Ameeriklane kirjutas Eesti e-riigi saamisest põhjaliku raamatu, et panna valitsus meie kogemust üle võtma

Head kuulajad, tere tulemast ettevõtte podcasti lainele. Taavi Katk ja Henrik Roonemaa vaatavad möödunud nädala asjades ringi ja küsivad, millised suured mõtted Eestist väljapoole lähevad, millest me võiksime rääkida. Ma ütlen kohe alguses ära, et meie külaline on täna inglisekeelne, aastas ikkagi üks, kaks, kolm sellist saadet saame teha. Aga põhjus on, huvitav põhjus on see, et tõenäoliselt esimest korda on Eesti kogu sellist e-riigi ja e-legendi ja start-up industry sellisest Tiigri ajaloost ilmunud korralik inglisekeelne raamat. Ja meie teada ei ole sellist varem tehtud ning selle raamatu autor on meie tänane külaline. Ta on ameeriklane ja me räägime siis sellest, kuidas, kuidas see raamat sündis ja, ja mida välismaalase pilguga, sellise ameeriklase pilguga peaks Eesti e-riigist vaatama. Ei ole ju sellist raamatut, Taavi, sa vaatad, kulm kipras mulle otse.

No eks neid raamatuid on, jaapani keeles on olemas näiteks. Et eks need ikka kirjutatud on jah.

Okei, nii et ma lähen nüüd inglise keele peale üle ja head kuulamist. So, switch to english and our guest today is Joel Perk, hello, Joel. So, ja, let, let's start with you. The book, I just say quickly, the book is called Rebooting a Nation. The incredible rise of Estonia, e-government and the start-up revolution. So, it's basically about all the things we hold dear in our hearts about Estonia and, and it's all the stories that we tend to tell when having dinner with, with people who are not from Estonia, so. It's our pride, you have, you have rütten down, but how do we connect you to the topic, you used to work for e-residents, am I right?

Ja,exactly, so I, I made my way to Estonia a bit randomly, to be honest with you, so I had started my career in Silicon Valley. I was early at YC and Dresdenback start-up and then I went to Berlin to run a venture for Rocket Internet, which is this kind of company builder VC, VC firm. And, frankly, I. Didn't like it, I wanted to do something more, more impactful. And I stumbled across a job ad on Jabbatical, when they were still kind of focused on job sabbaticals for e-residents. And I thought, it sounded super cool, I had never heard of seda innovated program. And I had once been to Estonia like ten years prior on a road trip with my dad for about twenty four hours. So I did not, did not have a real deep link to the country, but I was like, I vaguely remember the old town being beautiful. And then I read about this program and I was already in Berlin, so I said, why not. And fortunately enough, they hired me, I guess, maybe I was the only person who was willing to move to Estonia and I think it was februari, so it was, it was a little bit chilly. And when I got there, I was quite impressed, I mean, as you can imagine, an American, who grew up mostly in California, Nevada. Didn't have that much knowledge about, you know, e-government systems and not, not that much experience with anything other than, than the DMV and pretty negative. Negative relationship with government services, so I was quite impressed with, with Estonia, but. Frankly, you know, it was, it was very cool, I had done a one-year contract, I ended up staying a little bit longer, but I made great friends and I was, you know, I was still connected in some way to the country, but. When I went back to the US, during COVID, I joined this program tech congress, which takes tech people and puts them in congress. And so I started advising. Members of congress on tech policy and it was there that I was like. Oh, we are in deep trouble in the United States, like I, I did not realise how, how bad it was. And how much we lacked our knowledge of, of digital or let's say technical state capasite and so. It was from there that I decided to do some writing, partly, with the intent of talking about Estonia, but.Frankly, my, my other reason for doing this is to try and get America to, to pursue government modernisation, better. So sorry for the long winded intro, but there it is.

Oke, so it's, it's a, it's like a regular foreigner story, I came to Estonia, I saw the country, I fell in love, I went back home and I could not stop thinking about this little strange little country, it's, it's the same with you.

