43rd mayor of Miami. Served two terms

since 2017 and his tenure is going to

end in September because he's term

limited. Although I hear these days

that's flexible. Please welcome Francis

Suarez. We're ranked the happiest city

in America, the healthiest city in

America. The formula for success is

simple. Keep taxes low. Keep people

safe. Lean into innovation.

How are things going in Miami?

Obviously, you know, we talked to you a

couple years ago when we had our first

all-in summit here and uh you had a

nonsense approach that you thought was

going to work with the homeless

challenges that we're seeing. I think

candidly we discussed a large portion of

the homeless problem in these major

cities is an addiction problem and you

know giving a junkie a home doesn't

exactly get them off the street. It just

doesn't work. And you've you were one of

the first people to say that plainly.

How are you dealing with it? Has it

gotten worse? Is it an intractable

problem? Yeah. Take us through it. So,

in homeless specifically, we are at an

11-year low. Uh we did our census, we do

two census a year. We do one in uh

January, one in in the summer. And our

our January census had us at an 11-year

low. We had 546 homeless, unsheltered

homeless in the entire city of Miami. Um

we have a couple thousand sheltered. And

uh I actually raised money on an annual

basis uh as a mayor's ball. I I did my

mayor's ball last year and this year

I'll be doing it in May 31st to end

homeless. We want to be the first major

American city to have zero homeless and

we think we can get there. We call it

functional

zero and and and and frankly the the

strategy is not that complicated. You

know, obviously there's a macroeconomic

strategy. We have the lowest

unemployment in America. We have the

highest median wage growth in America.

We I lower taxes to the lowest level in

history. And we've seen 140% growth in 9

years. So, the economy is robust. We

were ranked the happiest city in

America, the healthiest city in America.

Frankly, if you're happy, you're healthy

and you're working, you're probably not

homeless. And then, of course, we've

done innovative things in the homeless

space. We've worked with um charitable

organizations that uh help people

reunify families if they live in other

parts of the country. And also, we rent

homes so that we can get around the

building process and give all the same

wraparound services, but we we sort of

hack through that process. Those 500

individuals um who are categorized as

homeless. Yeah. How many of them are

suffering from mental illness andor

self-medicating slashaddicted to drugs?

A very high percentage. Um I would say

80% plus, right? And that's sort of

anecdotal. Um but when I and I've been

out to the streets, I'll I'll I'll be

out there before my my homeless ball now

on May 31st. I'm actually going to spend

a night out on the street. Um and when

you talk to them, when you engage in

them, a vast majority of them are

unfortunately. Okay, so let me double

click on that. this problem wasn't as

acute before the super drugs meth like

the the serious meth um well the really

serious ones they're making now and

fentinyl right these this combination

seems to be you know we had people

addicted to heroin like Miles Davis and

like Philip Seymour Hoffman who produced

incredible art and were addicts for 30

years and they and they went in and out

of it but this drug is pernicious

different deadly super addicting how

much of the problem are those two drugs

specifically if you double clicked on

it. A big part of the problem heroin or

opioids. He's asking for a friend by the

way. Just not I'm asking if you have a

hookup. Clearly. No, but I'm I'm being

deadly serious because we we had these

homeless individuals in New York, you

know, back in the day in the 70s ' 80s.

They were kind of like um hobos and

vagabons, not seriously addicted, you

know, suffering where they're folding

over and curled up in a ball from

fentinel. Well, well, to your point, I

mean, meth and and and uh the opioids

are incredibly addictive and they're

very hard to to to beat, right? I mean,

even people who are are wealthy and get

addicted to these drugs have a very hard

time um the recidivism rate is very high

and so uh you know, you just had Antonio

on here a minute ago and he was talking

about, you know, immigration and the

border and one of the big problems with

the border is the tens of thousands of

people that die annually because of

fentinel that gets imported through

China and through our border. And so uh

there's a tie-in, right, between federal

policy and and local policy. But for us,

um again, uh in 1980 during the the

cocaine era, right, different drug, uh

we had 220 homicides. So you had drugs

hurting people, but you had the business

of drugs very much hurting people,

right? Last So we started recording

homicides in 1946 in Miami. 1946, we had

32 homicides. From 1946 to today, the

lowest number we ever had was 24. Last

year we had 27. Wow. Okay. We had 220 in

1980. This year we're trending below the

24. So we may this may be the safest

year in the history recorded history of

Miami. Can you connect those dots there?

