hello, everyone, and welcome to "amanpour." here is what's coming up. i demanded a hearing -- >> the fbi investigates sexual assault allegations in the nomination of brett kavanaugh to the supreme court. what happens when the irresistible force of the me too movement runs into the immovable object of partisan politics? i speak to me too founder tarana burke and to ana maria archila whose confrontation with senator jeff flake helped him to press the pause button. also ahead, here in britain tempers flare over brexit as my guest, british foreign secretary jeremy hunt, compares the european union to the soviet unity.

plus, our hari sreenivasan speaks to. reddit co-founder alex ohanian.

welcome to the program, everyone. i'm christiane amanpour in london. the first monday in october every year is the start of a new term for the united states supreme court. republicans in congress had hoped to see brett kavanaugh long confirmed by now and sitting on the bench. but, as they say, even the best laid plans can go awry. after dramatic testimony from kavanaugh and his accuser last week and an even more dramatic display of people power against a key senator, the fbi has now begun a limited investigation of accusations against kavanaugh. here are the two sexual assault survivors, ana maria archila and maria gallagher, confronting republican jeff flake after he said he would vote for kavanaugh. >> what you are doing is allowing someone who actually violated a woman to sit on the supreme court. this is not tolerable. >> and now flake has said this

did affect his decision to call for more investigation. >> i just knew that we couldn't move forward, that i couldn't move forward without hitting the pause button because of what i was seeing and experiencing in an elevator and watching it in committee and just thinking this is ripping our country apart. >> as we've seen so often a grassroots movement powered by the personal stories of abuse survivors is having an impact at the highest level. so is this actually a divisive moment now for the me too movement? my guest, ana maria archila was one of the women who forced senator jeff flake to hear her own story on friday and she's joining me from new york. also joining me from munich is tarana burke, the founder of the

me too movement back in 2006. ladies, thank you both very, very much for joining me. i cannot imagine two better positioned people to take this discussion further as the fbi investigation continues. so let me first ask you, tarana burke, since you have been pressing for this kind of accountability since you founded the me too movement, do you believe in your heart that this fbi investigation will deliver what you all hope it will deliver? >> i can only hope it will deliver it. i don't know what the limitations that have been put on the investigation if they can get an accurate -- come to an accurates concollusion or deliver enough information to come to an accurate conclusion. i'm glad it was opened up but i wish it was given the proper amount of time it deserves to investigate a 36-year-old claim. >> so just briefly before i turn to ana maria and her intervention, what would you like to see happen given the circumstances? >> given the circumstances and the detail dr. blasey ford gave in her testimony and even the calendars and the things judge

kavanaugh has submitted, i'd love to see a thorough investigation happen of all three claims that have been laid against judge kavanaugh. i'd like to see it given the proper amount of time it deserves, meaning the fbi dictates how long it takes for the investigation to take place not given a week to turn it around so they can dig in and talk to witnesses, talk to character witnesses, you know, really accumulate the kind of information they need so the senate judiciary committee can come to an accurate conclusion. or more accurate. >> ana maria, you know, i think the whole world was transfixed by that moment in the elevator, so to speak. what made you -- just describe for me and for the audience the process of knowing that senator flake had said that he was going to vote for kavanaugh. having been around and watching these hearings and then just shoving your face in his. >> so i had been in washington, d.c., for days and i had seen

tarana a few days before. the day i shared my story as a survivor for the first time in public actually in front of senator flake's office. monday of that week. i was, i think, moved to do that by the courage of dr. blasey ford but really by the courage and the road that tarana has paved, the road she has paved for so many of us. i went on friday the day of judiciary committee vote. early in the morning to gather with many of the people that had been protesting the nomination of kavanaugh. i met this young woman, maria gallagher, who was there for the first time. she wanted to be part of this moment. she wanted to -- she said at some point i thought i would show up and hold a sign in the back of a rally, but she said someone said we should go to senator flake's office, and i said, well, we have time, there

is half an hour before. the hearing is about to start. let's do it. and we went together and kind of she was asking how do i talk to an elected official? i've never done this. and we talked a little bit about that experience. as we were waiting for senator flake's office, not knowing if he was, in fact, there, we saw the statement that he released, said he was ready to support the nomination of kavanaugh to the supreme court. and a minute or two after it, he walked out from his office and we were able to -- the press that had gathered around him followed him and we followed right behind and we were -- what the world saw and what we experienced was a total release of emotion that so many of us have been holding for weeks and weeks as we've watched these nominations happen. >> and in your case -- >> total outrage and pain. >> you -- in your case, outrage and pain that you had been holding in for years.

