
Alan Fleischmann
That you share a common purpose with, even work or study.
Jared Cohen
Yeah, I think I think that's definitely right. And I look there. I always say that what makes a great work environment or educational environment is you need to be curious. And you need to be intellectually generous. We all have something to offer. And everyone has something to offer us and that curiosity and that generosity has to work in both directions.
Alan Fleischmann
Given your interest in foreign affairs? I'm curious, did you consider studying abroad when you were in your undergraduate years as well?
Jared Cohen
So essentially, I did the Stanford and Washington program when I was an undergrad, in part because I had spent so much time traveling abroad when I was, you know, when I was in school, so every summer, not every summer, but every year I went to different locations. So in between my freshman and sophomore year, I thought I wanted to be an anthropologist, I was obsessed with Margaret Mead. So I went and lived in this really remote Maasai village and in Southwestern Kenya, I had gone to Ghana.
I remember for spring break, my sophomore year, a friend of mine, and I decided that we would go to Timbuktu for two weeks for no reason other than the fact that we just thought it'd be interesting to, like, where's Timbuktu? How do you get there? And we flew to Bamako, Mali, and then, you know, spent a long journey getting to Timbuktu. And by the time you get there about it, there's nothing really to see there, it's kind of a boring city, but the country is extraordinary.
And it's an interesting metaphor there, because the things that you see along the way to Timbuktu and in modern times are so fascinating. I mean, anthropologically, and culturally, and you know, in terms of music and art, it's just, it's an extraordinary, extraordinary country. And by the time you get to Timbuktu, you kind of long for all the things that you experienced along the way.
And I think it's an interesting reminder that we can be so hyper obsessed and focused on the end destination that we can forget to embrace it in the beginning. And there's an interesting metaphor there, or analogy with how people think about legacy, right? I think it's, you know, I found this from the George W. Bush chapter of my book, which is, we talked a lot about this question of why people basically give up the present, to focus on a future that they're likely not even going to be around to see, right, this idea of enjoying, you know, kind of, you know, working to live, as opposed to living to work is like a really interesting, you know, contrast which is, you know, the thrill and the what's next should be to do what you did yesterday, all over again, not this kind of thing that is, you know, multiple years or decades out or even something that you're trying to achieve posthumously.
Alan Fleischmann
That's very exciting. Actually. I can see why you and Eric Schmidt are good colleagues and friends. It's a very similar outlook to him, right? He's always working for things that honestly I don't think we're gonna have, he won't see the full impact hopefully of the good work that he does in his lifetime, but he knows it will be there to sow the seeds later.
Jared Cohen
But Eric has had a huge impact on me at every stage of my career, I've learned so much from just being in meetings with him and working with him for, you know, a decade and a half at this point. And you know, but the idea for this book, Life After Power, also, I think, kind of germinated from having, you know, I was working for him when he was CEO of Google. And I remember when he went through the transition from CEO to Executive Chairman, and having a front row seat for what I think is one of the most interesting business transitions out there and worthy of a whole extraordinary case study, in and of itself, I think, had a really profound impact on me, because I think Eric, in effect, really reinvented what an Executive Chairman is.
And if you look at what he is today, and what he's become, and the sort of breadth of things that he can apply it on, it goes so much broader than having been CEO of Google, in some respects, you know, the Google platform, when you look at what he's done feels kind of small. And he's kind of created this, you know, he's, he's almost like CEO of his own interests. And he just kind of gets after them on a day to day basis. And so I was always interested in how that transition happened, what was kind of going on in his head.
But the other thing that I've learned from Eric Schmidt over the years is, he's not somebody who spends a lot of time thinking about where do I want to go or reflects back on where I came from, I think he wakes up in the morning, sees problems in the world, sees opportunities, sees things that he's interested in, he's very captivated by interesting people. And he just kind of leans into that, you know, goes to sleep at night and wakes up and does it all over again. I think in some respects, that strategy can have an even greater impact than trying to kind of plot it all out on a piece of paper.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, and that insatiable curiosity and responsibility combination, which I think you both share, which is, you know, you know, we don't we don't know what we don't ask ourselves, and then when you actually pursue what you're asking yourselves, you know, have the, you know, the humility to know or the responsibility to feel that you have a role to do it. You know, there's something in that. We need more people like that. We have a lot more people in the private sector doing sometimes more than the public sector. But I am curious, I want to go back here to you. One of your earliest big experiences, I would argue, probably was when you were an intern for Condoleezza Rice, the first time where you went to the State Department, while you were at Stanford, right, you came over? Is she another role model that played a role in your life as well?
Jared Cohen
Yeah. So she was, you know, she was my first I would say, professional mentor. I had actually gotten to know her, as she had gone off to become, you know, to the Bush campaign by the time I got to Stanford. So I didn't actually know her from Stanford, I got to know her because I did an internship actually at the Pentagon. And I had done an internship at the State Department as well. But I think I, you know, I didn't really know her from that.
But I had planned to spend a lot of time in Iran when I went to graduate school. And I remember picking up the phone and cold calling the White House and asking you to be connected to the national security advisors office, and they just connected me. And I said, I'd like a meeting with Dr. Rice. I'm a Stanford student, and blah, blah, blah. And I think she thought that I was like one of her students or got me confused with somebody anyway, so she agreed to the meeting. And I remember going to see her at the White House. I mean, this is just too cool, right? This is really something.
Alan Fleischmann
How old were you?