Like I think I think when people think

about social policy, everybody confuses

the correlation and causation. Yeah. But

you've been in the seat now for a long

time. Yeah. So you've seen what hasn't

worked, what has worked, what maybe has

been correlated, but if you had to sort

of like lay out the road map for other

cities, but frankly for other states,

the rest of the country, what's the road

map? The Francis Suarez road map. The

formula for success is simple. Keep

taxes low, keep people safe, lean into

innovation,

right? Can we just double click into

those? Of course. I can double click on

each one of them. Let's take the other

side of these things just to help the

conversation because I believe in them

but let's try to steal man the other

side. Sure. Keep taxes low. What people

say if you look at California and if you

look at New York what they would say is

we have a duty to invest in the social

services and the infrastructure to

support everybody that isn't necessarily

as well or didn't get the right side of

luck and we need to raise taxes in order

to generate the revenues to fund that.

My my counterargument would be

government is not a good purveyor of

those services. It's not an efficient

purveyor of those services. So, so ju

just to double click, right? I lowered

taxes to the lowest level in history and

I and I took the city in 2009 as a

councilman in out of bankruptcy. So, I

got it in bankruptcy. We decided this is

sort of the Doge before Doge. We decided

not to raise taxes. We cut cost. We we

cut, you know, we didn't we didn't let

anyone go, but we had tiered salary

cuts, pension reform, and we balanced

our budget, and we had 10 years of

prosperity. And that prosperity led to a

tripling of the size of our government.

So we went from a $500 million

government to a billion half dollar

government while lowering taxes. So we

we grew 200%. Right? So the the the

resources that we had to dedicate to

these actually went up even though taxes

went down. And then uh you know uh when

you have a place where there's

prosperity and where people are

investing and where people are employed,

they're obviously not there's not as

many social problems. So they're not out

there killing people. um they're not out

out there hurting people. So the 1980s

we had you know we were one of the mur

murder capitals of America and we're now

one of the safest big cities in America.

And then I think you know the the how

can I help moment that you guys are all

familiar with was this juxtiposition

with what American cities were doing

right famously New York competes for and

wins the Amazon HQ2 prize right and then

rejects it. Rejects it. Yeah. And and

and also famously in California, you had

a I guess it was a legislator that said,

"F Elon Musk." Yeah. Elena Gonzalez.

Exactly. And she and he replied,

"Message received." And he left. And

then she went to run a union, right? Is

that where she ended up? Yeah. I think

she went to work for a union. She's the

CEO of one of the big unions now. But

the issue is what I tell people is look,

it's it's bad enough to kick out a

trillion dollar company from your city

or the richest person arguably in the

world from your city. But think about

the the signal. The signal to me is much

much greater, right? The signal is if

you want to bring another headquarters

or if you want to be another company, we

just got FC Barcelona two days ago. We

announced that FC Barcelona moved their

headquarters from New York to Miami,

right? Every single day um we announced,

you know, 900 million dollars of loans

in two projects in the last two days in

two buildings, you know, our stadium,

our Inter Miami stadium. We have the

FIFA World Cup headquarters for 2026 in

the in the world, right? So, I mean,

this formula for success, it seems

simple, other cities are getting it

wrong completely backwards, right? their

taxes are high, it's not safe, and

they're not leaning into they're

rejecting innovation. Are there are

there downsides to growing this fast?

Like are there things that have to keep

up that are harder to change like

building code, housing density, you

know, those sort of cost of living

things like have those have you guys

been able to drive reform there or is

that is that not where you wanted to be?

So Ken Griffin recently was interviewed

in a fireside chat like this and said,

"I'd rather have the problems of success

than the problems of failure." And so

there's no doubt that there are problems

that stem from success, right? And

housing prices, you had a tremendous

amount of inflation in the last

administration and you you you sort of

couple that with hyper demand here in

Miami and you get hyperinflation, right?

So housing costs have certainly gone up

significantly. And we do everything we

can to leverage public dollars and

public assets like land to try to build

projects at a 15 to1 or 20 to1 leverage

rate. So for $100 million invested,

we'll get $2 billion worth of projects.

Um, there's a 5 million h, you know, 5

million housing shortage across the

country and Miami has its fair share

just like any any other major city.