i mean, apparently you said what had happened to you and your parents didn't even know that. can you share with us what happened to you in your social abuse? >> i shared for the first time last week that -- in public. i had shared it with a few friends and with my mother when i was around 16 or so that i had been sexually abused as a child, as a 5-year-old, by a young man who was 15 at the time. i knew even as a 5-year-old that that moment -- that if i shared this with my parents they would feel pain. i didn't share it with them. i was confused and ashamed and thought maybe it was my fault, but it was really my desire to not cause pain to my parents

that motivated me to hold that information. and i think that's one of the many reasons why so many survivors choose not to share, because when you share, it's not just painful for you, it's painful for the people who love you. >> tarana, you're listening to this unfold. of course you, yourself, were in the hearings when christine blasey ford and kavanaugh testified. i just, because you've been at this for so long and you founded this movement back in 2006, i want to know what you thought and how you assessed that moment when ana maria and maria confronted flake and that it did actually cause him to push that pause button. >> that moment was gripping. i think there's no survivor of sexual violence who could watch that without tears and without such a feeling one of pride and i just want to say thank you so much while i have you just here in earshot for what the both of you did. it was so brave and it was so vulnerable and on the one hand

watching it my heart goes out to survivors who continuously have to put ourselves on the line and put our stories out there and be vulnerable in order for people to see us as fully human beings and see us as people who deserve to have -- to be believed and to be heard and to be seen. so that part is painful. but on the other hand, to know that it stood for something, that it meant something and there was an end result that we were looking for. so, you know, i see this happen so many times. survivors of sexual violence have to carry our burden around with us and we have to show people evidence in our pain of how serious this issue is. they don't make other people do that, they don't make survivors of other crimes do that, but survivors of sexual violence continuously have to carry this burden around like it's ours to bear. it's not our burden to bear.

>> let me just put this to you then because in that interview a little clip of which we played from jeff flake and his colleague senator chris coons. he was asked whether he thought kavanaugh's opening statement last week was partisan and political, as certainly it had been accused and been criticized for.on it. >> but, boy, i had to put myself in that spot, and you can understand why he was angry. you know, i think you give a little leeway there. >> so, the little bit at the top that he said was, it is partisan, but, boy, you've got to understand him. you know, tarana, so what's changed? >> to hear him say we have to give him leeway and we have to understand that he's angry, what do we have to understand for dr. blasey ford? when the world listened to her describe in detail, having her

clothes and be fully present and not angry and not overly emotion and we have to put up with him who is interviewing for the highest -- she can come to that hearing to be poised and fully present and not angry and not, you know, overly emotional in the ways that kavanaugh was and then we have to put up with him, who is in an interview for the highest court in the land not being able to control his emotions. would he allow anybody to come in his courtroom and act the way that he acted? so we have to give him some leeway? that is the epitome of white male privilege. he doesn't deserve leeway because he's angry and has to stand in front of these accusations. i reject that notion. >> and ana maria, i want to know what you think on this. you confronted flake on this and that's why we have an fbi investigation in part, in great part, i would say. what do you make of -- what do you make of that sound bite we

just played? >> i agree completely with tarana that in many ways the burden has been placed on survivors to educate everyone else, including the abusers and the victimizers, in this case, kavanaugh. and i think that we cannot continue to do that. we cannot continue to drag survivors through the experience of having to revive and relive some of the traumatic moments in order for someone else to benefit from our learning and our experience. and if we are going to do that, which is, in fact, what is happening in this country and across the world, i would say, then we have to actually as a society be willing to embrace the pain and use it to build something new. >> okay. >> i think so many survivors are bringing a new world into

existence -- >> that's right. >> -- and we have to be able to receive it. >> so that's what i was going to ask you next because one of dianne feinstein's comments, the ranking minority member on the senate judiciary committee, was that in the 27 years, this is what she said, since anita hill, the republicans, she said, had changed their strategy from blaming the victim to ignoring the victim. but actually in this case the victim isn't being ignored because the ball has been moved. you've all done it. you've succeeded in moving this ball. there is a background investigation going on right now. despite what you consider its limitations. so, tarana, what does this mean for the me too movement? are you, are we in a critical, critical moment right now? >> we are definitely in a critical moment. the one thing about this hearing and this moment as it pertains to judge kavanaugh is that i think the shift that needed to happen around the me too movement and the focus of it has finally happened, and that shift is to focus on the survivors.