Jared Cohen
I was 21 or 22. And I remember thinking to myself, anybody can get the first meeting. But what can I say to her to get the second meeting and I said, I'm going to move to Iran. And that definitely got her attention. And we met. And after the meeting, she said, If you ever make it to Iran, come back and see me.
So I went to Iran. I got kicked out of the country in 2005. This is now fast forward to when I'm in graduate school. And again, I called up the White House again, I said, Dr. Rice told me to come see her if I came back from Iran. And so I got the meeting with her. And I said, anybody can get the second meeting? Well, what will get you the third meeting? And so I show up with, like a whole briefing for her on what I've seen in Iran and so forth. And she says to me, “You know what, this is really interesting. Jared, can you write this as a two page memo for me to give to President Bush?” And I said, “Sure”. So I went across the street, there was a coffee shop on Pennsylvania Avenue called Swings back then, which is no longer there. But I loved it. And I wrote the memo. And then 45 minutes later, I showed up at the White House gate because I had no way to print it.
And I said Dr. Rice told me to write a memo for the President. I have the memo already. And anyway, long story. Long story short, I actually went to some kind of copy store to have it printed out and then I faxed it and it was a whole thing that represents a different chapter of technology. But after that she very much became my mentor. And she said, you know, what do you want to do after Oxford? I said, I think I'm gonna finish my PhD. I was doing an MPhil now at the time, but wanted to stay for a DPhil.
And she said, you know, what, why don't you, why don't you come work for me instead? And that's what I did.
Alan Fleischmann
I love this. And you picked up the phone? Not once, but twice. Actually, it sounds like you did a lot of science, probably. And you said, you know, I'd like to make an appointment.
And I love that, that you thought, “how do we turn this one meeting into a second, my second leading to a third…”.
Jared Cohen
It's amazing what you can get and who you can meet with if you just ask.
Alan Fleischmann
And also if you're compelling and quick with what you want, and why. It sounds like you walked in her shoes to see how you could present what you were doing in a way that would get her interest and be obviously important to her. And there weren't many people going into Iran at the time. I'm sure.
Jared Cohen
That's right.
Alan Fleischmann
How long were you in Iran?
Jared Cohen
I was there in 2004 and 2005. And there were very few Americans that were traveling to the country back then.
Alan Fleischmann
And when you say 2004….The whole time that you were there?
Jared Cohen
No, I was there. I got there in 2004, was there over the New Year and stayed into 2005. And then went back.
Alan Fleischmann
And you wrote about that right?
Jared Cohen
I wrote about it, yeah.
Alan Fleischmann
Was that your first book or second?
Jared Cohen
My second one. My first one was called 100 Days of Silence America and the Rwandan Genocide is kind of an outgrowth of my undergraduate honours thesis.
Alan Fleischmann
And then when did you do the Rhodes Scholar, were you at Oxford in between the books?
Jared Cohen
I was at Oxford from 2000. Let's see from 2004 to 2006. Actually, 100 Days of Silence came out right when I started at Oxford, and then Children of Jihad, I wrote it while I was at Oxford, a lot of it was based on my travels in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and various Palestinian camps during my time there, and then that came out when I was at the State Department.
Alan Fleischmann
That's great. And then when you went to the State Department, you were part of Secretary Rice’s policy planning team, right?
Jared Cohen
That's right.
Alan Fleischmann
Tell us a little bit about that. And that, you know, I'm sure that you were not like everybody else on the team. So I'm curious how you fit in and how you actually even described yourself? Or was it that it was such an interesting uncommon group of posts that you did sit in.
Jared Cohen
So what I realized now that I didn't realize back then I've worked at three big institutions. I've worked at the State Department under two administrations, I've worked at Google and Alphabet, and now I work at Goldman Sachs. These are all big institutions, they're name institutions, they have a long history, although Google's history is not as long, but these are big institutions. And I've always sort of thought of myself as an entrepreneur, but I'm not. I'm not not the type of, you know, entrepreneur that wants to sit in a garage and found a company. I actually like building new things in big institutions.
And it took me honestly until Goldman Sachs to realize that that's what I like doing. And there's a couple reasons for it. I like working for people that I respect and having jobs created for me that didn't previously exist. And I love ambiguity. And what's interesting about big institutions is historically, and typically, big institutions and ambiguity are like fire and water, right? Like they don't, they don't like each other. But with the right CEO and the right moment in time, that ambiguity can be really an exciting journey. And what I love about big institutions is that they are like big jigsaw puzzles to figure out.
But big institutions typically have unimaginable expertise that gets kind of wasted and left on the table. And so the way I approach things at the State Department, the way I approach things at Google, and the way that I approach things now, at Goldman, I like to look at what are the big questions that everybody in the world is most perplexed by? And I view those questions like pictures on a puzzle box, I then go look for all the different pieces of expertise that exist within the big institution. And I organize those puzzle pieces together to answer the question. And if you do that, right, you end up bringing an institution along with you, and you end up unearthing, you know, all of this knowledge and expertise that serves the objectives of the organization. And, you know, I never thought I would. I always knew I wanted to go into government. I never when I sort of embarked on the journey into government expected to go into tech. And I certainly never thought I would end up at Goldman Sachs. And I think it's, there's a lesson there that, you know, there's kind of two ways to approach your journey. You can chase brands, organizations and titles, or you can let your curiosity know, sort of help guide you to find the right place and the right platform at the right moment in time.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, I love that. So thank you, you also ended up working in places where there was almost a mandate for curiosity and creativity, right, and we are policy and planning, you have to think big. And you've got to link these together. So, and almost every job you've been in. Now, obviously your last jobs had been in leadership positions, too. But they're always places where there's always opportunity to create, to imagine.
