[ { "i": 0, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "When you look at the history of America, it is about opportunity. It is about free enterprise. So, that's what I view our job is making sure that we can still sustain that entrepreneurial spirit in this country. But, in the recent last 4 years, it was a complete deviation." }, { "i": 1, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "The one interesting thing is, you know, the president has often said that he wants to make America the crypto capital of the world." }, { "i": 2, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "We do want to make this the place where people want to innovate, whether it's in crypto or something else. If we can encourage people to build here, our investors will benefit, our markets will benefit." }, { "i": 3, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "I'm Paul Atkins, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, speaking to you from our headquarters here in Washington, D.C." }, { "i": 4, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "The SEC's mission has a profound impact on the American financial system and the businesses, market participants, investors, and innovators who make it the most dynamic market in the world. And yet, for many people, the SEC itself remains something of a mystery." }, { "i": 5, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "I believe that it's time to change that, and that's why I'm excited to launch podcast here at the SEC, which will feature exclusive and hopefully insightful conversations with policymakers from inside this building, leading experts outside it, and friends and colleagues who are as informed as they are engaging." }, { "i": 6, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "For our very first episode, I couldn't think of a better place to start than right here at the SEC with two colleagues who helped to drive our mission forward every day." }, { "i": 7, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "I'm delighted to sit down with SEC Commissioners Mark Uyeda and Hester Peirce, and I hope that you will enjoy both discussions." }, { "i": 8, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "Commissioner Uyeda, it's great to be with you here today and to chat a little bit about SEC matters and your role here at the SEC and some of your background. So, you basically grew up here at the SEC, which I'm proud to say has created a really great colleague." }, { "i": 9, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "So, from your journey from staff member to commissioner, maybe you can describe some of the events that helped shape your outlook on your job and why you are doing your job here at the SEC." }, { "i": 10, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "Well, I think it just seems like I grew up here and it's true. I've been here for nearly 20 years. But before that had a whole career for nearly 11 years in private practice and as a state securities regulator." }, { "i": 11, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "And in the role as outside counsel to many publicly traded companies having to deal with all their compliance requirements including remember doing with the corporate executives, their forms three, four and five in section 16A and all that good stuff." }, { "i": 12, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "The 10-Ks, the 10-Qs. Form 8-K was much shorter at the time back in the mid-90s. And then going on after that to work for two and a half years as a state securities regulator." }, { "i": 13, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "I think I'm one of the few SEC commissioners coming here to the SEC after service as a state securities regulator or certainly in the past several decades. Remember when we first met, it was back in 2005." }, { "i": 14, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "I was the chief advisor to the California Corporations Commissioner and you were the keynote speaker at the SEC's annual small business forum and it was combined with a meeting of the then uh advisory committee on smaller public companies." }, { "i": 15, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "And that is something that has always really stuck with me is thinking about how do we have these smaller public companies access capital formation and you know you asked about things that have really influenced me." }, { "i": 16, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "You know, during my time as a corporate securities lawyer, I think of uh the dot-com boom of the 1990s. I think of the accounting scandals of the early 2000s, Enron, HealthSouth, Global Crossing and the like." }, { "i": 17, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "Sarbanes-Oxley, the creation of PCAOB, uh the financial crisis, Dodd-Frank, but then the JOBS Act. Uh so, all of those things and taking all those experiences is how uh it gives me a prism to think about what we're currently doing today." }, { "i": 18, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "Well, so you served as uh acting chairman from uh January of last year, 2025 to April um and last April. And so, you inherited an agency that had really uh diverted, I would say, from its core mandate." }, { "i": 19, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "Um so, thank you very much for your leadership and helping uh get it back on track and deal with some of the real outstanding um issues that needed to be addressed. So, let's maybe do a two-part question here. First, uh you know, what was the impact on capital markets of uh say the last uh several years um of commission action?" }, { "i": 20, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "And then second, you know, how does that inform you uh and in the most pressing priorities for the year ahead?" }, { "i": 21, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "Well, I think, you know, the nearly 30 years I've been a corporate and securities lawyer, actually say over 30 years, and then nearly 20 years here at the SEC, it's given me a pretty good baseline as to what the SEC typically does, regardless of who is the president." }, { "i": 22, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "I can tell you the last 4 years were a complete outlier to anything I've seen in that that over three decades of time as a a a corporate and securities lawyer. And it was unfortunate cuz I think we really went off track." }, { "i": 23, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "We became, instead of a regulator with our tripartite mission of protecting investors, maintaining fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitating capital formation to more of a business conduct regulator." }, { "i": 24, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "And even beyond that, all of a sudden we were going to somewhat micromanage whether you issued dividends or engage in share repurchases, what your cybersecurity looked like, your supply chain management, human capital resources, the makeup of your employee workforce, DEI at the board level." }, { "i": 25, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "And not to mention greenhouse gas emissions, environmental issues, resource extraction, your mind safety record. All of these things, how you you paid your executives. Um we're supposed to be a disclosure" }, { "i": 26, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "agency, and that is something that we have hewed to regardless of whether this was during the Clinton administration in the '90s, George W. Bush, President Obama. But in the last 4 years, it was a complete deviation. And one has to wonder, well, why?" }, { "i": 27, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "You know, I think when going back to when you were first here as a commissioner, uh we were facing Sarbanes-Oxley and But in the last 4 years, it was a complete deviation. And one has to wonder, well, why?" }, { "i": 28, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "You know, I think when going back to when you were first here as a commissioner, uh we were facing Sarbanes-Oxley and this big congressional mandate to take action. There was absolutely no such legislative mandate to undertake any of these things." }, { "i": 29, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "So, the way I looked at it as somebody who's you know, nearly a 20-year veteran of this agency, it was really important to get back to our normal course of action, how we have thought about things." }, { "i": 30, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "Um you know, I realize there can be different policy perspectives, but you know, this is a if we're playing a football game, you know, this is kind of bit well, is the ball going to be positioned more towards the left hash mark or the right hash mark?" }, { "i": 31, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "You know, unfortunately the last 4 years, I think we weren't even in the stadium. We were outside. We were so so out of our lane." }, { "i": 32, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "Um so, you know, that's what I'm thinking about, getting us back to that core mission and making sure that we don't forget that part of our mission is to facilitate capital formation." }, { "i": 33, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "Yeah. Well, speaking of capital formation, uh, you know, today we have about half the number of public companies as we had 30 years ago." }, { "i": 34, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "So, why is that and how can we help make IPOs great again? Yeah. Well, I'm a firm believer in both the public and the private markets. They need at some point that they coexist together and they both can thrive together." }, { "i": 35, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "One feeds off the other. Um, what we need to do though, I think, is make sure that the IPO still has it is used as a capital raising opportunity for a lot of companies. One of my big fears is many times, uh, the IPO is now considered a liquidity event for employees, uh, and uh, for early stage, uh, investors and venture capital funds." }, { "i": 36, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "Very very important, uh, participants in the capital raising, ecosystem, but one of the things that we saw was back certainly back in the '90s was a lot of companies using the public markets to raise capital." }, { "i": 37, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "Uh, what that meant is that everyone, any person in the public could invest in those companies. And I think that's something that's often overlooked and, you know, when I look at the history, uh, of the SEC, um, one thing that that we perhaps don't take as much consideration is diversification." }, { "i": 38, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "You can have the highest risk security in your portfolio, but if it's part of a broadly diversified set of investments, the overall effect on that portfolio is not that significant." }, { "i": 39, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "In fact, in many cases, it can present a superior risk-return, um, opportunity by having that diversity. And talking going back in time to the 1990s, there were a lot of dot-com companies that failed." }, { "i": 40, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "Um but there were a number of them that succeeded and it's certainly not for us at the SEC to tell investors, \"No, um you cannot invest in this opportunity uh for your own protection.\"" }, { "i": 41, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "That's not our role. Yeah. Well, yeah. I think that's that's an important thing to remember. I agree with that. So, uh you know, in the time we have left uh here uh we maybe we can turn to the uh the future. So, uh this is the 250th year of uh you know, since the Declaration of Independence." }, { "i": 42, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "So, we're commemorating that uh you know, throughout uh the country. And so, soon the SEC when we're just past the 90th year of the SEC back here in 2024 and looking forward towards the first 100 years in in 2034." }, { "i": 43, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "Um so, where do you see the SEC today, you know, with respect to this history and you know, what else do you think that we need to do to ensure that America's has the leadership in the financial services in the years ahead?" }, { "i": 44, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "I remember when I was the acting chairman and during that brief 3-month period, we had a series of executive orders that affected the agency and I remember my staff going through each of them. And one of them was an executive order for how each agency thinks about celebrating the 250th anniversary of this country's founding." }, { "i": 45, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "And I said, \"This is very important for the SEC. We weren't around in the early parts of this country's history, but when you look at the history of America, it is about opportunity. It is about free enterprise. It's about freedom." }, { "i": 46, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "It's