Homeroom with Sal & Katy Knight - Tuesday, October 13

Hi everyone, Sal here from Khan Academy. Welcome to the Homeroom live stream! We had a little bit of a hiatus, but now we are back. I had a torn calf and other things, but I'm almost fully recuperated. But thanks for joining! We have a really exciting conversation today with Katie Knight, head of the Siegel Family Endowment.

But before we start that, I'll give some of my standard announcements. First, a reminder that Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization that can only exist through philanthropic donations from folks like yourself. So, if you're in a position to do so, please think about making a donation at khanacademy.org/donate.

I also want to give a special shout out to several organizations that stepped up when they realized that not only was the world leaning on Khan Academy as we had mass school closures, but Khan Academy's cost had gone up, and we were already running at a deficit even before that. So, special thanks to Bank of America, Google.org, AT&T, Fastly, and Novartis for helping us fill some of that gap. But we still need more help, so if you're in a position to do so, please think about seeing if you can help out in some way.

And then, last but not least, I want to remind folks about Homeroom with Sal, the podcast, which is essentially a version of what you're seeing right now, where we're taking kind of the best of our live stream and putting it in a format that you can experience in your car without running into other cars. So check that out wherever you get your podcast.

So with that, I'm excited to introduce Katie. Katie Knight, head of Executive Director of the Siegel Family Endowment. Good to see you, Katie!

Katie: It's good to see you too. Thanks for having me!

Sal: So maybe a good place to start is, what is a family endowment, and what is the Siegel Family Endowment in particular? What's its focus? What does it do? What's the work of it?

Katie: Yeah, that's a really good question. So, an endowment for us, for some people, this is not true, but for us is really just a fancy replacement word for foundation because someone else had already established a single family foundation. So, David, our chairman and my boss, chose endowment. Really, we're a private foundation. So that means we give away money but also engage in other activities. You know, we support research; we support really great nonprofits like Khan Academy that are doing really important work out in the world.

But what we really try to do that's a little bit different because we are a smaller foundation and a little bit newer on the scene is also try to think about how we can change conversations, how we can do some thought leadership, and really are focused on reframing questions and ideas. So, not just writing a check and sort of sitting back and hoping for the best, but really thinking about how we can help change the conversation and help people think about the impact of technology on society, which is our focus, in a different way.

So, that is both the positive impact and the sometimes negative impact of tech on society, and we're looking at both sides of the coin and trying to figure out ways to leverage tech for good, and also to help mitigate some of the downsides that have come.

Sal: Yeah, and as you mentioned, the Siegel Family Endowment is a long-time major funder of Khan Academy. So everyone watching who enjoys Khan Academy's existence, please thank Katie and David, whose family endowment this is. I'm not saying that just because you're in the room; I would say this even if you weren’t in the video conference or whatever you're doing.

But maybe a good place to kind of double-click on what you just said: your focus is on tech and its mitigating negative implications and promoting its positive. What are some of those things? What are some of the things that you all are worried about that you have to kind of actively make sure that tech doesn't go bad, so to speak? And then what are the things that you could promote where tech could be a force for good?

Katie: Yeah, so I think we've seen a lot in terms of misinformation or disinformation on the internet, where tech and social media platforms, communication platforms, can be used for bad, where you have micro-targeting where you can really do things sort of in the darkness. The sort of underbelly of tech and the way that advertising and conversation targeting can work is really something that we've been looking at for a long time, and lots of people are looking at this from different angles, from academic researchers to institutions that are trying to combat and come up with practical solutions for this stuff.

So, that's just one example. I think, you know, there are other economic examples of how tech has accelerated some of the divide in the country when you think about people who are benefiting the most from tech companies and those who aren't. So, we look at all of those things holistically and think about how they intersect and how we can try to help soften the steep kind of differences and how we can help change some of that for the better.

I think the flip side of that, where you can leverage tech for good, is moments like this where we're able to have these sort of conversations, share with people new ideas, new concepts online, speak to really broad audiences around the world, connect and share where you have things like Khan Academy, where people can learn outside of the traditional classroom setting and really have access to educational resources that are really powerful.

Even the same communication platforms I was talking about before that have been used for harm have also done a lot of good for people who, you know, have found community online where maybe they didn't have it in person.