Traffic, I know none of you guys have

experienced any bad traffic this last

few days, right? I was in the car two

two hours and 40 minutes going over to

that. I'm not going to I'm not going to

tell you how far along we are with the

Boring Company on trying to find

underground boring systems or with some

of the EV toe companies that we're

working with. But I do think that

transportation generally has to sort of

turn the page from, you know, last

generation's archaic um solutions to

next. How did you get that train that

what do you call it? The sunshine line

or something. Bright line. Yeah. The

Bright Line. Yeah. How did you get that

done so quick? And everybody says it's

the greatest thing ever. That's a

private sector project uh that was done

by company. Um we had a piece of it

which was we did a piece from with Tri

Rail to bring it into the station. And

when we did that piece, we made it free

for inner city residents to be able to

use. So it was something that I was very

proud of was part of my legacy. So a

private company built it, correct? You

gave them the right of way. They bought

the right of way. So it was totally

private. So look, we have microobility

options that are private like scooters.

So all you did was just not get in the

way. Exactly. Shocking. By the way, what

an idea. Let me Yeah. Let me let me ask

you

h how how can It's like the hypocratic

oath. Do no harm. Do no harm. How can

mayors address they they come into

office with a reform motivation and

they're elected on, hey, we've got to we

don't have what what Miami has. We got

to fix this. We got to get get the city

working again. We got to attract

business. We got to track growth. And

they inherit this regulatory morass,

this massive infrastructure. Like San

Francisco recently, I I I got all caught

up in the fact that you can't put these

phone booths in your office. You know, a

lot of startups, I don't know if any of

you guys have these, these these phone

booths, you got to have someone go in

and make a call. You put the phone booth

in. And all my startups, all the

companies I've been involved in, you

can't put one in San Francisco. So, you

you put these phone booths in and then

you can go in and make calls. So, when

everyone's in an open desk

configuration, but you got to do a

private call, you hop them in. Everyone

loads up their offices with these phone

booths. In San Francisco, they're

illegal. Turns out that you need to run

you and there's a piece of paper, which

I was actually going to tweet because

it's insane. It's like three pages long.

All the things you need to know about

the phone booths that you want to put in

your office. You got to get an architect

review, an engineering review, a design

review. You got to get sign off from the

engineer. You got to submit the

permitting fees. It gets reviewed by the

city inspector's office. You got to

design fire sprinklers that have to go

into the phone booth. That's nuts. In

case there's a fire in the phone booth,

someone needs to put out the fire in the

That's hilarious. So, I was talking I

was talking to some folks about like

what are you going to do about this? But

the mayor's kind of like, I don't know

if there's enough action that I can take

because it's it's it's in law that

there's all this kind of regulatory

stuff. How do you advise mayors that are

stuck with this sort of an environment?

And this is not just San Francisco.

There's a lot of big cities in this

country that have books and books of

this stuff. And we can talk about

philosophically why this has happened,

sociologically why this has happened.

Books and books of this stuff where the

city can't get out of the way. What do

the mayors do? when you guys get

together like is there any advice or are

we stuck like what's the what's the

solution? We're not stuck. I I I think

it it's cultural right at some level you

have to inculcate a culture where you

empower your employees to innovate and

and to to uh you know deconlict. I think

uh when people come to me with a problem

I say look first first issue is if

there's something that's blocking it

that doesn't make any sense why don't we

just change it? We're legislators.

That's what we do. We legislate so we

can fix it. uh maybe it happened maybe

it made sense 20 years ago maybe it made

sense 50 years ago doesn't make sense

today let's just change it I think

regulation is the is the other side of

the coin from innovation right so

regulation is telling you what you often

times what you can't do or or how to do

something innovation is to protect loss

it's sort of a first principles thinking

we're going to we want to do this right

we we want to make this work and I think

uh I always not always but I regularly

fall on the side of innovation and I

think you you you as a public official

frankly who's elected by the people

really are the one that has to push the

bureaucrats, the bureaucrat class,

right? The bureaucrat class, they get

very accustomed to saying no. They're

riskaverse. Um, you know, they're not

incentivized often times, right? There's

no incentive structure that says, "Hey,

if you innovate, you're going to get X

or Y or Z." And then I think the third

piece of it is artificial intelligence.

I really feel that there's a

breakthrough that's going to come and

it's not just in transportation. We're

talking about EV tools and and

underground boring and all that, but I

think in

in zoning codes and and all that, it's

it's going to be computer to computer,

right? So the codes are all

straightforward, right? We have the same

code for 15 years, right? Probably 97 or

8% of all known decisions have already

been made under this code, right? So all

they have to do is be replicated going

forward, right? Unless the code changes

and then you just change the coding and

you make the decisions all over again.