Jared Cohen
Yeah, I think that's right. I think, look, big institutions are underdogs when it comes to innovation and creativity, that's my view. And I like proving the skeptics wrong. I find Goldman Sachs to be honestly one of the most creative and innovative places I've ever worked at, because you have so much expertise on so many different issues that are incredibly relevant for the current moment. You know, innovation has gotten kind of conflated with tech, and I think that's a really limited way of thinking about it.
To me, innovation is all about differentiation around sort of, you know, a persistent set of problems and challenges. And, you know, it's a navigation exercise as much as it is kind of coming up with the big idea.
Alan Fleischmann
Tell us a little bit about the time that you met, because it was, if I'm not mistaken, there was a time in the US government when technology was becoming a big deal, and Twitter was becoming the, you know, the biggest form of communication.
Barack Obama had the first place on Twitter. John McCain had the second place, but Jared Cohen, and the third. Yeah, I think that that was just really a function of the fact that nobody was on it. But, yes, I can claim to at one point have had the third largest number of Twitter followers, I can show you that that disappeared very, very fast once they, once people started adopting it, but it's hard to imagine this now, but there was a time when I was at the State Department that, you know, people thought technology was silly, they didn't think it was relevant to foreign policy. And because I had spent all this time in the Middle East, I had a very strong view, that there's no such thing as cyberspace and physical spaces, sort of separate worlds, if there's one international system that has a physical front, and it has a digital front, and as the entire world comes online, all of the problems of the physical world, were going to spill over online, and our sort of hybrid ecosystem that we all live in, would play out in a really complicated way.
And people, people have a hard time getting their head around this. And so, you know, a lot of what I tried to do at the State Department was anticipate that and get ahead of it. And the only time I've ever almost gotten fired in my career, was when the Green Revolution was happening in Iran in June of 2009. I had gotten to know Jack Dorsey, because I had taken him to Iraq on a tech delegation that I used to lead. And, you know, Twitter wasn't being used by the masses, but a small number of people who had Twitter inside of Iran had access to ISPs, and so all the things that were happening inside the country of the brutality, was eventually kind of through Bluetooth and other means getting to those people who were using Twitter to get it out.
And Twitter had scheduled this delayed maintenance for convenience in the US. And I had gotten in touch with Jack Dorsey to ask him, you know, if they could schedule the maintenance and delay it to be at a time that's convenient for Iranians and not convenient for Americans. And so he and I went back and forth, and he made it happen. And then I went to sleep, and I didn't think anything of it. And the next morning, I woke up and went to Starbucks. And I look at the New York Times. And you know, it's my debut on page A1 above the fold. I'll never forget it. It said President Obama said there'll be no meddling in Iran yet 27 year old member of the policy planning staff, Jared, like this is this is a disaster.
And I remember there's a guy who worked for Hillary Clinton named Phillippe Raines who was kind of her comms guy, and I remember, you know, I all morning, I thought I was gonna get fired. And I went to get this, like, unbelievable amount of food for lunch. And I walked into my office, and there's Phillipe sitting on my couch. And I think, oh, this this, this is it. And, when he instead, instead of, you know, telling me that I should prepare to be fired, he's actually giving me words of encouragement. And what I learned later that day is a number of people. You know, Jake Sullivan and others were urging the Secretary to fire me. And apparently, she took the New York Times, sort of slammed it on the table and said, “This is exactly what we should be doing”. And that was kind of the end of it.
Alan Fleischmann
I remember I met you. I think I mentioned the first time when we're doing Partnership for a New Beginning, and with Madeleine Albright, but I remember meeting you when you were working with Alec Ross and Farah Pandith, and you were in there and you know, it was such a totally different way of doing foreign policy, the idea that you were seen as an asset, that technology the 21st century statecraft was a new a new asset, frankly, and she really nurtured it. This was some of that directly she being Secretary Clinton got involved in and you were really at the very center of all that.
Jared Cohen
Well, I give Alec I so much credit and he's really one of the most extraordinary people I know. You know, he remembered I had been a holdover from the Bush administration. You know, people called me a neocon. And that was a tough transition in my 20s. Right. And it was just tough. And Alec came to you as a political appointment with this big mandate. And I remember he was, he called me on day one, he came to see me. And, you know, there's so many different directions that he could have taken things in. And the first thing he said, he said, “You and I are going to work together.”
And you know, fast forward many years, he's like a groomsman in my wedding. He's one of my best friends. But, you know, I'll never forget the way that he came into the State Department and the way that rather than quarreling with me, he kind of gave me a big bear hug. I've tried to mimic that as much as possible in my career.
Alan Fleischmann
You should know that I had a role here then, because I was on the Obama transition. And I'm the one that recommended and introduced him to the Hillary Clinton team. Alec was actually working with Julius Genachowski at the time with the FCC prework. And I started hearing all his great ideas about international people. He was an Obama guy, and all of a sudden, Hillary Clinton's coming in as Secretary of State. And I said, “Why don't I introduce you to the Secretary of State-elect and her team”. And within three days, he met her, got appointed, and then came in and then met you.