Sal: And I want to dig more into that. I know you've just published this white paper on how infrastructure influences everything, but you know on that first part around tech, I am fascinated. And I know I don't think anyone has like some obvious good solutions here, but you know you mentioned kind of the micro-targeting and social media, and you know the conversations that I've been a part of, you know, social media and its impact on especially young people and their self-perception can drive anxiety and depression.

But there's also social media for kind of polarizing us, where you only get what you want, and maybe you engage even deeper in something that polarizes you even further. Do you all have any, I mean, are you all talking to some people that you think have good solutions who can thread that needle between kind of free speech but not speech that does harm?

Katie: It's a really difficult question.

Sal: Yeah, it is a really difficult question, and I think, you know, we have friends and colleagues at research institutions like Stanford, which has a project in their philanthropy and civil society center that's about sort of digital civil society, and some of the researchers who are associated with that are looking at these questions. I think there are no easy answers.

One of the things that I default to often that I think is really important to talk about is transparency. So, I think human beings, we're smarter than maybe the tech and social media platforms want to give us credit for. If you know that you're being shown search results, for example, that are aligned with one point of view that an algorithm thinks is your point of view, or if you know that you're being targeted by a specific sort of advertising, I mean, that knowledge can be really powerful in terms of helping you understand the context around the information that you're seeing and helping you think differently about whether or not it's sort of true and verifiable.

We have a really wide range of resources on the internet, and some of them are more fact-checked than others. So, I think that transparency and context can do a lot to help combat some of that sort of polarization misinformation space, and I think that's one of the places where practical solutions are being experimented with.

Sal: No, I really like that. I actually haven't heard that before, but you're right. If you told me, "Hey, because you are a middle-aged man who's into alien conspiracy theories, we are now going to give you this," I think that is my profile: middle-aged man who likes to read about alien conspiracy theories.

Therefore, here's your top search results, and I'm like, "Wait, I'm not a middle-aged man," and no, I am. I just turned 44 on Sunday, so I have to come to terms with my age. Happy birthday! I still can't get over the fact that 44 plus 16 is 60. I know I'm known for teaching math, but I keep thinking I'm doing the math wrong.

But anyway, back to the subject. So, on this notion of infrastructure, obviously, which technical infrastructure or digital infrastructure is a piece, and this is what you analyze in your white paper. But I guess for maybe the first question is why did you all decide to write a white paper on infrastructure? What were kind of the big ahas?

Katie: Yeah, so a few things. I will say that it started because I am an infrastructure nerd, and David is an infrastructure nerd. We just have always connected on questions and thoughts about infrastructure.

Sal: I've never met anyone who's called themselves an infrastructure nerd, so you get points just for that.

Katie: You know someone else who's an infrastructure nerd? I'm probably an infrastructure nerd too now that I know that it's a thing.

Sal: Yeah, now that you know it's a thing, you are definitely a retro nerd. It's impossible not to be, I think, once you actually dig into it. Growing up in New York City, you know, you take the subways, and when you start to ask questions, "Well, why is this train late? What's happening over here? What's going on with these tracks?" It gets fascinating really quickly, and that's just the physical infrastructure piece.

At first, we just started talking about how a foundation like ours could be a part of the conversation about infrastructure. As we were digging in more and more on the topic, we had this work on digital infrastructure happening almost separately, where we were thinking about things like the open-source community and open learning platforms, which is kind of where we put our Khan Academy relationship and sort of like open learning.

We started to see these intersections. The really obvious one is broadband access as sort of a physical infrastructure asset and your ability to access something like an open learning platform. We started to talk and think just a little bigger and a little wider about what infrastructure could mean.

That's what the first big aha was: infrastructure had to be more than just about the bridges and the roads—that really this triangle of physical, digital, and social infrastructure—that's how we need to be thinking about the assets that we should be investing in, the things that we should care about, the things that the government should be safeguarding, our physical, digital, and social assets that are sort of underlying all of society and keeping us functional.

Sal: This is fascinating. And I want to remind everyone watching, feel free to put questions on YouTube and Facebook, and we and our team will surface them to myself and Katie. I'll ask really about anything about infrastructure, about endowments.