Ja, exactly, exactly. So I have been back, I think every year

said. Good to see you again after the years. By the way, your first name is very Estonian. We actually pronounce it in a different way, we just say Joel. No, by the way, I had a classmate with that name, for example. Oh, really? Oh, great.

Yeah, for, for us, I, I always have to just say, it's not so carbon in the US, so I always have to say, it's, you know, it's Joel, like Billy Joel. It works for a certain generation.

Okei, okei, okei, okei. But, when you started to work for the US, like, kongress and, and, and. What's the first thing you notice, what is different there, because. I mean, I am, I have studied, like, different countries and digital societies and. I think I know the answer, but it's like definitely interesting for the listeners, like what is your view? What's wrong with America? I mean, not, not poliitikally, but like, let's, let's, let's look at this from the, like, technical perspektive.

Jah, you're going to get me in trouble when I'm crossing back into the border in a couple of weeks. So, so from, from a technical perspektive, I'd say, you know, there, there's, there's a few things, frankly, I'd say one is that. I think, well, we, we lack people like you and especially people who were, you know, kind of in the government service and given the autonomy to actually build interesting things. I think the, the incentive strukture in the bureaucracy in the United States is such that you're more rewarded for kind of keeping your head down and for seniority and just kind of. Powering through and staying under the radar, then you are for building interesting things and for, you know, trying to do something and, you know, I, I was working in Congress, so, you know, I, I kind of sa the, you know, part of that eclosion up close. So, for example, I, I can, I can tell you with, with, you know, false certainty that if someone. And, you know, I was working for, for someone who is on the arms services committee, so oversight of the department of defense. And if someone went in the department of defense and decided to spend 500 miljon dollars on a bunch of drones and some cool to technology and like, it, it, it seems like quite a rational bet, but if it messed up and something failed or the company they contracted went, went under. I'm almost positive that, that they would be held in front of congress and question, which is a major disincentive for anyone to, to take a leap and try and do something cool, so. There's, there's kind of that, where we, we rhetoricali see, like, yeah, we should be innovative, we should do cool stuff, but then if someone does it and it doesn't do it correctly, they'll be hammered down and punised for, right. Whereas if you just stay under the radar, you'll be successful. The second thing is, well, I, I think we've done historically a pretty poor job with it tracking and, and retraining tech talent in the government. You, you know, one, one of the things about Estonian, I'd be curious, your, your perspective here is, it seems like, you know, doing tourism duty is, is more common or, you know, more accepted than, than in the United States, you know, it's in the US, it felt like many people, if they went in, you know, they did 20 years in the civil service and then went out and, you know, maybe you took a board seat at. At a tech company that selles services to the government or something, right, but in Estonia, it seem like there was more kind of rotation and new blood in and out of the system. And I think that's something that, unfortunately, we didn't have. And when we did, we called it, you know, the revolving nuttore, which had a very negatiiv kannetation.

Jaa, so just for my own perspektive, that one of the major issues, like what governmental systems and digital society in US has, is that you don't have unique identifiers. So, in Estonia, it means isikukood, like social security ID. Like the US citizen, they have them, but the use is limited. So it can only be used in health care, I think, and for taxes. Or for taxes you have a different code. I don't ignore that, but the fact that you can combine different data sources and build more complex processes and, and services on top of that, that's impossible. Because it's by law, it's illegal, like you can't spread your unique identifier and you can't like basically bank-end store it. For example, so you can't, you can't combine bank data with, with the government data and that's a, already a big obstacle. So, so it's a technical issue, it's actually not a political issue, I mean it's, it's a political, it hasn't been decided. But it's, it's the biggest blocker and it actually blocks all angloseksi countries, not only US, but also Canada. UK, Australia, Germany, France, so you name it.