And I remember early in his tenure, he said, you should know Jared. And then I met you and Farah and others as well. But you guys were really responsible for so much incredible ingenuity. And now you think of policy, you think of the private sector, you think of the government working together on certain things in ways that you didn't, then the idea that technology could be a force for good was not something that you thought about in the State Department until you guys started working together. It's impressive. And obviously, your journey took off from there.
Jared Cohen
Yeah, I mean, it was it was it? It was a great, yeah, it was a great journey and a nice part of the history and feels like so long ago now.
Alan Fleischmann
I mean, I'm sure you went right for the State Department to join Google had that happen. And then you went to Google you're the founder of Google Ideas, right? And then eventually, what we now know as Jigsaw. Tell us a little bit of that. The idea that sparked the technology incubator idea and, and had you want to leave public service was even when you hear you're talking, the expectation had always been that you would have been the Washington guy. So something obviously propelled you to go to Google.
Jared Cohen
So it's interesting, if I've had three jobs in my life, right, you know, you know, at the State Department at Google and Alphabet, and now Goldman Sachs, and in all three cases, I don't remember applying for a job or accepting a job. In all three cases, I just sort of showed up one day. And it's such an interesting thing to reflect back on. Because, you know, I told you the story of how I ended up at the State Department. But I had gotten to know Eric Schmidt. Because again, I used to call up CEOs in Silicon Valley, and say, “Hey, can I take you to some of these geopolitical hotspots that are not interesting for your business to show you how technology is being used, I think it would really surprise you”. And so I took Eric to Iraq for a week, we really bonded a lot, we became really close, you know, he was CEO of Google at the time, we started emailing all the time. And he said to me, you know, I think maybe six months into our getting to know each other, he said, You know, I've got this idea called Google Ideas. I don't know exactly what I want it to be. But I'm concerned that another four or five billion people are going to connect to the internet, and we as a company aren't thinking about how that impacts technology, how that impacts, you know, the tech sector, and, frankly, the impact that's gonna have on the world, and I don't really know what I want it to be, but I kind of want you to run it.
And, you know, I said to him, you know, I don't really know what to do with that. And I was sort of young and immature and wanted more specifics. And we just kept talking. And I said to him, you know, I'm probably not the right person for it. But why don't I help you sort of design the job? And that's what I did. And then I don't know if I sort of Dick Cheney to myself, or if he sort of tricked me into it. But like, one day, I just sort of woke up and was at Google. And then when Mary and Sergey created Alphabet, they asked me to kind of take the idea behind what was Google Ideas and turn it into one of the other bets. And so that's what I did. And it's the same thing with Goldman Sachs. I mean, David Solomon, is the CEO here. We've been friends for 15 years.
You know, there, I've always been interested in this nexus between business and technology. And before COVID, that was largely a tech story. Most of the sort of private sector and business community was not really that impacted by geopolitics. And then COVID happens and all of a sudden, you have a return of great power competition, this time between the US and China, except the two economies are just inextricably linked. And it just, you know, it meant that all of a sudden, every business and every sector and geography was being turned upside down by geopolitics. And so all of a sudden, the platform started to feel smaller and smaller and more limited and limiting.
And so David, and I saw him and I got dinner during COVID. And I said to him, I think I'm just kind of getting a little bored, not because I don't love what I'm doing. But I just there's, I'm seeing all these other bigger issues. I'm seeing the rise of the Middle East, not as a hotbed for terrorism, but, you know, as you know, kind of a collection of geopolitical swing states. And so we started talking, and he said, you know, you should really come over to Goldman Sachs. And I'm thinking, I didn't study finance in college, like, I'm not going to, I don't want to go to Goldman Sachs. But I said, I'm happy to, like, think through, you know, what we could come up with together, because he was saying, you know, all the clients that they're dealing with, all they wanted to talk about was geopolitics and technology. And this was kind of changing the macro conversation. And it was a similar situation, a year and a half later, I remember on my 40th birthday, I was sitting down with him.
And I found myself in a conversation with him where we were talking about, kind of when I was going to start at Goldman Sachs. And I don't remember ever, like officially saying, yes, it just kind of happened. And it's a beautiful way to think about transitions, right, as opposed to kind of going out on the job market, and so forth. And I don't know why this kind of continues to happen, other than the fact that if I reverse engineer it, I'm finding people that I really want to work for platforms that I think are really interesting. And I'm combining those two things at a moment in time where my intellectual interests align with both the platform and the person leading it. And that's how I ended up here.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. And is this job in their new Office of Applied innovation, and you as President of Global Affairs, has the job changed, I mean, a part of this was the entrepreneurial leap into this, a gap that he knew you could help fill. And then once you got in there has the job changed a lot too, or is it not what you expected?
Jared Cohen
Change is the wrong word. It was deliberately ambiguous coming in, right, so the job was architected around two trends that we all thought were going to persist for the foreseeable future, which is that we're in the most unstable geopolitical moment and more than two decades, and we have the most significant technology invented since the internet. And these two mega trends are separately and together rattling markets. And they're forcing every single business in every sector and geography, to have to figure out how to navigate both. And Goldman Sachs, at this particular moment in time, needs to have a differentiated set of views on where all of this is going. But there also is a huge opportunity for the firm to differentiate itself in working with clients to figure out how to commercially navigate all this. So the way I think about it is, you know, there's known mandates that are part of the business that we do. And then there's mandates that don't exist that we want to generate with clients.