about the pursuit of happiness, which in many ways I think is the ability to pursue a trade with minimal government interference." }, { "i": 47, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "Now, there is an important role for government for things like safety and other issues, but it was not a society where you had to ask permission for the government to start a business or to engage in a trade." }, { "i": 48, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "And if you look at the state of the world in 1776, where the United States was vis-a-vis many countries in Europe, we weren't as advanced." }, { "i": 49, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "But that freedom, that liberty, creating those opportunities for people to pursue products, goods, and services for a profit." }, { "i": 50, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "That is what helped instill this entrepreneurial spirit, and that has propelled us so far beyond all of our other competitors in 1776 to where we are today." }, { "i": 51, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "But we got to be very much on guard because of all the success America's had in terms of economic growth, innovation, new technology, that can breed complacency. Just like I'm sure many of the European countries" }, { "i": 52, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "who were much more advanced than the United States in 1776, thought that they were at the top of the world during their era. Well, there's always a competitor willing to try to knock you off. So, that's what I view our job is, making sure that we can still sustain that free enterprise spirit in this country." }, { "i": 53, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "And if we can, I can't wait to see what happens when we celebrate our 500th anniversary. Of course, I won't be around, but I know." }, { "i": 54, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "But, you know, I think look what we where we came in the first 250 years, and looking forward to the next 250 years of what we can yet accomplish." }, { "i": 55, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "Yeah, it's a big task ahead of us, and so we have a lot of work to do here in the next few years. So I'm glad you're on board and you know, look forward to continuing to work with you. Thank you very much Commissioner Aguilar." }, { "i": 56, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "Those are great observations and a real challenge for us going forward. So thank you very much for joining us today and I'm sure the viewers will be very interested to hear what you have had to say and look forward to chatting with our other colleagues along the same lines." }, { "i": 57, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "So thank you very much for being here." }, { "i": 58, "speaker": "Mark Uyeda", "text": "Well, thanks for having me on your inaugural show." }, { "i": 59, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "Commissioner Peirce, I look forward to spending the next few minutes with you discussing some of the salient issues here at the SEC and some of your background and all of that." }, { "i": 60, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "So Mr. Chairman, it's a delight to be here." }, { "i": 61, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "So super. Well, all right." }, { "i": 62, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "So let's get going and so first of all, maybe we can discuss a little bit about your background here and not just at the SEC but elsewhere but you and I started working together back in the aughts so around about 2003 or so I recall and so maybe can discuss some of that and your your work elsewhere on the hill and and at other places." }, { "i": 63, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "Yeah, well I came to your office from the division of investment management and had been an admirer of the way you thought about issues and was really honored to be able to work in your office and get a broader sense of what the commission does." }, { "i": 64, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "That led me pretty naturally to go work on the hill and learn a bit of it a little bit about the legislative process. And that was during the time that when the financial crisis happened and Dodd-Frank was developed in response to that." }, { "i": 65, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "So after that I went off to work in in think tank and and think and write about regulation financial regulation specifically and worked with a lot of economists in doing that." }, { "i": 66, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "One of the the emphases during the time in your office was cost-benefit analysis and that was something that I wanted to think more about in an academic setting. So, did that and then had the opportunity to come back as a commissioner." }, { "i": 67, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "Well, you did such a great job you know, both here in the commission and outside and especially at your think tank where you did a lot of work on the Dodd-Frank Act and all that." }, { "i": 68, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "Any particular issues that you think are still relevant for what you worked on now and that you know, you've been able to address while you've been here over the last year now in your almost fifth year about it to the sixth. >> actually." }, { "i": 69, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "Um so, I think one of the things that one of the lessons that anyone who was in the financial regulatory world and lived through the financial crisis comes to think about is what could we" }, { "i": 70, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "have done differently and what can we do to make sure that we don't contribute to a future crisis. And I do think regulation had a role to play. You can actually drive decision-making with regulation in a bad way and so we want to avoid doing that." }, { "i": 71, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "I think some of the response to the financial crisis was to sort of reactively try to pull more decision-making into the government and take it away from the private sector where incentives are really important." }, { "i": 72, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "And so I think what we can do as regulators is think about how we can return incentives to the financial sector to the private markets and and and make sure that the people who are making the decisions then bear the