So it's not that complicated. You should

be able to submit something. The

computer should be able to spit it out

immediately. If it needs changes, it

should tell you what the changes are. A

computer could look at that, make the

changes, and spit it back in. Right? And

if you were to do that, you know, it

takes to get a permit on a on a home in

most places in America or on a building

in most places in America, you know, 6

months, 9 months, a year, a year and a

half. I mean, it's insane. It should be

done instantly. And it could literally

be done instantly with a technology that

we already have available to us today.

Hundred billion dollar business, by the

way, in case anybody's a great idea.

It's a killer idea. I think some

startups have worked on it too. Um I

know multiple that are working. Yeah,

they work on the other side of it.

Building on Freeberg's point, the two

best proposals I heard about regulations

and I'm curious if you could steal me on

them or you know just how practical you

think they are. Putting um a time limit

on regulations. So if you fought for

some regulations around these phone

boots back when foam boots, you know,

Superman changed his costume in them

from the 60s and 70s, like back from

that era, maybe it lasts for 20 years

and then it expires or you want to add

two regulations to office space

regulations. You got to take one off the

books, you know, and and those were the

two proposals I've heard. Some way of

timing these out or um if you want to

add, you got to take you got to find

something to take off. Are either of

those practical? I kind of like the

first one better than the second one

because the second one I mean this sort

of one for one I mean there's got to be

a reason to do one or the other. Right.

Okay. I I like the first one better. Um

actually what we normally do in

government is the opposite. What we do

is we do what we call pilots, right? So

you'll do something that goes away very

quickly, right? In other words, you

imple implement a piece of legislation

say, "Oh, we're going to do it for a

year. Let's test it out." Right? And

it's a pilot and then it goes away. Um,

I I like what you're saying in terms of,

you know, a big part of regulatory

culture can probably be phased out over

a 15 20 year period as being

anacronistic, right? It just doesn't a

year get reviewed and you you're the

government's responsible for reviewing

5% a year for 20 years and they reertify

it or right and and then you have the

ability to reimplement it if you think

it makes sense. But I think what happens

is you go back down to zero. you were

asking Antonio and I was I was listening

to the conversation because we did we

did it like I said we had to cut our

budget by 20% in one year and uh and

part of the problem is budgeting is like

layering right it all layers on top of

each other same as regulation it layers

on top of each other so if you were to

be able to strip it down in a mechanical

way right in an instantaneous way as

opposed to having to fight the the the

structures in our case we were very

lucky there was a state statutory

vehicle that allowed us to implement the

cuts otherwise we'd have to bargain for

them in a in a union process and

obviously no one would ever bargain to

cut their salaries. There would no never

bargain to cut. It would nothing would

have happened. We would have come we

would have been bankrupt and then a

court would have taken us over. We would

have looked like a joke and instead we

we cut costs and we and we survived and

we thrived right going forward. And by

the way, my employees now love me. They

were not happy the first couple years

when we did it. But now they they they

um I mean I don't even have to go to a

union interview when I when I run for

office. They just support me right away.

Do you want to be governor? I don't

think it's quite that simple. I want to

dunk. I want to dunk. Yeah, I want to be

able to dunk, too. Uh, look, I think

that I'm a Republican for those of you

who don't know, and uh, you know, the

president's already weighed in the

Republican primary. I respect the

president's uh, perspective. I have a

good relationship with Congressman

Donald's. So, I I think politics is very

circumstantial. Um, we've talked about

that a lot in the past. So, you know,

things sometimes conspire in your in

your favor. Sometimes sometimes things

don't, right? And I do think it is

circumstantial. So, I think you have to

weigh the circumstances. You know, I ran

for president because I had a had a

thesis. The thesis was urban voters,

Hispanics, and young voters, if they

went Republican, would favor the

Republican candidate or Republican

candidate win. And it they did. It just

wasn't me, right? It was a different

candidate. But, you know, the president

did a great job on podcasts, right?

Going on all these podcasts that, you

know, the vice president didn't do. Um,

and he got young voters and he got urban

voters. Uh, look, a Republican's never

going to win Philadelphia, right? Trump

lost Philadelphia to Biden by 85%. But

he lost Philadelphia to Kamla by 75%.

And and that delta, the 75, 85, that 10%

delta gave him Pennsylvania. Yeah,

that's the election, which was such a

crucial state, right? Like arguably the

the winning state. So you you know,

Republicans are never going to

necessarily win urban votes or the urban

population centers throughout America.

But you're also seeing and and I think

it's important to note you're seeing

Democratic mayors lose across America.

London Breed lost in San Francisco.

Yeah. Tashara Jones lost in St. Louis.