we have a groundswell of survivor leadership having -- happening right now where survivors of sexual violence and our allies are pushing back. we're standing up. we're telling the country, we're telling people to understand that we will not be silent and we won't be shamed. i think dr. blasey ford represented a tipping point and gave us the opportunity to stand up for somebody who represented so many of us. and that is going to change the trajectory of this movement in terms of how the media frames it. i hope at least it does so it's no longer framed in reference to taking down powerful men, but it's framed looking at the survivors of sexual violence and what our needs are and when our demands are. >> you just said about being framed in taking down powerful men. i do want to play this little bit of a speech you gave earlier this year at "variety's" power of women event. i'll play it and then i'll ask both of you to talk about it. >> even in these gloomy political times i still feel

like anything is possible. that's why i'm so desperate to change the narrative about the me too movement before it's too late. right now the conversation is mired in misconceptions. folks think this is about naming and shaming. they think it's about taking down powerful men. but they're wrong. >> so they're wrong. so what do you both think should actually be the direction that women and men take this in going forward? let me just ask you, ana maria, and then i'll ask tarana, comment on what tarana just said in the clip. >> i mean, i think that we are -- we have a tremendous opportunity now that we're reckoning with the pain that is so shared by so many to build a new thing. i think that we cannot rely on an investigation by a law enforcement agently to do that

f -- agency to do this for us. we have to seize these moments and keep sharing our voices and being and leading the country. i think the supreme court belongs to us. the fbi should not be deciding that. and it is by really transforming the pain into power and by changing who tells the story and how we build a new culture that we move from these dynamics where people understand these movements as shaming and blaming and trying to take down men when in reality what we're trying to do is build a world where we can all live with dignity. >> i want to ask you both because as you now watch there is a pushback from many of the men or several of the men who have been accused over this last year. and some of the tone of that pushback is almost like, oh, whoa is me, look how my life has been destroyed. so you can take john hawkenberry

you can take louis c.k., who came back to a standing ovation without mentioning his issues and aziz ansari. so let's just take those four. two questions. one, how do you deal with that if there is not even sort of an acknowledgement in public? two, is there a spectrum that we should be acknowledging and internalizing right now, you know, that not every male misconduct amounts to sexual assault, sexual abuse or anything in the criminal range? tarana, you've been doing this for a long time. what do you think about this sliding scale so to speak? >> well, i've said that from the beginning, sexual violence happens on a spectrum so accountability has to happen on a spectrum. i think largely if you talk to survivors of sexual violence, we don't think punitively. there's always a space for restoration. i think the problem is and why you see such a visceral reaction

from survivors when these people come back into the spotlight without any accountability is that people -- that represents what we've always seen and what we've experienced in our private lives, that people are allowed to harm us and they don't have to account for that harm. accounting for that harm doesn't always look like going to jail or even losing your job, but there has to be some accountability. if these men would come back and start off with talking about what they learned in the last year, what they've done in the last year to be restored, what they've done to restore the survivor or the person who was victimized or the person who was done wrong as a result of their behavior, then we can talk about space for coming back. the problem is there's so much more conversation about how these men come back than there is about how we make the survivors whole. i think it's deeply problematic that in the last year we can name a list of all 200 or however many men have lost their jobs or lost positions, but how many stories have we heard about what happened to the women?

how have their lives been restored or destroyed? how are they being made whole again? what are their needs? we started off this year with me too going viral, and within 24 hours, within 48 hours we had multiple millions of people who engaged with the hashtag through social media. there would be no me too movement if those people did not stand up to be accounted for, and yet we don't talk about them. we continue to pivot and talk about how do men come back or who the men are or how their lives are affected and that's the problem. >> i think you're right. it's a major sort of point of departure right now to not just focus on what you say punitive in every case but acknowledging and accountable and the rest of it. but i also want to ask you, ana maria, you know, what hope do you have when even, you know, credible allegations of sexual abuse, sexual assault are now

reduced to the level of a political football. we've seen that happen as this case has played out, but we also see it in the polls where both parties, men and women, have diametrically opposed views on this issue, even people who watch the same film about a sexual encounter will have different views on whether it was with consent or without consent, whether it was abuse or whether it was, well, consensual. how do you get past that, ana maria? >> you know what, i was trying one of the points that i was trying to convey to senator flake in that elevator was that we have to have a definition of justice that starts by recognizing harm, taking responsibility and only then beginning to repair it. and i think everyone has to participate in the repair, harm, and this is a tremendous opportunity. i so wish we could have a conversation about all of us have had the experience of being harmed in some way, every single human being, and all of us have had the experience of being