I'm going to ask Katie a little bit about how she even found herself in this role, so really ask both me and Katie anything you all want. But just double-clicking on that, Katie, you know, I'm very—I think most of us are familiar with physical infrastructure—those are roads and bridges and dams and power lines and things like that—and I think we can imagine digital infrastructure, which is related to physical infrastructure, which is, I mean, I guess you could debate whether it's physical or digital, but it's, you know, having internet connectivity or at least having a device or maybe having support for using that device. What is social infrastructure?

Katie: Yeah, so social infrastructure is really a little bit more intangible. You're thinking about sort of the networks that you're a part of, the relationships that you have with other people. The one idea that I've talked about with people before is the notion that perhaps access to child care, for example, is infrastructure because if you're a parent, as you are, you know that in order to work, you need someone to help take care of your kids.

So, how people are able to contribute to the economy and be a part of that is really important to sort of the nation's health and prosperity. Thinking about social infrastructure as an element that matters, I think, is a little bit trickier and can vary depending on the sort of community that you're in.

So, you know, for some people, having access to space where you can—sort of co-working space where entrepreneurship and a culture of entrepreneurship is being built—can help them launch new businesses and contribute to their local economy. We've invested in some work in rural America related to helping create space and cultures of entrepreneurship to kind of revive economies.

So really, it can vary. You can see in this illustration that we talk about the digital economy; we talk about libraries. Libraries are a place where I think that physical, digital, and social infrastructure really intersect, where you get both the access to tech, the physical space where you have information and knowledge, and also opportunities to take classes, to maybe learn a new language, to access information about how to get online and how to use new technology. All of that can happen at a library, which is why they're one of our big examples in the paper and kind of a space for really exciting new ideas.

Sal: I think about what social infrastructure and what infrastructure and communities can look like now that you've named social infrastructure. I now realize not only am I an infrastructure nerd; I think I'm a social infrastructure nerd because I spend a lot of time thinking about how, maybe how do we social engineer. I mean, even in our direct life, which obviously is more personal, like how do we make sure we have deeper friendships? How do we make sure our kids have places they can go to?

But then how do you architect that on a larger scale? Super, super fascinating. What are your big takeaways? What part of infrastructure are we doing well as a society? Are there examples of other countries that are doing a better job? If you all were, you know, the emperor of the universe, where would you invest? How would you invest that?

Katie: I think on many fronts we're not doing so well. Even on the physical infrastructure front, we've seen, you know, the American Society of Civil Engineers puts out a report card on how our infrastructure is doing. They gave us a D plus, which is not a great grade, and that’s before you consider these additional dimensions we have.

That being said, there are bright spots: there are towns and cities with access to fiber, high-speed internet. There are places where library systems are doing an incredible job reinforcing social infrastructure and sort of coming into the new century with these opportunities for people to get online and to learn how to do things that will help them get jobs and be a part of this new innovation economy.

I think overall we should be thinking differently about how we spend the dollars that we have to build new things and to sort of fix the old things. We haven't done a great job of ongoing maintenance, but we should be investing with an eye toward how any dollar that we spend should have a payoff on all three fronts, not just one.

So, I'm not going to say that we shouldn't spend more money; I think we do need to spend more money. It happens at the state, local, and federal levels, but that we could also spend the same amount of money and probably do a better job of it if we looked at things and thought about the payoff and also brought people to the table who represented all three sides of the triangle.

Sal: To your point, sometimes the same effort can actually hit all three sides if it's thought out. What's your sense of why we have under— I mean, even just on physical infrastructure, it feels like that’s even like, it's not—it shouldn't be a political issue. I don't think anyone argues with better roads, safe bridges, good utility infrastructure, etc. Etc. And because you suffer, it's very apparent when it's bad. It's very apparent when bad things happen or when, you know, power lines go down, things like that.

Why hasn’t there—why do we have this degrade right now?

Katie: I think it's a few things. You know, our infrastructure in the U.S. especially is super decentralized, so more spending, more funding for infrastructure comes from the state and local level than the federal government, even though people think about the federal government when you think about something as big as infrastructure. But actually, even in the physical sense, you know, most highways are actually owned at the state level, not at the federal level, even though lots of federal investment went into creating the highway system and interstates and that sort of thing.