Jah, I to, totally agree. And we have some kind of workarounds, like we have something called login.gov, that is trying to do a unified login for, for some, for some, for some government sites, but naturally it's only for some government sites. And then you have the private sektor. And then you have the private sektor application, I mean, you can do a Google login or a Facebook login to, to everything, right, but. Indiid, I mean, I was issued, you know, you're issued a social security number at berth, I have a little physical piece of paper that has my social security number printed on it, that I'm sure in one of the many haks of Experian or Equifax or the, the big kind of data processing private sektor companies, is. You know, on the dark web, but. Indi, we, we don't have a digital ID, I, I have to admit, I'm quite skeptikal, that we'll ever have one like Estonia, but I'm hopeful that maybe we'll get something in a hybrid public-private partnership, where. No, maybe Apple or Google, since they are already starting to host ID's through state's, we'll, we'll just kind of bubble up that way.

Yeah, it's not only by ID, it's actually the code it's self-like, it's, it's, it's, it's cannot be used. By the way, it's, it's funny, there are huge companies, I mean companies who are making hundreds of millions. Whose only job is that, that they garantee or they, they give you assurance. That the company in this system is most probably the same company in that system. So I was invited to do the Washington DC once like to speak on a conference and it was fully paid by. I think it was public company with like ten plus biljon valuation, who's only job was to say that. This company in this business register is actually that company in that TARPA system. And TARPA is a system where you have to be registered to work for the defense industry in, in United States. No idea. Zero. There

are, there are,

there are auditors and techseksperts that help you like to get maximum out from, from your revenues and profits, obviously. But if you are dedicated techslauer, you must probably out of job, like you have to have something extra, like you have to have something more you do, not just consulting techsist, like.

But Joel, one of your goals, when you were writing this book, was to bring this sort of inspirational story of Estonia to, to the States. Maybe show to some people that yes, it, it is possible to live like this and, and to have your government systems function like this. So, now listening to what Taavi is, is talking about. Is it too late? Is it that you have already too many systems in place, too many ten pluss billion companies in, you know, online that are doing business, that are paying people's salaries and so on. But, or, or do you think that somehow it would be possible to build an e-government resembling Estonia in, in Ameerika?

Maybe this is the, the internal optimist in me, but I don't, I, I certainly don't think it's too late. I mean, I don't think we should hang it up and just try and start somewhere else or something, but. You, you know, we'll look exactly like Estonia, no, certain, certainly not. I mean, and, and it, et, et it should, right. Well, I mean, we'll be starting to build at a, at a different, at a different time and different era, whereas, you know, where Estonia started on more of the desktop side and Ukraine started more on the mobile side on, on. You know, looking at interfaces, you know, maybe America will start, you know, maybe we'll get to skip over to more of the proaktive services and, you know, looking at, using, using AI for some of these things. So, I don't, I don't think we should necessarily do, do, you know, copy Estonia out of the box, but. I do think there is an opportunity, I think, you know, whether or not you agree with, you know, the work of Doge, I think there is certainly, you know, political salience and a willingness to do pretty radikal government reform. To, you know, try and shape things, because I think even, even for people who are, you know, wholly against doge. I, I think there's a general acceptance in, you know, the civil service in, in any circle that, that is familiar with government, that, that. You know, things could get more efficient and could be better. And so, you know, is, exactly how we do that, don't know, but, but certainly there's the possibilities to do it.

I am a big fan of Doge, like we also have it now in Estonia as you know, slightly limited, which means that we can not fire anybody, but we can. Suggest like radical changes in current legislation if needed, so from that, more or less it works. But for people like in Estonia, Doge at, at the moment, mostly seem like cost cutting initiative like so, with the main idea just to remove, remove, unnecissary. Investments or, or like, projects, whatever is going on in, in the United States. Can you explain the, the local. Is it something more like, is there trulli a baseline for new innovation, like you said, that. There will be new motivation modals, there will be. More, let's say, experienced tech people inside. They will remove these political opticals, like I said, like you can not use social security ID, for example, in, in all different systems improve in private public sektors or what are the next, next steps here?