hugged by the person who yelled at us. we have experiences that allow us to understand what these could look like and i think this is what we need to be doing as a society. >> last word to you, tarana, we have about 50 seconds left, this is a world, not just a nation, a world where all the laws are made by men. i mean, this whole next wave, clearly, i don't know whether you agree, needs to redress that playing field. >> oh, yeah. we have an opportunity particularly in the united states but certainly around the world. we have an opportunity now to shift that. i think that the world needs to be ready for survivors to emerge as a constituency, and that means that we are not people to just be pitied, we are a power base that vote along our needs and vote along the things we want to see change in policy. and so that means more women being voted in but not just

women. women who believe the same things we believe. women who are able to see us and hear us and believe us. and so whether it's a woman, a man or however they identify on the gender spectrum, we are poised to use our survivorship as a means to galvanizing people to organize to get what we want to see in politics. >> all right. it is a new day dawning. we'll see how it ends up. tarana burke and ana marie archila, thank you for joining me. so over here britain is also in the midst of a bitter partisan warfare, but over brexit. the 2016 referendum to split from the rest of europe. within theresa may's own conservative party it's dividing this country as well and that government. she is desperately trying to get a new trade deal from president trump. meanwhile, european leaders are warning that she cannot cherry pick a new deal with the eu, and her own foreign secretary jeremy

hunt added fuel to the fire when he compared the eu to a soviet gulag holding britain prisoner. i spoke with hunt during the united nations general assembly in new york last week as his government pushes for a post-brexit free trade deal with the trump administration while also at the same time trying to pressure that administration to save the iran nuclear deal. it's complicated to say the least. foreign secretary hunt, welcome to the program. >> thank you. >> i want to know first and foremost, are you, the uk, still trying to save the iran nuclear deal from president trump's withdrawal? >> yes, we are. we have lots of things with respect to iran where we totally agree with the administration. we're very concerned about the malign activity of the iranian revolutionary guard in places like yemen, syria, hezbollah's activities and so on.

but we do believe this agreement which was originally signed with the united states as a partner is the best way to prevent iran renuclearizing and we are very concerned of the potential of a very, very serious conflict in that part of the world if iran does restart its nuclear ambitions, and that's why we are committed to it. >> it's not brain surgery. it does actually seem like if, as the president says and you all say, including in the security council meeting, that nonproliferation and keeping the worst, most dangerous weapons out of certain people's hands, it must be hard to imagine how you can ensure that by pulling out of this deal. what do you say to president trump when you try to persuade him diplomatically, what is the option? >> we have the same destination as the u.s. president trump's view is to renegotiate, get a new deal, a different deal to the nuclear deal.

we want to be very careful to make sure that we don't throw the baby out with the bath water. lots of people said president trump was going to be an isolationist president. far from it. he is very, very involved and he has, as we can see, very strong views about how to get there. what we want to do is to make sure that as that situation evolves we don't see iran restarting its nuclear program. >> so fererica mogherini, the eu's foreign policy chief, said you are trying to figure out, as she put it, mechanisms to enable iran to benefit from the economic pledges in return for its abiding by the iran nuclear deal, and that if it doesn't feel like it certainly the

iranian president told me this week they would have to pull out. we're just going to play a quick sound bite, part of my interview with federica mogherini on this. >> we are putting together mechanisms with the europeans and others in the world, from all over the world, to create the channels to keep trade that would guarantee trade could continue regardless of the secondary sanctions the united states have put. >> what kind of mechanisms could you put in place to save the economic part of this deal? because you're putting your own companies out because of secondary sanction threats. >> well, it's very important not to characterize what european nations are doing as being soft on iran. i sat in a meeting with iranian foreign minister zarif this week at the u.n. general assembly. when country after country that was a signatory to the iran nuclear deal was being extremely tough with the iranians, and they were saying if you diverge from this treaty in any way at all, even the smallest way and you start your nuclear ambitions again, then we're out of this deal.