We are not necessarily thinking about the future when we make infrastructure investments either, so we are looking to fix kind of the immediate problems right in front of us but not thinking about the future uses and future needs. By the time you can get an infrastructure project through the bureaucracy, it can often already be outdated before things even start being built, and I think anything that involves spending, unfortunately, becomes a political issue.

Of course, and again, if we could think differently about how to spend smartly, we might all—I think everyone loves a deal. Maybe deals and bargains are not necessarily political, so if we can make the case that you're getting a really good deal by investing in infrastructure and looking at it through these three lenses, then perhaps we could get people to spend more money or invest differently without it becoming a political issue.

Sal: Yeah, the argument with any investment, including infrastructure, is it should have some return. If you build a bridge, people have a shorter commute time, it'll increase commerce, and that will generate even, you know, not only more productivity, which will generate more tax revenue, which you can use to pay for more infrastructure.

You know, there's a question here, and it's related to one I just asked you. It's from YouTube. Hasset Gass says: Why is America's infrastructure worse than, say, Germany's infrastructure? First of all, do you have a sense that that is something like that true? And you know, it feels like a very comparable country. Is it based on how it's structured and the decentralized nature? Is it something else? It's just we're different than Germans in how much we care about our roads and bridges and things?

Katie: I think there are a lot of potential answers to that question, and I'm sure that there are people who will agree and disagree with my point of view on it. I think it's a combination of all those things. You know, the U.S. is vast, even though I think we have comparables in other countries, like Germany, or even places in Asia, like Japan or China, where they've done a good job building infrastructure, physical infrastructure.

We also do have this really different decentralized system, and we do have, I think, a different approach in terms of how we think about whose responsibility it is to take care of these things and how quickly we're able to move and to gain the sort of partnership and create the opportunity for new things to be built.

I think we haven't made it as much of a priority to invest in our infrastructure in the U.S. as some other places have.

Sal: It's a related question from Facebook. Christabel Mendoza asks: Which cities in the U.S. would be good models that successfully encompass physical, social, and digital infrastructure?

Katie: That's a really good question, and I'm hoping that as part of what we're doing with talking about this paper out in the world, that people will share more examples with us of where they've seen really great things happening, whether that's in a city, state, or even just a town. I think there are really good examples at all levels and all sizes of how infrastructure—these three pieces of infrastructure can come together to work better together.

We have some good examples in the white paper of places like Kansas City that have really leveraged their access to fiber internet to create new opportunities. Coming back to that library's example we were talking about some of the towns that we work with through our rural work. I'm not going to name them because there are now over a dozen, and I don't want to miss any, but there are a few called out also in the paper, or if you sort of scroll through the website, which I think the link is somewhere on the bottom of the screen, you can kind of click through some of the map that we have, which calls out a handful of towns where we've invested that are doing a good job with this physical, digital, social framework.

Sal: Are most of the examples—I mean, you've given one example of like, you know, a fiber optic, you know, high bandwidth that's both physical. You know, someone has to dig up the ground and lay down that fiber, but that's obviously digital infrastructure as well. And then you make it available in schools and libraries, and then the community can benefit, and they're having kind of a social connection, which is social infrastructure. Are there other examples beyond—and there's a question here from Susanna Garcia Dominguez. Hi Katie, what is the best optimization idea you have heard about infrastructure? Is it more of kind of this library flavor of things with high-speed broadband, or are there other kind of cool ideas you all have been thinking about?

Katie: Well, we'd love to hear cool ideas from all over. So, there's a place both on the website, but also our emails are accessible, so we're always sort of happy to hear pie-in-the-sky ideas for optimization here. I think a lot of what stands out is related to this, you know, internet access just because especially right now, especially in the context of this pandemic, we've seen that be so, so important, and we've seen that there's still such an incredible divide in the country in terms of who has strong internet access and who doesn't.

And I think that's why so many of the examples that are top of mind for me right now and that feel, you know, innovative and important are related to that. But I think we're really open to new ideas for how to optimize using the framework and want to experiment and find places that are interested in sort of just taking a chance on this idea and implementing some new things.

