Jacob Helberg on Hill and Valley's 10x growth and why bipartisan tech-policy bridges are producing real legislation

there? Yeah. Yeah. Jacob can come on. We'd love to have you. How are you? Jacob, you got five minutes? You got five minutes? Sit down. We're here with the man himself. The man himself. the man who organized Hill and Valley uh and has championed it and grown it by a thousandx I think.

Uh it's it's been fantastic to watch. Last year I was here. I was able to find a seat. Now it's standing room only. Uh what what has it been like growing this? What what uh can you give us kind of the the the the general overview of what the mission and goals are for Hillen Valley?

So the Hillen Valley was always designed to be a bipartisan bicostal alliance between technologists and policy makers on the basic premise that builders and policy makers are both in the business of building the future. They just use different tools to do it.

Builders use the laws of science and nature and policy makers use the laws of man. And ultimately it was very clear through conversations with Dian and Christian that there was a huge amount of distrust between Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill.

But also there was this cliche that had uh taken hold on Capitol Hill that our best and brightest people were focused on advertising technology not building paradigm shifting um uh technologies.

And so ultimately it was clear that you know from the vantage point of the tech industry we actually as a country do have a really deep ecosystem of builders working to solve really hard problems.

And so we thought it was incredibly important to actually bring them to Washington, give them the attention that they need so that policy makers actually knew this existed but also thought of them as a toolkit to solve some of our hardest national problems. That's great. Uh how does it feel being here today?

I uh everybody senses that uh you guys 10x year-over-year. Is it does it feel that way? And I and I know there's like significantly more demand. I heard a rumor about the waiting list being, you know, well well beyond probably even like the actual people here. Yeah. What does Hill Valley turn into over time?

Yeah, that's it.

It's really interesting because in a way I think the success of the Hill and Valley Forum actually reflects a lot of the the Peter Tealisms about you know high growth startups where at first you know it's it's um an invention that you can't really give a name to because if you're really going from zero to one it's something that by definition doesn't really exist and then you start out with something that it's a small community that's really hyped up about it.

Um, and all of those principles have actually applied to the Hilton Valley Forum. I mean, we started out and it was kind of this opaque dinner that was totally behind closed doors and we were initially planning four tables of 10 people. It ended up being 100 people and it just the growth has actually been exponential.

Now you have random live streamers here and you know you've made it when you draw the pro Hamas crowd. So, yeah, totally. Next year the goal is Code Pink. I'm surprised they got in. This was remarkable. impersonated press badges. So, impersonating a journalist. Well, we we impersonate some in some way.

We do our best journalist impression. Uh I know you're waiting for confirmation, so you can't talk about much else.

Is there anything else that uh folks should be aware of or uh take away from Hill Valley uh other than um I I guess in terms of like what the audience is getting out of this uh are do you have any advice for founders who are in attendance, anyone who's watching online? um what is the best way to engage?

I think it's really inspiring to see so many bright talented people actually make the effort of flying across the country to come here and show up. You know, they say there's the old saying that so much about life is about showing up, especially in politics. Yeah, totally.

And the fact that people actually spent the money, took the time to come here and engage in these policy conversations really does make an impact.

And there isn't a single year where we've had the Hill and Valley forum where there hasn't been legislation that's actually come out as a direct result of people's having conversations here.

So, it's gratifying to see people show up, but it's also really inspiring to see people talking about re-industrialization this year. This has been the plague of our country is that we de-industrialized 20 years ago and it's inspiring to see so many bright people working hard to reverse that. Yeah. Cool.

Well, we'll let you get back to it. I'm sure you have a million more panels to host and come back on the stream anytime, but we'd love to have you back. Thanks for having us. Look forward to doing this again. Fantastic. Cheers. Cheers. Thanks for doing this. Yeah. You want to do this now? Zach, can you come in in 15?

Are you good in 15 from now?