and so this is a very tough situation for iran because they aren't getting the full benefit of the deal that they were getting when the united states was part of it. but they're getting europeans saying, you know, you so much as blink on your commitments and we'll pull right out. and so that is what we're trying to do, we're trying to make sure that in a very difficult situation the one thing that we don't lose is a non-nuclear iran. >> federica mogherini said they were trying to figure out a way around, like a mechanism, she said, that you, the chinese, the russians and others, could continue your business obligations to iran as long as it kept its obligations under the nuclear deal. can you tell us what those mechanisms might be? how might you be able to actually have your businesses working with iran? >> well, as detailed work going into the precise nature of the mechanisms, but on the win-win issue of course this is a deal

and there has to be enough of a win for iran to stop them from restarting their nuclear program, but we don't want there to be so much of a win that they're not deterred from the very malign activities that are destabilizing the whole of that region. >> you once said about president trump, you said, the traditional western foreign policy has been that if we disapprove of something somebody's done we don't just take action but we stop the engagement as well. donald trump takes the action you need to engage with people. i think it's a business mentality. he's always looking for a way to recast the deal. do you still feel that way about trump? i mean, do you think there is a method to the madness, as some people might describe? >> i do think that he does look at the world in terms of the various deals that america has signed up to and rather than want to tear down the firmament aabandon the whole international

rules-based system, he's basically saying, look, i accept the need for deals, but they need to be deals that work for america. if you look at, for example, his approach to the nato summit that we had this july, he arrived in arrived in a very combative mood because -- this is actually something we agree with him on, european allies are not contributing as much as they should to the nato budget. the u.s. is spending far more as proportioned to its gdp. he left the nato summit a very cause he secured some ed to nato commitment for extra funding from the european side. so i think it's important to understand his method, which is the method to start by making people sweat and think about the possibility of american withdrawal but fundamentally in the end i think he does understand the importance of some of the really important alliances that underpin the international order. >> i wonder what you make about his speech at the united nations. he was very clear that this is about a sovereign america and

that he rejected the idea, as he said, of globalism and embraced the idea of a national doctrine of patriotism and he urged that on everybody. as if they were mutually exclusive. i couldn't be patriotic if you were globalist or whatever. and europe's sovereignty is being breached if he says he's going to threaten you with secondary sanctions for doing business under an internationally recognized deal. so i just wonder how you can stand up for yourself? how does europe stand up for itself and perhaps even your reaction to some of these books that have come out about his policy, like you talked about nato. his national security adviser came over and had all this stuff signed up before the president could come and have a different view and maybe mess it up, so to speak. >> well, i think we have to understand the reasons why president trump is saying what he's saying, and it's connected to the reason why he was elected, which is that he has a

base and we have similar parts in the population of the uk and europe as well that feel disoriented and worried by globalization, and that was something that was probably a contributor to the brexit vote in the uk and other turbulence in other parts of europe. and he's saying people need to know their political leaders are standing up for their country's interests and this isn't -- and their identity isn't being compromised by some of the winds of change. and so i think it is very important to recognize there is a role for multilateral institutions, but also to recognize that they do need to be reformed and the uk certainly stands with the u.s. on reform of the u.n., reform of the wto, reform of nato. these institutions have got to work for the big players who operate within them. and that was one of the insights when the u.n. was set up with its rather -- with a structure over the security council, the

permanent members, the vetoes, that recognize the differences between bigger countries and smaller countries. >> since you mentioned brexit i wanted to ask you to react. i'm sure when you come here the majority of your counterparts look at you still as if you put a gun to your head and embarked on a journey to who knows where at this moment. none of us know exactly where it's going because there still isn't a deal, but i wonder how you react to several recent developments. in the latest meeting with the eu, donald tusk offered prime minister theresa may some cakes and said there won't be any cherries, no cherry picking. and then president macron went even further and was very blunt about the brexiteers and the policies he said they had sold to the voters. this is what he said. >> translator: brexit teaches us something and i completely respect british sovereignty when i say that. it shows that those who say without europe that everything is going to be all right and

that it's going to bring in a lot of money are liars. and it is even more true since they left the day after so they wouldn't have to deal with it. >> i mean, he has a point, right? there are a lot of things brexit promised, the brexiteers promised, that are just pie in the sky. >> i think the first thing to say is that we need some perspective here. it's a very big decision when a country decides to lead an organization like the european union. there was always going to be a difficult negotiation. we're coming to the crunch period now. and what i see behind the scenes is that there is a tremendous desire on both sides to actually come to an agreement, because not coming to an agreement would be damaging all around. so that is the first point to make, but i think some of those comments are really based on a misunderstanding of why the british people voted for brexit. >> but he did say -- you used to be health secretary and he did say some of the brexit slogans were lies and even your side