The mayor of of Chicago, Lori Lightoot

lost. On that point, you were the or

still are the head of No, I was I was a

president US Conference of Yeah. for a

year and a half. Okay. If if if we had

to ask you, you can't live in Miami.

Yeah. You met all those mayors. Who

where are two places that you think are

actually well-run that aspire, you know,

to do something great and have their

[ __ ] together?

Cities. Take your time. I don't jump to

an answer. I I'll say this. I I'll tell

you a mayor that I like. How about that?

Okay. Justin Bib. Justin Bib is a mayor

of Cleveland. We got a couple Cleveland

people here apparently. There we go.

Justin is a good friend. Uh I have a lot

of friends that are mayors. I'm a mayor.

You know, I love all my mayors because I

was a president of that institution. But

I think Justin is a young, dynamic guy

who's smart, not super partisan, cares

tremendously about his city, and and we

talk a lot about it because obviously

Miami and Cleveland are a little

different, right? On the margins, that's

fair. Uh and and we joke about it. He

says, you know, I wish I had the kind of

problems you have. To go back to sort of

the Ken Griffin quote, you know, they

they don't struggle with affordable

housing. They got plenty of affordable

housing cuz people don't necessarily

want to live there. Um

uh sorry Jay sorry Jay I love you bro.

Uh but but it's true right? It's kind of

true. So so he's dealing with economic

uh development. He's dealing with he

wants to he wants to be the Miami of

Ohio in terms of getting investment

getting the tech community there getting

people special people to move into his

community and believe in his vision. And

uh I think look company building is hard

as you guys know you guys have built

some incredible companies. Ecosystem

building is even harder, right? It's

it's it's a thousandx harder than

building a big company. I mean,

companies take years into decades and

ecosystems take decades into centuries.

Yeah. It's too different. Yeah. Is there

something

that inside of the next gubernatorial

campaign, let's say you don't run for

governor, that's a high impact job at

the state level? Not really. I get to

practice and I have a private sector

life. Uh I have a 11-year-old and a

seven-year-old. So, I mean, if the

president called me and said, you know,

I want you to be the US ambassador to,

you know, a country that I have a

passion to help, you know, in terms of

the United States, in terms of their

relationship and world peace and things

of that nature. Um, which I think

are high ROIs for for the time

investment and the financial sacrifice

that you have to make. I would strongly

consider it. But other than that, I

mean, I'm I live a very blessed life,

you know. I I I'm the mayor of the best

city on the planet, you know. Yeah.

And I have incredible, incredible,

incredible bosses. These are my bosses.

I have the best bosses in the world.

Yeah. And they're constantly encouraging

me. They're constantly cheering me on.

And and and I live and breathe for them.

I wake up early in the morning. I go to

bed late. And I carry their problems,

their hopes, and their dreams in my

soul. All right. Give it up for Francis

Suarez, your mayor.

Thank you to our friend Francis Suarez,

the mayor of Miami, for joining us on

stage at our F1 event. And thanks to

you, the audience for tuning in. Give us

a like, a thumbs up, a subscribe, write

a review, whatever you're into. Maybe

send it to a friend if you want to come

to our next event. It's the All-In

Summit in Los Angeles. Fourth year for

All-In Summit. Go to

allin.com/events to apply. A very

special thanks to our new partner, OKX,

the new money app. OKX was the sponsor

of the McLaren F1 team which won the

race in Miami. Thanks to Haidider and

his team, an amazing partner and an

amazing team. We really enjoyed spending

time with you. And OKX launched their

new crypto exchange here in the US. If

you love All-In, go check them out. And

a special thanks to our friends at

Circle. They're the team behind USDC.

Yes, your favorite stable coin in the

world. USDC is a fully backed digital

dollar redeemable one for one for USD.

It's built for speed, safety, and scale.

They just announced the Circle Payments

Network. This is enterprisegrade

infrastructure that bridges the gap

between the digital economy and outdated

financial reality. Go check out USDC for

all your stable coin needs. And special

thanks to my friends, including Shane

over at Poly Market, Google Cloud,

Salana, and BVNK. We couldn't have done

it without y'all. Thank you so much.

Let your winners ride.

[Music]

We open sourced it to the fans and

they've just gone crazy with it. Queen

[Music]

of besties are gone.

That is my dog taking it on a share

driveway.

Oh man, my habitasher will meet up at We

should all just get a room and just have

one big huge orgy cuz they're all just

It's like this like sexual tension that

we just need to release somehow.

[Music]

We need to get mercy.

[Music]

I'm going all in.