What changed for you?

Look, this is a company building a technology that poses a potential existential threat to humanity.

Those are not my words.

Those are the words reportedly of the S1 that they have published.

They also do not claim to have solved that problem, posing risk for investors and, and I am an investor, a shareholder, and will be a bigger one if this goes public.

We'll talk about why that is.

An IPO is about the most all-consuming thing that corporate leadership could go through.

They know that too, so how much leverage do you have when they know that ultimately you'll be buyers if they go public?

Okay.

Those are not my words.

They're reportedly in the S1.

They do not claim to have solved that problem.

And you have many friends who've been through an IPO.

It is about the most all-consuming, intense experience a human being can go through, that a leadership team can go through.

This will undoubtedly distract them from the safety work.

So the idea of telling one, uh, company not to move ahead doesn't seem, when you start to think through the sort of permutations of all this, doesn't necessarily change the outcome.

And then how are you making these decisions as far as investment, especially since we know in a polarized, not just country, but even in the city with varying shades of blue, people are going to have different questions and concerns about where this money is being invested.

Yeah, look, this job is just massive in its portfolio, even more probably than I understood when I was running it.

It is managing our pension money, which is approaching a third of a trillion dollars.

And there are many, many technical, financial, and moral questions wrapped up in that, which I'll address, some of which you were asking about.

We also issue the debt, so the bonds that we use to build schools and bridges and so much more.

which we now have well over $100 billion outstanding.

We co-issue the debt.

Can you be specific? What choices should we be making? What choices are you making as controller in relation to all this?

Mm-hmm.

This is legal services, finance, accounting, consulting, design, marketing, a variety of other business services, knowledge work that, uh, AI is already impacting.

And if the jobs begin to contract in those sectors because AI is displacing workers, not just enhancing them, then that is not just traumatic for the workers involved, but also would have a very negative impact on our budget and our economy.

And it's part of why we actually put out a report earlier in the year that examined various scenarios for AI's impact on the city's economy, on our workforce, on our budget, ranging from positive scenarios where AI continues to do-- to, to lead to a strong stock market, where it leads to an addition of jobs, not, not loss of jobs.

But also we examine much more negative scenarios where we could have, uh, the bubble burst from a financial perspective, but also where we could have...

We looked at one scenario that would mean the loss of a quarter of a million jobs in a matter of months.

So all this is on the table right now.

... impacting everybody?

Give us a bit of an overview of the work that you've been doing there.

Okay.

Well, like I said, one of our research aims is to try and understand more about what actually works and doesn't work when people intervene, rather than have they spoken up, right? And we also focused very much on trying to find uh...

actual behavioral data as opposed to just minutes nothing wrong with the society but just giving people questionnaires and asked me to reflect after the fact we're doing interviews with them all of these things are good writers as tools but sometimes What people say and what they do is not the same thing.

They might not remember why they acted in a particular way after the fact with recall and those sorts of things.

So we've been very keen on trying to find examples of real-life emergency intervention where we can see the intervention as it unfolds and look at the strategies that people were using, try to get a sense of what they were doing and why they were doing it, whether some things were more successful than others, and so on.

And so the...

what you

That gap is now closed, but with your reference to the rainy day fund, uh, would you say it was closed in the right way or just closed for now?

Well, look, it's a real relief that based [laughs] compared to where we were in January, uh, we've made a lot of economic progress in New York City.

By many measures, New York City's economy is quite strong, Brian, and, uh, that helped deliver some wins in our tax revenues, which helped close the gap.

Uh, I want to acknowledge that this, uh, economic strength is not reaching all New Yorkers.

I know there's families that are really struggling now to make ends meet, and maybe we can talk about why that is amidst so much prosperity.

But for our budget, uh, this helped close the gap and made it possible for us to pass our budget and balance for FY 2027.

But there's still real serious underlying problems in our budget that really can be summarized quite simply to say that we're spending more than we're bringing in.

Are you saying Israel is being singled out and held to a unique standard politically by the mayor or anyone else?

Is it your take that the numbers back the strategy?

Yes, actually, I do.

These are big, complicated projects.

To make it work, they needed a tax incentive.

And the proposition was, well, if these things just sit vacant as empty office buildings, It's not good for our economy.

It's not good for our tax base.

And so we are giving people a break on the property tax because this incentivized construction that wouldn't otherwise take place.

What lessons do you think that other cities can take from New York's experience thus far with these conversions?

Is it your take that the numbers back the strategy?

Yes, actually, I do.

These are big, complicated projects.

To make it work, they needed a tax incentive.

And the proposition was, well, if these things just sit vacant as empty office buildings – It's not good for our economy.

It's not good for our tax base.

And so we are giving people a break on the property tax because this incentivized construction that wouldn't otherwise take place.

What lessons do you think that other cities can take from New York's experience thus far with these conversions?

people are somewhere on that spectrum that's right you can get things done can mean a lot of different things that's right

yeah it's true and and you know it's it's unfortunate that sometimes people are in it for the wrong reasons rise quickly to the top.

In a better world, that wouldn't be the case, but I'm sorry to say it's more complicated than that out there.