And so if you look at the geopolitics and the technology, the way that I sort of phrase this is, you know, we have a lot of expertise in this area, because of how we, you know, how many different parts of the world and sectors we touch. And so what I'm in the business of doing is forging an intellectual partnership with our clients around geopolitics and technology, where we combine our expertise and their expertise to generate new mandates that are mutually beneficial, and commercially beneficial to our clients. And so that's the essence of what we do. But it was hard to know that that's what was gonna happen on day one. I knew the sort of general themes.
But you know, what's also interesting about a big institution like Goldman Sachs is you can't do these things in an ivory tower, you can't do these things in isolation, they need to be done in partnership with the firm itself. And I have found this firm to be just extraordinary in terms of the knowledge, the embrace, it's one of the best cultures that I've ever worked at. It's collaborative, it feels very flat. You can pick up the phone and call anybody. The level of intellectual generosity and professional generosity that exists here, I've never seen in any other place in my life.
Alan Fleischmann
That's amazing to hear. That's amazing. You're listening to Leadership Matters on Sirius XM, and at leadershipmattersshow.com. I'm your host Alan Fleischmann. And I'm here with Jared Cohen, President of Global Affairs, and Goldman Sachs, former CEO of Jigsaw, and the recent author of Life After Power, Seven Presidents and Their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House. Let's get into the book a little bit. Because the book is fascinating, and it just came out. You know, on top of your obviously impressive career, you are this best selling author, the fact that you are doing all these things, you are raising a family and yet you write in his best selling books. It's kind of awe inspiring as well, but let's just talk about that.
You know, the books and what made you decide, you know, you've co published a book with Eric Schmidt on history and have an extra eight accidental presidents, what led you to number one want to write, and then number two, what led you to this book?
Jared Cohen
So my last book was a book called Accidental Presidents. I looked at what happens when the president dies in office, and it was my first work of history. And you get sort of a postpartum depression when you finish a book. And I was sort of searching for what to write next. And there was sort of an irony in figuring out what to write next. It was kind of a recurring theme that I've experienced that everyone's experienced, which is like, again, this elusive question of, you know, what do you do next, and I've always been interested in it.
And I was curious to look at the most dramatic transition or retirement in the world, which is the presidency of the United States, and I actually initially wasn't sure if it was an interesting topic. What I knew is, I was an avid reader of presidential biographies. And I always close the book after the presidency was done. And so when I looked at which post presidencies would be worth covering, I was shocked that of the 45 men who've been president 46 times because Cleveland did it twice, there were actually only seven worth writing about. But those seven were really extraordinary.
Each of the seven dealt with this dramatic transition in a totally different way. And what was illuminated from it is seven different models that the rest of us can draw on. It was interesting, you know, presidents of these seemingly unrelatable figures, but they have a harder time topping what they did last than anybody else, they have a harder time changing the pace from what they did last than anybody else. And they fall harder than anybody else. And all of a sudden, that makes them incredibly relatable and prescriptive for the rest of us. And I felt like I discovered this treasure trove of case studies that you won't find in any of the kinds of studies that are out there.
It's different from studying CEOs and athletes and other transitions. And so it's a work of history. But it's also a work designed to help guide all of us through our transitions. And like any book, it's extraordinary how much it ends up tying with the news cycle today.
Alan Fleischmann
Give us some examples of that, like some of the some of these sounds a little bit about some of these presidents.
Jared Cohen
So I cover seven Presidents. The first one is Thomas Jefferson. So for anybody who fancies themselves a serial entrepreneur, Thomas Jefferson was a co-founder of the Republic. And his life's angst after the declaration of independence, and the Virginia statute on religious freedom was that they had built the republic with flaws. And if you didn't create a great arts and sciences university, that would train the next generation to iterate on and improve the flaws left by the founders, the Republic wouldn't survive. But like any founder, he got sort of saddled with obligations. You know, he had to be vice president, he had to be Secretary of State, he had to serve as president twice.'
And all of that made him lose valuable years that, you know, made him get late to the sort of third volume of his life trilogy, which was founding the University of Virginia, and at 82 years old Thomas Jefferson opens the doors of the University of Virginia and what happens a group of students covering their faces with mass riot across the university chanting down with European professors, they throw bags of urine at the administration, they beat a professor of senseless with their with his cane, and Thomas Jefferson calls all the students before a disciplinary committee the next day. And so as the students sort of show up in the assembly hall, the disciplinary committee for the University of Virginia in 1825 was Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, the most intimidating disciplinary committee, past, present or future. And as Jefferson is bawling his eyes out and can't muster the strength to put words together to form sentences. The students are so overwhelmed by seeing this that the guilty confess, one by one and here the University of Virginia persists more than 200 years later.
John Quincy Adams is the man who had a second act. His presidency was an intermission between two of the greatest acts in American history. The first was architected for him by his famous parents, John and Abigail Adams, which, you know, essentially manufactured a presidency. His presidency was a disaster. And after he's defeated in 1828, he goes on to be elected to nine terms in the House of Representatives, whereas an ex president, and in a much lower station, he finds a much higher calling, and he takes the abolitionist movement, which was fringy and radical at the time, and he mainstreams it and he dies in 1848, in his final term in the House of Representatives, serving alongside a freshman Congressman from Illinois, named Abraham Lincoln.
