Death of the Middle Class: Billionaire vs Entrepreneur DEBATE - Daniel Priestley v Nick Hanauer

**Steven Bartlett** (0:00)
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**Nick Hanauer** (1:00)
There is literally no example on planet earth of a high functioning society without big government.

**Daniel Priestley** (1:06)
That's not true. Big government is sucking the life out of small businesses and I spent countless hours with businesses and they're like, you can't succeed in the UK. As soon as you earn anything, they'll just tax it off you.

**Nick Hanauer** (1:17)
So pop off to Dubai, run the business virtually and pay no tax. It's idiotic. I don't know how you can look at that and think this is a good system.

**Daniel Priestley** (1:26)
No, no, I'm saying what needs to happen is reduce the taxes and the pressure on the small businesses because everyone in this economy needs to own stuff. We need to own a house, own a business and own shares.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:36)
But not everybody can be an entrepreneur.

**Nick Hanauer** (1:37)
Correct. Look, it would be wonderful if everybody owned something. But ownership starts with earning enough money so that you can save money so that you can begin to own something. So the problem is wages because most people want to be able to go to work and be treated decently. I want to earn enough money so that I can feel secure. I just want to be married.

**Daniel Priestley** (1:56)
Have kids, own a house.

**Nick Hanauer** (1:57)
All that. That's what most people want.

**Daniel Priestley** (1:59)
I want that. And I want that for everyone. That's gone away. Houses are unaffordable. Local jobs don't exist. Technology has cut out all the middlemen. No one's paying healthy wages. We have the most unhappy population.

**Nick Hanauer** (2:11)
And if you want to fix that, you have to enact this.

**Daniel Priestley** (2:13)
Well, I've seen Nick's policies implemented and I don't feel it's enough.

**Nick Hanauer** (2:17)
You haven't seen all the policies.

**Daniel Priestley** (2:18)
But we need people to know that the rules that we grew up with have changed. And people have to learn the rules of this new economy.

**Nick Hanauer** (2:24)
Yes, yes, yes, I totally agree. And if you want to get the economy back on track, the starting point is...

**Steven Bartlett** (2:33)
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Nick, I want to start with your background and your context so I can understand your perspective and who you are. You sold a company for almost $7 billion.

**Nick Hanauer** (3:15)
Correct.

**Steven Bartlett** (3:16)
And what's so fascinating about you is you, typically billionaires have a certain narrative and perspective on the world. You seem to have a very different one.

**Nick Hanauer** (3:25)
I do.

**Steven Bartlett** (3:26)
Who are you, where have you come from and what is your perspective on the world as it relates to the subjects that you know we're going to discuss today?