Sal: And do you think, you know, I've been talking to a lot of folks lately and I said, you know, this COVID situation with school closures is not good, it's sub-optimal. But if there's a silver lining, it's that there's more energy than ever in trying to close the digital divide. Are you all seeing that? And you know, on a scale of one to ten, how hopeful are you that in the next five years, the digital divide at home, at least in the U.S., has is closed a good bit?

Katie: I'm really hopeful about that. I think we have seen not just energy and enthusiasm around closing the digital divide more than ever; we've also seen, I think, renewed interest from the private sector in helping us get there, which is one of the things that we talk about in the paper a bit too, is, you know, we need to think beyond just the government has money and should invest here, but think about how the private sector, how the social sector, the philanthropic sector, nonprofit world that I'm a part of, everyone contributes to infrastructure both in terms of the capital, the money that we're spending, but also just the thoughts and the governance of infrastructure.

How we shape it moving forward. So, I think that is something I'm super hopeful about in terms of closing the digital divide. I think we have a long way to go, and we have to keep pushing even if we get back to a place where school is more in person than it has been, even if we're able to work from offices again, this still matters, right? It's not just if you have to do school on Zoom that you should be worried about the digital divide; it matters if you're trying to do homework at the end of the day.

It matters for all sorts of reasons. So, I think if we can maintain this energy that we all have around making sure that more people have access, I feel really hopeful that we can solve this problem because we actually know how to solve it. Like you bring the access to the people, like you said, you dig the holes and you lay the fiber cable. You do those things, and we can get access to folks who need it.

Sal: And there's other things I'm hopeful of, you know, obviously the whole Starlink project, Elon Musk's micro satellites that he's already putting into orbit, you know, that'll give us internet access almost anywhere.

But good to hear that you're similarly hopeful because it does feel like, you know, clean drinking water or just basic shelter. In the decades to come, maybe in the remaining time I do always like to ask you—we have sometimes a lot of young people watching, and I remember when I was a young person, I would always wonder, you know, how do you know certain careers? Doctors, lawyers, engineers, and you can go to certain schools and kind of eventually end up being one of those professions. But there are clearly many other jobs in the world that have less clear career tracks, like being the Executive Director of a family foundation. How did you—did you see yourself doing this? What did you think you were going to do? How did you end up in this role?

Katie: It's sort of a funny story, and I'll try to tell you the abridged version. But you know, when I was in high school and in college, in my sort of early years of college, I thought that I wanted to work in the nonprofit sector. I thought that I wanted to start a non-profit, and then I learned that there are too many nonprofits, and you probably don't need to start a nonprofit of your own, but maybe you could go work in one.

Then I learned about philanthropy, and I said, "Oh, well better to sit on the other side of the table! It sounds good to give away money for a living." I really quickly learned that there was not a clear career path into philanthropy; that it's very sort of bespoke. It depends a lot on the different foundations individually, and that there are not a ton of entry-level positions.

So I sort of forgot about it; I put it to the side and I said maybe I'll get there one day. You know, until then I'll go back to my idea of working in the nonprofit sector, and I did work in a nonprofit in Philadelphia. I graduated and lived there for a few years after I graduated; I worked at a very cool nonprofit there that actually is a giant puppet park theater but also a sort of social activism nonprofit called Spiral Q.

Sal: Giant puppet park theater? It's so like what more is it?

Katie: But now I think I understand it—it’s a giant puppet park theater.

It's a giant puppet. They are invested in social activism. It started a long time ago as they would build these giant puppets for their protest puppets, and there's a sort of—I can share a link later with anyone who's actually curious about this—it’s a really great time.

Then there's a little bit of luck—I happened to get a job at Google when they were launching Google Plus because they thought there were some interesting use cases for the nonprofit sector. I had that experience, and then while I was at Google, I took this sort of winding path through doing many things with the organization. One of those things was corporate social responsibility, community engagement work, and that took me down an interesting journey of learning what it was like to connect with the community as sort of a representative of the company.

It got me some experience with giving money away for a living, and that then took me to David's company. Eventually, David and I just realized that, you know, we had things in common and sort of thought the same way, and I started to work with what was then a very small team at SFE. It just so happened that the timing was right, and I wound up kind of taking a job working just directly with David on the philanthropy.