Grover Cleveland is a story of a man who made a comeback. He's the only president to serve two non consecutive terms. By the way, you know, if you look at 2024 It's the only time other than 1892, where we are likely to have a rematch between two presidents as the nominees of the two major parties and it shows you how kind of off-script we've gone. The difference is Grover Cleveland never lost the popular vote. He threw the presidency in 1888 because he took a strong principled stance against a high tariff. And he didn't want to come back to the presidency. The only reason he came back to challenge Benjamin Harrison in 1892 Is he believed that cheap money was drowning out sound money and would destroy the country's economy. He worried about the rising tide of jingoism and imperialism, and he believed he was the only Democrat capable of defeating the Republican right sounds kind of familiar.
William Howard Taft is a great story. That chapter is called a Dream Deferred. It's a great story for anybody who always knew the job that they wanted, or the dream that they had, but the circumstances weren't right. The timing wasn't right. And so he turns out, all he ever wanted was to serve on the Supreme Court. He turns it down three times. He appoints a record six justices to the Supreme Court as president including a Chief Justice. But his wife, his three brothers, and his mentor and friend turned foe Theodore Roosevelt all wanted him to be president, but he persists. And when Warren Harding selected 1920 he appointed William Howard Taft as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and William Howard Taft, last decade of life is his happiest. Where he finally gets to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. And when asked which he liked more, being president, or Chief Justice, he said, I hardly remember I was ever president.
Herbert Hoover is a story of recovery. A man who served who lived to be 90 years old, as defined by his four years as president, and the Great Depression. But before Hoover was president, he was the great humanitarian who fed the world after World War One. He was an orphan who became a self made millionaire, and he had sort of bipartisan appeal. And he waltzes into the presidency in 1928, one of the most lopsided victories in history, and the FDR guys really did a number on him during Roosevelt's 12 years in office. But Harry Truman resurrects him in 1945, upon FDR’s death, because there's only one man who knew what it was like to be president and how to feed the world.
And this time after the Second World War, there, once again facing the world experiencing starvation. And so Hoover became a great humanitarian again, in the Second World War, he achieved status, again, as a great executive being called upon by both Truman and Eisenhower to reorganize the executive branch of government. And in a final bipartisan act, Joe Kennedy calls on him to reconcile the defeat of Richard Nixon with his son JFK, to show a united front to the world during the Cold War.
And then Jimmy Carter, all he ever wanted was to be president forever. He didn't even get to do it for eight years. And so he's the one who really is kind of the father of the modern post presidency. And you know, Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 72, he asked the question, you know, does it promote the stability and the well being of the Republic to have half a dozen men who had been elevated to the presidency, wandering around the rest of us like discontented ghosts, and Jimmy Carter, you know, 200 plus years later, answers Hamilton's question, which is former presidents can either be tremendous partners, to their successors, or they can be a bipartisan agitation to their successors. And Jimmy Carter has done both right. He's, you know, you know, promoted human rights and democracy, you know, been a huge advocate for public health. But, you know, he got, you know, he tried to kind of Fort George HW Bush's Operation Desert Storm, he complicated things with Bill Clinton, on the Korean Peninsula in 1994. And the list goes on.
And then finally, George W. Bush answers the question, how do you really separate and detach that chapter is called Moving On, and Bush, you know, out of all the men who served as president, he's the only one who's managed to successfully separate from the past. And he has a reverence for the Washington principle of one President at a time. And I think Americans value that and appreciate that. I think it's also aged really well in the era of Trump. But then he's also managed to find a post-presidential voice through painting that allows him to advocate for causes that he cares about without undermining his successors, and he's now been a painter longer than he ever was a politician.
Alan Fleischmann
That is amazing, amazing. Do you have a favorite one?
Jared Cohen
For me, it's John Quincy Adams because I find it so interesting that he only goes back into the he only serves in the House of Representatives as an ex-president, because he's already been president. He's already been Secretary of State. He's already served in the Senate. He served every diplomatic post. And so the only thing he knows how to do is public service, but he spends his early months and years in the House of Representatives as this kind of weird-looking, old man, you know, who doesn't know why he's there. So he just starts reading petitions. And some of those petitions are from abolitionists. And when he sees the reaction from the slave autocracy. He says, “How dare you stand in the way of the right to petition?” and we assume that as you're sort of transitioning and trying to figure out what's next that you have to know exactly what cause it is what you know, the issue you want to champion what you want to do.
What John Quincy Adams tells us is that sometimes the cause can find you. And I find that truly inspiring and humbling, because it tells us, you don't have to know what's next. But you can create the types of circumstances that position you to find that great cause that will define the second half of life.
Alan Fleischmann
That's amazing. And then how did you go about doing the research I imagine, you know, the several that weren't alive? Did you go to the libraries? Did you go to the other other family members? In some cases, did you interview?
Jared Cohen
So Walter Isaacson always has given me this advice that 20% of a good history book needs to have about, you know, it needs to have original research. So I always kind of subscribe to that. And look, this book is written on the heels of, you know, historian giants who come through the archives and pre internet eras. And you know, people like me get to be the beneficiary of all of that being digitized, right? So there's a lot of documents that are out there, I spend time in presidential libraries. I spent two days with President Bush up in Kennebunkport doing what I think is the longest interview about his post presidency on the record.
I interviewed all his friends and family, I interviewed critics to try to kind of piece that story together. And part of the reason I chose George W. Bush is if you look at the active living presidents, whether you like him or not, there's only one active living president whose popularity has doubled since leaving office, and he's managed to accomplish that while spending less time investing in his legacy than any of his active contemporaries. It must drive Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and Donald Trump completely mad. But I thought that was kind of worthy of a study.