consequences of those decisions." }, { "i": 73, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "Yeah, well so in one area now that is really a top on our list to try to get right with respect to regulation is the whole making the decisions then bear the consequences of those decisions." }, { "i": 74, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "Yeah, well so in one area now that is really a top on our list to try to get right with respect to regulation is the whole digital asset area crypto assets. So, maybe and you are obviously the head of our crypto task force now Crypto Task Force which is wonderful." }, { "i": 75, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "You've done an excellent job. You have, I think, a lot to be proud of to help change the direction of uh the SEC uh vis-a-vis uh that particular area of financial services." }, { "i": 76, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "bit about uh you know, what is crypto and um and why is it so important for uh continued strength of American capital markets?" }, { "i": 77, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "Well, I will tell you that it's a lot easier to do a good job on crypto um in this environment where you're very supportive of us trying to get to a regulatory framework that's understandable, that's fit for purpose, and um then we can we can, I think, better address the problems that come up in crypto, but also really open up opportunities for people to innovate in this area." }, { "i": 78, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "And that was really how I was looking at this issue um from the get-go. We need to have financial regulation that is open to innovators because innovation is what makes the financial markets resilient. It's what's uh ensures that they serve people's actual needs." }, { "i": 79, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "And so, I think with respect to to crypto specifically, crypto solves the double-spending problem." }, { "i": 80, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "Um you used to be able to send data over the internet, but you couldn't send value because I could send you value and then I could send the same value to someone else and say, \"Oh, look, I paid you both.\"" }, { "i": 81, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "Cryptography solves that problem. It enables you to send money and say, \"I'm sending it only to you, and it's I can't send it to anyone else.\"" }, { "i": 82, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "And so, on top of that, there have been built a whole set of assets, and some of those fall within our space, either because you're tokenizing actual securities, or because you're taking something that's a token, and you're selling it in a way that is a securities transaction." }, { "i": 83, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "And so what we're trying to do now is build a framework for both of those things and also trying to help regulated entities that are serving their their customers and clients to figure out how they can help them with these assets." }, { "i": 84, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "So what's the difference between so online on-chain payments versus otherwise? So now I can give my money to PayPal and then send it or Zelle or whatever send it to someone else. So what's the difference with on-chain sort of approach?" }, { "i": 85, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": ">> The beauty of the technology is that it allows you to disintermediate so that peers can transact with one another directly or through the intermediation of technology. And that's really powerful in our markets because intermediaries have sometimes been the source of problems, right?" }, { "i": 86, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "Either they walk away with your money or they're careless with your money and or your assets." }, { "i": 87, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "And again, this is not to say that we're going to live in a world without intermediaries, but I think there's there's power in eliminating intermediaries where they're not necessary and and building a framework that allows you to do some things in an automated fashion." }, { "i": 88, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "You can um through the power of smart contracts, you can program assets, which is very powerful. You can build regulatory requirements right in or other kinds of restrictions you want to build in. You can um uh programmatically say when collateral has to be paid out. So things happen" }, { "i": 89, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "automatically. And so there's real power to um to the the ability to to do those kinds of things very efficiently and automatically. Again, there will still be intermediaries, but their roles may change um as this technology takes hold." }, { "i": 90, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "Right. Well, also I agree completely with that. And the one interesting thing is, you know, the president has uh often said that he wants to make America the crypto capital of the world. And so, we've been working hard about that, and you got started before I got here after inauguration till I arrived in April." }, { "i": 91, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "So, you built up at that time a really good crypto task force. You ran one of your recruits, Michael Seelig, now has left us, and now" }, { "i": 92, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "he's the chairman at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which I think is very exciting, and you know, portends really close working relationship between the two agencies for the first time in decades and decades." }, { "i": 93, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "So, anyway, I think that's a lot to look forward to. So, what do you think are should be at the top of our lists to address some of the risks that are inherent as we undertake rule making in this rapidly changing environment with respect to crypto assets." }, { "i": 94, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "I think the cooperation itself is very helpful because we want to make sure that we're not spending the same spending resources to address the same problem. So, we're allocating responsibility, and I think that that will help." }, { "i": 95, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "Right now, there hasn't been a regulatory framework around the spot trading of crypto assets, and that's something that CFTC will be working on. But, I think we