Just last year, actually, I became the Executive Director after we had some changes. So I think that's probably not a helpful answer if you're trying to launch a career in philanthropy. I will say two things—one, a little controversial—not going to graduate school actually turned out to be really great for my career. I may still go to graduate school one day; who knows? In this online world, I may be able to swing it, but I always really wanted to go to grad school but could never decide what I would focus on because I'm just all over the place and think about different things every hour.

But not going to graduate school and sort of not focusing made me a little more adaptable. So I would pick up any opportunity and look at it as a chance to learn something and try it on for size, and that kind of took me to a really interesting place in my career. The other thing is just, you know, I was lucky, and timing played a big role. I think timing and luck are what they are, but you have to, again, be open to like the opportunity. You have to be trying to make the timing work, so consider anything that comes your way as a chance to do something different and sort of see where it takes you, and you may end up running a foundation.

Sal: I'm surprised that you say you like giving money away. I think asking for money is so much fun!

Katie: No, it's actually fun to have. Not very good at that either!

Sal: I'm not great at asking for money!

Katie: No. Asking for money is not indeed!

Sal: Yeah, you've got to kind of ruffle up your hair, have your puppy dog eyes, and [Laughter] people though. Everyone should give money to Khan Academy.

Katie: I agree with you! That's a really good point. I agree with you. Very high social return on investment.

Sal: The last question and it's related to what we just talked about from YouTube, Bashar Ashtar says: What are some challenges you think the next generation will face? And I'll just broaden it. You know, you're someone that is a young person, and you're already thinking, "I want to do something that has some social impact—do good for the world." I think a lot of young—I think most young people are in that same frame, but there's like, "How do I do?"

You know, what do you think are the, you know, any problem is an opportunity. So what do you think are some of the ones that they should start thinking about?

Katie: I mean, I know that so many young and younger people are thinking about this already, but climate and climate change are so, so important for us to be thinking about. We—older people should also be doing a better job tackling climate change, but I think there's so much opportunity to anything from inventing new technologies to starting new nonprofits or social movements related to that. Like that work is so important and we have to solve these problems. There's no choice but to solve them, so I think that's one that I would call out.

But, you know, coming back to some of the stuff we were talking about earlier, I think thinking about how tech can be used for good is not just a nonprofit sector issue; it's an issue for anyone, whether you're an academic, whether you're doing private sector work, no matter what, you can be looking at the world and thinking, "How can what I'm doing contribute to solving problems rather than creating more problems?"

I think if we did more of that, no matter what we were doing, we would all be better for it.

Sal: Well, that's great advice, and I can't imagine. Yeah, it's a very existential issue of climate change, so that's a good one to highlight, but there's many, many more. Well, Katie, whenever we have these conversations, the time always goes by faster than I expect, but thank you so much for joining! This was a real treat, and thank you for your support over the years. I'm not joking; it's been a big part of what allows Khan Academy to be Khan Academy.

Katie: Well, thank you! Thank you for all that you do. I still watch Khan Academy videos when I need to learn something new or refresh my memory, so appreciate your work in more ways than one on a personal level, and this was fun! It's always fun to talk to you, but also great to talk to sort of everyone else out there.

Sal: Yeah, last time we met, I remember that that right—this is all pre-COVID, where we could go to a restaurant—there was, I remember, there was like some cheese fries that I was—I was having like self-control issues with.

Katie: But anyway, you just needed sustenance; it happened to be.

Sal: Yeah, my whole life is all about discipline and like, but then the levy breaks, and anyway, whole other—whole other conversation.

Thank you, Katie. Thanks!

Well, thanks everyone for joining! As always, a really fun conversation with Katie, and I hope actually we can get David Siegel on as well from the Siegel Family Endowment in the next several weeks. But thanks, everyone, for joining. Our next Homeroom is going to be tomorrow with Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education in the Obama Administration, and he's a managing partner at Chicago Cred. He does really incredible work with young people, especially in Chicago.

So, Arne Duncan, who I also consider to be a good friend and an all-around good guy, so I look forward to that conversation tomorrow. So thanks, everyone, for joining, and I'll see you tomorrow with Secretary Duncan!