You know, I spent time with Carter before. And then I actually managed to interview a couple of Herbert Hoover's research assistants who are still alive. And that was really a trip.
Alan Fleischmann
It must have been amazing, actually. And, you know, when you're thinking about the when you're writing the book, did you have particular audiences in mind? And are you finding the books obviously, just coming out now? Or are you finding that it's reaching those audiences? And you know, I can imagine all kinds of people, young and old, would find that book fascinating.
Jared Cohen
So when I started this book, I wasn't sure who the audience would be. I knew that I wanted to write another work of history. I like kind of a group biography, I like taking different stories that people have heard in isolation and piecing them together under a larger question that's more relatable. And I knew people would be interested in this question of, you know, how do you think about retirement?
So I thought I was writing a book about that. And as I was digging into each of these presidents, I was finding prescriptions in my own life. And my friends lives with each of these case studies. And I realized that this book is for everybody from somebody, you know, figuring out their first job out of school to, you know, the record number of, you know, people that they sort of described as a silver tsunami transitioning into retirement over the next year and everything in between and, and so it's interesting how your own thesis evolves, and your own sense of audience evolves. And I think for, you know, for Life After Power. If you've ever contemplated this question of what's next, I think you're gonna find seven very different case studies that will all speak to you in different ways.
If you're just somebody who loves history, I think you'll find the juicy stories in the book completely fascinating. There's one of John Quincy Adams, nearly drowning in the Potomac and having the stripped down naked, and riding a horse and buggy buck naked with his valet back to the White House, and then coming back naked and drenched into the White House and realizing that his nudity was a metaphor for his disastrous presidency. So we have lots of fun stories like that in the book.
But also, you know, if you're just looking at the current political climate today, and you're wondering, how do we end up in a situation where we have a rematch between, you know, two presidents for the first time since 1892. But also a rematch that features the two oldest presidential candidates in history, eclipsed only by themselves four years ago, when they were the two oldest candidates in history. If you're interested in how we got here, it's kind of a good time to ask the question, what are we supposed to do with our ex presidents and reflect back on history when we got it right, and when we got it wrong, so there's something in this book for everybody.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, when I think about this book, and I think that your last book, and I think about so many folks who listen to this show, and you know, in your current life that you lead, Goldman, you know, and I get to work with CEOs all the time, many CEOs are thrust into leadership unexpectedly. So I think of your last book, for example, the Accidental CEO, and then, you know, I think about, you know, CEOs who have to reinvent themselves post really dynamic experiences where they are in many ways in their own words their president, you know, that the you know, the President and have to reinvent themselves afterwards. I can imagine both books being fascinating for those who were, you know, who are leading organizations small and large, global and local. I'm curious what lessons these presidents can offer modern CEOs.
Jared Cohen
Yeah, so beyond the seven cases, so what I would say is CEOs should look at the book and the chapters are specifically labeled in a way that they're meant to be relatable. So again, if you view yourself as a serial entrepreneur, you'll gravitate towards Jefferson, if you, you know, are somebody who needs to, you know, recover your status and your reputation, you know, Hoover. So certain chapters will speak to different CEOs. And it's designed to kind of make it easy to navigate, but there are common threads across all of them, which is the change of pace from being in the seat of power to what's next. It's a physical change of pace, and it's a mental change of pace. And that first year is so trying, because the separation is so difficult, you're watching your successor, even if it's your chosen successor, dismantle some aspect of your legacy, and you feel muzzled, you feel constrained. And managing that separation, if you don't get that right, it's very hard to have a life after power.
If you get sort of bogged down in settling old scores, and, you know, wanting to kind of throw Molotov cocktails from afar, you never become emotionally available, or sort of have the mental space to have a next act. So that's the first. The second is, if I look at why these seven were successful, they all had one thing in common, which is whether they realized it or not, during their presidency, or before their presidency, in the post presidency, each of them understood that there was something they were deeply, deeply principled about.
And after they sort of got the separation, right, they doubled down on that core principle, and their success in the post presidency was a manifestation of it. And then the third is, I'm struck by the longevity of each of the men I feature. I mean, Jimmy Carter is still going in what is almost a 43 year post presidency. Herbert Hoover 32 years post presidency lived to be 90 years old. You know, Thomas Jefferson lived to be 83 years old, extraordinary in, you know, in 1826, John Quincy Adams, you know, lived to be 90 years old. So the longevity of these men is quite striking. Part of it is they never stopped learning. Right? One of the reasons George W. Bush loves painting so much he says, “Look, eventually, I won't be able to run, eventually, I won't be able to walk, eventually, I'll be physically constrained. But I can continue to learn and develop as a painter until my final day on Earth”. And so having something that is an endless learning experience is a critical piece of why I think a lot of these men found longevity. I mean, Jimmy Carter was a prolific writer, Herbert Hoover wrote, you know, more books in his last decade of life than he wrote in, you know, the decades that came before.
Alan Fleischmann
What advice would you have for founders who actually stay involved? And you talked about even executive chairman types, you know, who stay involved? You know, because you talked about Eric earlier, Eric Schmidt, and how he reinvented or really, truly reinvent the executive chairman role, where you're still very engaged. But there's another who plays the role of CEO, co CEO. What have you found of those folks? And is there something in the essence of your books, the leadership that you've shared with us from the different presidents that would actually help companies as they think through that transition?