says that 350 million, whatever it was, pounds or euros to the nhs was not true and not a deliverable promise. >> well, we're a democracy. when you have a referendum campaign, just like when you have an election campaign, there are a lot of claims made on both sides. in the case of the funding for the nhs, there were lots of voicing saying that's not the whole people and people listened to the voices and made their decision and that's what happens in a democracy. the most important thing this was not a decision by the british people to reject europe, to be un-european, to be anti-european. we are a country that has shed more blood in europe, has sacrificed more than perhaps anyone else for peace, prosperity and stability in europe. but we do want our sovereignty back. we want a different legal relationship. but we want to carry on the friendship with our european partners and colleagues.

>> do you think the prime minister has seen off the leadership challenge for now? >> she is very secure. of course newspapers will write the articles they want to write, but people understand she's someone of enormous tenacity, resilience, she's had a very, very difficult few years with the brexit situation, but she has brought us forward and she's brought us to the point where a deal is possible and now we just need to see it through. >> you've been tweeting about one of the issues on your agenda, the british citizens held by iran, you've again said that you've been talking about it. prime minister may says she spoke to the president of iran about it. i asked the president of iran yesterday, this is what he said. >> translator: well, i'm not aware of the details of any detainee's files but i have heard that new charges were brought against her and the judiciary was awaiting the response from the defense.

so these are actions that are taking place in the judiciary. but if efforts of foreign governments can be beneficial with this, for example, when we talk about our citizens being imprisoned in other countries, in western countries, when we talk about those to the government officials, they tell us, well, there is not much that we can do because they're under the guise of the judiciary in our country. so we must all bring a constant concerted effort to bear so all prisoners must be freed and returned to their families, but it must be a path that travels both ways. >> that's their view. what is your hope, and have you made any progress with trying to make sure that this british citizen who has done nothing wrong and is a civilian gets released and what's gummed it up? we thought last christmas she was going to come out.

>> well, it is not acceptable for iran -- by the way, it isn't just her. there are others as well in the same situation. we don't mention names unless the families are happy with that. but it is not acceptable to detain innocent people as a tool of diplomatic leverage, and that is what is happening, and it's just not acceptable and i made that very clear to iranian foreign minister zarif. we need the situation to be resolved. we need these people to be able to come home. and britain is not a country that is just going to stand by and allow this kind of injustice to continue, so we need to see progress. >> you're still tweeting about your gaffe, your faux pas, about your wife. you said that she was japanese instead of chinese and you just said it -- you tweeted humorously about it in japan. are you going to live it down? >> i don't know.

it's certainly a great topic of discussion within the hunt family. the truth is, i'm not sure i've said this on broadcast before, but i speak japanese and i spoke -- the last time i met the chinese foreign minister we had spoken in japanese. >> with the chinese foreign minister? >> with the chinese foreign minister because he used to be the ambassador in tokyo. i was muddling up my small talk. luckily i have a wife who has a great sense of humor. >> luckily. foreign secretary hunt, thank you very much indeed. a sense of humor is vitally important at all times. turning now to one of the most successful investors in big tech and innovation, alexis ohanian. a self-made millionaire, he started making waves as the co-founder of the social media platform reddit, one of the most visited websites in the united states, and with his venture

capital firm, initialized capital, which makes early bets on start-ups like the grocery delivery service insta cart and the cryptocurrency coin base. his celebrity status soared after marrying tennis champ serena williams last year. three months after welcoming their baby daughter olympia, alexis recently sat down with our hari sreenivasan for a master class in business and parenthood. first, let's talk about the big money part of it. initialized capital. you look at your website, you have 125-plus companies. how do you figure out out of your 120 plus bets how many of them need to become the super successful? >> for every coinbase or instacart, there are 20, 30, 40 that won't survive. and that's the math that at this stage of investing that actually still works.