we have a role to play where things are within our jurisdiction related to securities, and it's just the same mission that we have with respect to anything else." }, { "i": 96, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "Protecting investors, facilitating capital formation, and fostering fair, orderly, and efficient markets." }, { "i": 97, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "And I think having the close cooperation with this the CFTC ensures that we're monitoring markets, which are very interrelated with one another, and then thinking about where it makes sense for products to be regulated, who who the primary regulator should be, and um and I think then the" }, { "i": 98, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "markets can develop in an orderly fashion." }, { "i": 99, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "And a little bit with Congress as well." }, { "i": 100, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "I mean, obviously they have a role to play, so we'll see how that >> and they have to allocate authority uh between the two agencies, sure." }, { "i": 101, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "Yeah. And so, anyway, the So, now this is a very important inflection point, I think, in the American uh market. So, we have a lot of opportunities uh ahead of us, so it really is a historic time." }, { "i": 102, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "So, what do you think the opportunities are ahead, and is there any cost of our maybe taking our time doing this? Do we, do you know, is there urgency here? What do you How How do you look at the current situation?" }, { "i": 103, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "Well, I think we do want to make this the place where people want to innovate, whether it's in crypto or something else." }, { "i": 104, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "And in order to do that, we have to send the message to people that we will work with you when there are ambiguities about how the law applies to your particular facts and circumstances." }, { "i": 105, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "And there have been a lot of ambiguities in connection with crypto, which is a new technology that does things in new ways." }, { "i": 106, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "And so, I think laying that framework will make people comfortable to innovate here, not only with respect to crypto, with respect to other things, because they realize that at the SEC, we're willing to deal with those hard questions." }, { "i": 107, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "We're willing to work with people through those hard questions. And I think then um if we can encourage people to build here, um our investors will benefit, our markets will benefit." }, { "i": 108, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "Of course, we have to pay attention to difficult and terrible frauds, um and we we have to try to clamp down on those, but having a good regulatory structure in place is going to be helpful to us as well to identify where the bad activity is, and to go after that bad activity, and not to spend our enforcement resources where our regulatory resources could have done the job." }, { "i": 109, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "So, I think there's a lot of promise. I'm very excited about what the possibilities are, and of course, we have to approach all of this carefully, which is why we do want to work fast, but we also want to work in a way that is principles-based and durable, so that" }, { "i": 110, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "as the technology changes, it's able to keep up with those changes." }, { "i": 111, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "Exactly. We need to future-proof things, so we don't have backsliding in the future. So, then one thing that undergirds a lot of this, though, is investor education, and that people know what they're investing in, and have the tools to do that." }, { "i": 112, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": "And you know, both of us have been very focused on this, and you as well. So, um you know, why is this so crucial to focus on investor ed, and can you speak to some of the efforts and initiatives that have been going on?" }, { "i": 113, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "Yeah, I mean, the fraudsters are really able to reach investors very easily these days. They're using all kinds of channels. They're very creative, and I think we need to be creative as well in reaching investors." }, { "i": 114, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "I don't think the message has really changed. A lot of the problems that we see in the crypto space are very similar to problems that we've seen in other places." }, { "i": 115, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "Um but it's really about giving people the empowering them to ask questions, to be skeptical, to say this looks too good to be true, to say I don't need to make a decision today. If someone's pushing me to make a decision today, I can wait and think about it." }, { "i": 116, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "There will always be other opportunities. Um just to exercise skepticism when people are telling you to communicate with them in a channel that looks very informal, and um we see a lot of that going on now." }, { "i": 117, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "So, one thing is just to build that skepticism, but the second really is to meet people where they are, to meet people where they're meeting scammers." }, { "i": 118, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "We want them to meet us and we want to be able to direct them to our resources, which can really arm them. And then, of course, I think we need to start financial education much younger in the United States." }, { "i": 119, "speaker": "Speaker 1", "text": "I want elementary school kids to be immersed in it so that by the time they're managing their own money, they're very comfortable and they're not scared to find the help they need and they're not scared to ask the questions they need to ask." }, { "i": 120, "speaker": "Paul Atkins", "text": ">> Yeah, amen to that. So, that's that's uh the course that we have to push forward and with as much effort as we can bring to bear. So, anyway, so Commissioner Pierce, thank you very much. Our time is up, but thank you very much for joining me today. Look forward to doing some more discussion in the future. Thank you. Thank you." } ]