Tariffs and Economic Uncertainty: How We Got Here and What's Next | Michael Weinstein, Ep 28

On the immediate consumer impact of tariff policy

“We just enacted the largest tax increase in the history of the country. I'm a coffee drinker. We import 99% of our coffee from outside the United States because we're not in the right climate to grow coffee. Am I now going to have to pay 30% more for my coffee?”

“The one thing we know about uncertainty is that people don't invest and I mean corporations don't build new factories, hire people when they're in these kinds of periods of uncertainty. They don't know which way to go and what the rule set might be three months from now, six months from now, three years from now.”

“History tells us that the incumbent large companies are not the ones that create the next new thing. What we don't know is who is the Steve Jobs and Wozniak in a garage right now playing with parts, coming up with something that looks so obvious after the fact.”

“Early in your career, a lot of the things you do are about your technical skills in a broad sense of the word. Your ability to do things. And you don't need a lot of political skills to exist in an organization. But over time, advancing becomes less about the technical skills and more about the political skills.”

On the true purpose of MBA education

“What's the real value of going to business school? Learning how to work with people who you wouldn't necessarily choose to work with of your own free will because that's how the real world of business is.”