it is a power law where the returns from these one or two big bets make up for the others that aren't. the upside of that is it lets us be a little bit more aggressive. and be able to take sort of bigger bets or bolder bets on ideas that are a little further out there. >> you made a bet in the driverless car space. >> yes. >> you recently bet on cruz or partnered or acquired by gm. >> that's right. so one of the first investors in cruz was at that point basically research project because no startup back in 2012 really thought they could compete with the likes of google or uber or these others. and then we went back a second time actually and invested in another self-driving car company called voyage. their approach is a little different. what they found was an opportunity where they're able to get their cars on the roads today by using retirement communities. these are large swaths of land that have many, many miles of road that look and train the computers just like any other

road. it's contained. it's private land and so they can work with these retirement communities and offer an amazing service to people who are otherwise pretty limited in mobility. the idea that your grandparent can have a self-driving taxi service to help take them to the store gives them mobility and freedom they didn't have before. and the fact the cars only go 25 miles an hour is actually a feature. it's actually probably how fast most of those cars would be going if the elderly were behind the wheel anyway. >> right. >> and it's finding a way to use the technology that is practical and valuable and safe but also collecting data now in real time regularly on real roads. i think long term that's where the value is going to be. these cars will get smarter the more hours they spend on the roads because these cameras, this ai, is constantly learning and absorbing and improving. >> let's talk a little bit about the content struggles a lot of these platforms are having to

deal with right now. the info wars conundrum. the president recently weighed in and is warning people about the power of the platforms, their political influence. they don't like me in the first place, but is there concern they are so powerful now that they are players in the process? >> this is so interesting because now it's coming from the left and the right. i think these platforms are trying very, very hard to maintain neutrality and -- >> is that possible? >> the reality is -- ultimately i don't think that's possible. i think what google, facebook and these others have done so well, though, is entrenched themselves in our lives in such a fundamental way for so long that i do believe, i mean, part of what we do is look for an early stage investor who wants to do something as audacious as topple google or topple facebook one day or build a competitor to them.

but admittedly the impact they've been able to have and build up is wide-reaching. it affects many, many parts of our lives. >> reddit has become the front page of the internet. but beyond the front page, behind it, there are also places where you find incredibly distasteful speech. you can find it in forums that support the president right now, really racist memes that would attack you for being armenian or your wife for being african-american, right? so what is -- how do you solve for that? >> well, it is reprehensible, and i do remember -- this was many years ago -- the first time i had an armenian genocide denial post at me. on the one hand i thought, okay, well, this is despicable and obviously i hate it, but at the same time i thought, okay, well i guess we're at a scale now where this is the reality. we're now a global enough platform that we're seeing these world views that are so awful

and so offensive. the solution for how do we fix it is a bigger -- this is a bigger global one, i think. i do think that through more exposure and through more communication we do get to more empathy and understanding, through more conversation we get there. and i've seen it in glimpses on reddit. i've seen and i do believe that long term sunlight and truth wins. >> but that's a really long term. >> very long term. >> illogical or irrational people who hold despicable points of view are not often convinced by facts. >> we have a flat earth theory going around that's picking up steam. like flat earth theory in 2018. i remember reading about the enlightenment and i think when i was studying it in history i just sort of assumed that there was this enlightenment and then after that everyone was like, cool, rational thoughts, scientific method. like, great, world's fixed. >> it's sorted. >> it's done. i guess i really naively thought

that. and this is surfacing now, this reality that, no, actually, there are a lot of people for whom this sort of missed or even today just don't care. >> yeah. >> and would rather see things that reinforce their -- like explicitly would rather see things that re-enforce their world view than challenge it with data. >> is there a role for regulation then? >> that -- i can't imagine that coming from this president. given his history on being anti-regulation. i think there is still -- i think there is still real competition. i do -- i mean, actually we have -- one of our big thesis is around the anti-amazon thesis where because of amazon's place in the market, when they decide to go into something it creates

an amazing opportunity for start-ups to basically arm their opponents. and so we saw this most recently with a company called standard cognition which does self-checkout. when amazon launched it was amazon go, the self-checkout store, where you just pick up the peanuts and walk out, every retailer realized, oh, no -- >> i don't have that. >> i don't have this. what do i do? and because they know they can't build it themselves they come to a startup like standard cognition and sign a bunch of customers. so i do see that actually serving as a tremendous boone for competition but the reality is the incumbents themselves have neglected technology so much they can't build it themselves. they can't go to their cto and say, okay, we need a solution in eight months. the engineering talent isn't there. they're unable to build it. they have to partner with these start-ups. >> let's talk a little bit about your much longer term investments. >> my family. >> so you're married to serena

williams. is she as competitive off the court as she is on the court? >> yes. >> about what? have you ever beat her at anything? >> oh, yeah. there's a few video games -- actually, there's a few she'll still wash me in. the classics. the classic nes games she's better at. it's less about competition with someone else. it's more about her own -- almost like a competition with herself. she is one of the hardest people on themselves who i know. and that's what makes her great. >> has it been a humbling experience? you said at one point you thought you worked hard. >> i thought i worked so hard. tech is full of these myths around nonstop working and the grind and the hustle and all this stuff, and i really believed. i was like, okay, i'm in the hardest working industry. they're working all the time. your door is never closed because it's 24/7 internet, blah, blah, blah.