Jared Cohen
So I actually think the first two chapters are the ones that are maybe, I would say, the first two chapters and the Grover Cleveland chapter. So Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, and Grover Cleveland, I think all offer the most useful case studies for founders. Thomas Jefferson is for the founder who has a pipeline of ideas. And you know, they're best known for what they founded and what they created. But there's another idea that is another volume in their life's work. And my advice to them based on Jefferson is, you know, pursue it relentlessly and try to extricate yourself from the founders obligation of the other things that you've created as fast as you can. But you know, what Thomas Jefferson would say is if you know the other things that you want to create, go create them and do it as long as you can breathe.
John Quincy Adams’ case study is for someone who's a serial founder, but doesn't know what their next company is. And what Adams would say is, you know, you know, you know, fill yourself with people and create the set of surroundings that will get the creative juices flowing. And he would say it's okay, if you don't know what your next company is, or the next thing is that you want to found. Keep yourself busy with the people that will either agitate you into the idea, or creatively buttress you into the idea.
And then I mentioned Grover Cleveland. Because, look, you know, Grover Cleveland came back to the presidency. He's the only president who served, you know, two non consecutive administrations. But not everybody is Grover Cleveland. And not everybody can come back like Michael Jordan, and not everybody can become Steve Jobs, and comebacks are easy to contemplate. They're hard to accomplish. But the cautionary tale with Grover Cleveland is, he was never happier than when he left the presidency the first time. And he was never less happy than when he left the presidency the second time, when you come back, even if you achieve getting the job back that you once had, it's rarely as sweet the second time. So Cleveland comes back, and he comes back for a set of, you know, things that he wants to accomplish. And instead, by the time he takes the oath of office in 1893, he inherits the worst economic depression in the country's history. He inherits American settlers having overthrown Queen Liliuokalani in Hawaii and setting in motion the annexation of the islands, which was something that he had opposed. And he feels a lump on the roof of his mouth and realizes he may have terminal cancer, he had to deal with all of that, before he gets to the very agenda that brought him back. And so I think founders have this idea of coming back to the company that they created. And they should know that it's changed a lot since they were there last. And when they do come back, there's a risk of coming back and wanting to do things as they were, coming back overconfident. And you have to be careful what you wish for, because happiness is a blessing. And the space to do something else is a blessing.
And what Grover Cleveland would say, you know, when he was asked, after a second term, what the country should do with ex-presidents, he said, they should be taken out to a five acre lot and shot to death. And then he corrected himself. And he said, you know, a second thought, a five acre lot is far too big, and presidents shouldn't be shot because they've already suffered enough. What did he say when he left the first time? I've never been happier in my entire life. So it shows you the contrast.
Alan Fleischmann
You know, presidents obviously have a defined term, but, you know, I'm hearing a lot of good advice here that your work can share about, you know, lifelong learning, you know, keeping that insatiable burning light of curiosity going, so that you move on to a next adventure. And it sounds like the very same qualities that make someone a president are often the same qualities that make an Eric Schmidt an Eric Schmidt or David Solomon a David Solomon, or a Jared Cohen, a Jared Cohen, or Condoleezza Rice, or she has represented Hillary Clinton, the burning desire to serve, and to learn, and then to lead.
So there's a lot in your book, I imagine. I'm curious, before we wrap up, we've learned that another minute here. Is there another book in your mind? I mean, I can guess already, Jared, are there many more books, based on your success in these books, but you already have one in mind.
Jared Cohen
I have another book coming out September 10. It's my first children's book. It's called Speaking of America. And this idea came to me from my nephews when I think we were watching TV, and Donald Trump was saying something kind of crazy on television. And, you know, it kind of made me realize two things. One, our kids are seeing that words matter in politics, we're always telling our kids to use their words. They're growing up with very different presidential role models then I grew up with as a kid. And so I sort of became curious about what wisdom is there from presidents. And it dawned on me that other than the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address and a few zingers from Theodore Roosevelt, there's not a single quotable line that most people can think of from any president before FDR.
And, you know, it's not because we don't know the sort of publications and several we all know Washington's Farewell Address, we know the Federalist Papers the Monroe Doctrine. So why is there nothing quotable from any of this, and it's because they spoke and wrote in such an incomprehensible Old English way. And so I decided that we shouldn't lose all this wisdom. So I take one line, spoken or written by every single president, and I talk about what was happening in the country in the world when they said it or wrote it. And then like the back of a Shakespeare book, I talked about what they actually meant by the words that they said. And then I talked about how the words had an impact and changed history. And then I throw in a fun fact.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that and is your mom the illustrator of the book?
Jared Cohen
Now, I actually have a great illustrator who lives in Brooklyn who I've never met.
Alan Fleischmann
That's amazing. Well, we want to have you back on the show to talk about that book, too. That sounds like an amazing book. And as a parent, I can see that being an amazingly important, amazingly timely and important book as well. You've been listening to leadership matters on Sirius XM, and leadershipmattersshow.com. I'm your host, Alan Fleischman. We've been here today with Jared Cohen, the President of Global Affairs at Goldman Sachs, the former CEO of Jigsaw, and the recent author of Life After Power, Seven Presidents and Their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House, an amazing book, one of his many best selling books, I assume this one will be another one. And one I urge everyone to buy and to read. This has been such a pleasure, pleasure, Jared, I want to have you on many times. We could talk about leadership. We can talk about your books, and we can talk about how we can do better. Lots of fun, lots to do together.
Jared Cohen
Thanks, Alan. Appreciate it. We'll see you soon.