I got a pretty big slap in the face when I was making my rounds as a novice candidate from talking to people i came in energetic with my ideas for how to change city government and how to change my neighborhood i was running in uptown manhattan washington heights west harlem people mostly just wanted to know whether i could win and it was somewhat disheartening but i think it is still today, the nature of politics that people want to bet on viable candidates.

They want a winning horse, right? Exactly.

So I think the best campaigns are ones that have an inspiring message and also make a really strong case for viability.

And we try and do both of that in every race.

Look,

It's an all-time high because I understand there might be as many as 20,000, 30,000 apartments that are vacant because people can't afford to do anything with them.

Yeah, we'll talk about that.

But first, the numbers are pretty incredible.

So median rents in Manhattan, $5,295 per month.

It's just, it's insane.

And in Brooklyn, it's not much better, 4,350.

And I know your listeners understand that those are rents that are out of reach, not just of low-income people, but of a nurse, of a social worker, of a firefighter.

How can we induce people to build more homes when they're putting on so many restrictions?

It's an all-time high because I understand there might be as many as 20,000, 30,000 apartments that are vacant because people can't afford to do anything with them.

Yeah, we'll talk about that.

But first, the numbers are pretty incredible.

So median rents in Manhattan, believe it or not, $5,295 per month.

It's just, it's insane.

And in Brooklyn, it's not much better, 4,350.

And I know your listeners understand that those are rents that are out of reach, not just of low-income people, but of a nurse, of a social worker, of a firefighter.

how can we induce people to build more homes when they're putting on so many restrictions why would anybody build a new uh home or build a new a building in new york uh when uh all these new restrictions coming up they want rent freezes etc etc i mean how do you how do you pay the mortgage how do you pay the mortgage when you have a rent freeze

[laughs]

Right? It's very, very hard, if you're not rich, to get that housing, and it's a threat to our future.

There's no shortcut here.

We have to build more housing in New York.

We have to build more affordable housing in New York, so people can stay here.

I am all in on this fight.

The first major policy I have announced as comptroller, we're gonna invest $4 billion of pension funds-

Mm-hmm.

So I'm curious, can that capital advance decarbonization at the same time and where are the issues of affordability, housing and climate progress coming together?

Okay, really proud about this housing plan.

Before I dive into that, I am gonna offer a very quick big picture on New York City's pension funds, plural.

We don't have a pension fund.

We actually have five, which is an added complexity in my life.

We have a fund for police officers and firefighters and teachers.

We have a very large catch-all that's probably the most well-known.

Roots, can we talk about urban forests? Your office released a actually quite interesting report about New York City's urban forests and we thought you could tell us a little bit about the key findings and the role of the tree canopy.

So what exactly do you aim, uh, to accomplish, I guess, in this story, knowing that even with the power that you guys wield, Wall Street seems to want every bit of this IPO?

Look, this is an important company to the American economy, and it's achieved numerous technological triumphs, but I think that this company will be stronger with democratic governance for shareholders.

I think that the capital markets are stronger when we have these kinds of protections in place, checks and balances in place.

Yes, this is a trend that's been building for decades.

It's quite common in Silicon Valley.

We see it with Meta and Google, et cetera.

And I understand that tech founders want to exert control.

What exactly is the concern now about being a public company in that environment when many of these pension funds and institutional investors have already had this private market exposure to this and not felt quite as, I guess, maybe adamant about some of these governance issues?

Or helping to break the program in.

Exactly.

I...

And it-- I'll, I'll say even 30 years later, I still kind of dive back into what I learned there.

I wouldn't say that it was all helpful 'cause it was development and I do just management now, but there are some core competencies and information that I carry through.

Um, so during the day I would just, you know...

Anything that I needed to do.

But in the past it did happen, and there's, there was no real consequence so long as the board could represent that they were still considering the application.

Thursday, Levine announced that he'll skim four billion dollars in pension fund cas-cash to boost affordable housing in response to a worsening housing crisis." So they, they see it as, um, play money and that you're skimming money from the pension fund rather than investing it in the best way possible.

Yes.

I'll point out that this editorial also claimed that we do not have an affordable housing crisis currently in New York City, so that tells you where they're coming from.

Uh, almost everything you said there is inaccurate, or almost everything you quoted there is inaccurate.

We have a, a pension fund of over three hundred billion dollars right now, and we have a very diverse investment portfolio across all asset classes.

Real estate is, and has been, a very important part of our investment strategy, as it is for every pension fund in America.

And, uh, by the way, the Post might like to know that, uh, red states generally have even a greater allocation to real estate than we do.

Andrew in Brooklyn.

Would you expect that to shrink the deficit when we get those updated numbers or some of the costs that you're talking about that are growing exponentially going to just have that come out in the wash? Yeah,

I think it will.

Look, New York City's economy on the whole is doing very well.

Also, real estate taxes are producing more revenue than we expected.

Sales tax, again, personal income tax.

And we do expect to further revise those numbers because the bonus season we had, one Wall Street person told me it's the second best they've seen in their entire career this year for December of 2025.

But even factoring that in, we're going to be left with a hole.

I just wonder, even if you agree that pre-K should be free, and in a good, wealthy society, it probably should be, even if you agree that local transportation should be free, which is, I guess, a nice to have, even if you want to continue to pass out an ever-growing, at 4% a month, amount of housing vouchers for people who live here, isn't it, when you're in a budget deficit like this, time to stop just giving away so much money?