and, yeah, i was so wrong. very, very wrong. i think what i didn't really appreciate and what i didn't really understand until i saw it firsthand was what a pressure it is and what an intensity it is to do your job in front of so many people. but there is so much on you when you are out there. i used to hate tennis. i thought tennis was a boring sport. i would change the channel when it was on. i was so wrong. to see what she's been able to do at the level she's done it in a sport where it's just you. it's just you out there. is just amazing. absolutely amazing. >> one of the things she did which was surprising and startling to a lot of people she was very open about going through postpartum depression. >> mmm-hmm. >> it's just not something a lot of women share, much less women of her fame and fortune, so to

speak, but it's also not something men talk about. >> i mean, look, as a husband i just want to be there. i want to be the rock. i want to be supportive. and it is already so much to carry a child, to do all that, not to mention all the complications she had to do through and endure. i was very proud of her for speaking about it publicly. she realizing the platform she has in the world, and i think what's so special is she's always been very unfiltered, and when you combine her level of success with this unfiltered nature, i think there's a hunger for this realness because there's a lot that isn't. >> so much is polished and perfect representations of the vacation that you had and whatever. >> our instagram culture. i'm guilty of it, too. it's the rose tinted best version of yourself that you

want to present to the world and i think that's fine, something we as humans want. but that creates a hunger for that real talk, and, you know, i've had so many random people come up to me, mothers in particular, just walking down the street now who will thank me for -- i'm thinking, why are you thanking me? she's like, just send it along to your wife because of what she said and what she's talked about and how much it means to them. i'm happy to -- very happy to deliver that thanks. >> you have a 1-year-old. what's she teaching you? >> that everything i have done up until this point, not that cool. like, not that great. as proud as i was of all the things i've done in my career, i just look at that little baby and i'm just like, this is everything. this is my legacy. >> recently an associate

on instagram criticized you for taking what he called family vacation and your response resonated with a lot of parents. it wasn't vacation. >> it was wild. i took a week with my fam. the associate from another firm had made some note about that implying that i wasn't working hard, and i wasn't. i was on vacation. this kind of goes back to that insane notion that tech has in our little bubble that we are this -- we have to be this hardest working, 24/7, got to grind mentality which is not true but it's also dangerous. i worry because there's so much especially in masculinity tied up in the grind and the hustle and work, especially when it comes to family, where i've been a huge proponent for paid family leave because i want men to be taking time off.

i want women to be able to take time off. right now 1 in 4 american women are back at work two weeks later after having a kid. that's insane. to be the last developed country to not have any kind of policy is insane. and i've spoken out about it. i took four months of leave -- >> and you were fortunate to be able to do that. >> i was very lucky to do that. that is something i will give the tech industry credit for, it is pretty standard to have generous leave policies in tech, and i hope it can be a standard for other industries and i want it to be a standard for the country. taking advantage of it is another level because so many men still don't and this provides a double advantage because, one, it means men get to spend time with their families during the early days, which are really important, but it gives more air cover to women in the organization to take time

off and help to start to change a lot of those cultural and systemic problems that exist in tech and in business around women in the workforce. and so i was proud to take all my time off and i'm happy to be speaking out about it because it is very hard to try and balance it all, and i actually for the first time -- it was like a month ago at the commonwealth club, i actually got asked the question my wife's been asked plenty of times, which is how do you balance it all, you know, work and family? and i was happy to be asked it because i hadn't gotten asked it and i know she gets asked it, so many working women, moms, get asked it all the time. i would like us all to get asked it enough that it never becomes an issue anymore. it doesn't become a question. >> alexis ohanian, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. after serena williams' very

public lick outburst at the u.s. open final over a dispute with the umpire ohanian dismissed a "new york times" article that claimed men are more penalized than women in tennis saying it's a bit like comparing apples and oranges. meanwhile, the 23-time grand slam winner herself has dropped a new video on her instagram page for breast cancer awareness month when she sings a cover version of "i touch myself" while topless and her hands covering her chest. ♪ oh, no, ♪ >> who knew serena had such a great voice. that is it for our program tonight. thanks so much for watching "a. amanpour and company on piece." make sure to join us tomorrow night. [ theme music plays ]]

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