So, with, with the major caveat, that, you know, I'm not, I'm not in the government, I'm not, you know. I, I, I, I certainly think that so, so it does seem like from the public side that, that the focus has been on cost cutting and certainly that's where most of the media attention is, but. I have heard that there is some development of, of technology and I think on incentive side, there's one really interesting thing that I heard about, so there's the GAO, no, is it the GAO. I, I'll find the, I'll find the right, the, the right divisional, sorry, it's the GSA, not the GA. We have too many akronyms and too many agencies in the United States. And the general services administration is basically responsible for kind of broad IT. And so they put in place a program just, just a couple weeks ago, basically trying to incentivize people to, to find and eliminate waste, themselves. So I think that, I think that. You know, we, we'll see if this leads to a culture change, but I think this is an interesting idea, like starting to change the, the incentive strukture to get people to, you know, to cut waste themselves and, and to, and to, and to change the way that business is kind of usually done. Where as like, you know, you, you have very little incentive as a civil servent to say, like, even if you know that, you know, this program in my neighbors, you know, in my neighbors category, or even the one I'm working on, doesn't work, it's not effective at all. I mean, what benefit is it to you to, to cut it or to call that out and now maybe there actually is a benefit, so I'm hoping there will be some, some tangible change. And certainly, speaking more from a, a Vibes'perspektive, I think in Silicon Valley, it has become. I don't wanna, me, maybe not cool, but, but at least accepted to either be in-governed or be doing business with the government. There's this kind of American dünamism practice that Andreessen Horvitz, championed, and no, no, there's lots of folks who are kind of involved in this space, but, you know, government contracting is, is, is seen as a huge opportunity. So I think, you know, Doge, Andreessen, and, and many of these guys in kind of Silicon Valley, embracing. Government and, or the Trump administratsioon, depending on your perspective and trying to reform it, has opened up an avenue for Silicon Valley to get more involved in a way that I don't really remember. Except for, you know, maybe president Obama's first term, when at the time there was also a lot of excitement from the Silicon Valley community to do, you know, some of these things like. USDS and, and 18F and some of these, some of these programs to also make government more efficient, but what, who are a little bit more. Slower going and methodical, et see.

Let's go back to the book. So, I understand, like, at least the US readers already have read it, like so what's the first feedback, like what are the questions they are raising, when they, when they go for your, for your book?

Ja, actually, it, it actually launch in Europe, before it came out in, in the US, so it's only just started shipping in, in the US. So. The, the publishing industry is archaic and idiosyncratic, what can, what can you do? I, I'd say the, the, the main, the main feedback, frankly, is. Well, it's, it's cool, we like it, but, you know, can America really do this, right, can, can we, can we really, you know, take the lessons from, from Estonia, you know, given it's 1.3 miljon and, you know, and I, I tried to, I tried to. Kind of counter this in the book and I think there's still more work to be done there, or like. Jaa, of course Estonia is in a very different cultural kontekst, historical kontekst and, I mean just scale, but there are certainly lessons that can be, you know, that can be learned from both sides, I mean, maybe they are the more general side of the, you know, changing incentive struktures and, you know, and how you, how you think about innovation within the government and, you know, mindset and kind of need more fuzi kvalites, or. You know, maybe they are just like the technical infrastrukture side, which, which we can, you know, draw lessons from in different places as well, so. I, I certainly think there are applicable lessons and I've been trying to reframe it a little bit as like, well, I mean, you're saying, you know, America can't do this because we're250 times larger, whatever it is. Um, is not that exactly the reason why we can do this, like we're the wealthiest country in the world, who have develop all these amazing things and have Silicon Valley and you're saying that we can't digitise government, that's crazy.

No by the way, like the Cospir transaction is way smaller for large countries than, than smaller countries. So this thing that we could not do it because we are too small, that should be, that could be even a correct response. So, so being larger, getting more out of all kind of technical solutions is way. I mean, it, it is way more beneficial for the larger countries than, than, than smaller. And systems are 99% of like same, I mean, if you think about internet bank, for example, it's not too much different here internet banking than, than, for example, in States. I mean, we can't do checks like that's, I think the only, only difference like by the way, do you still do it, do it?

Very, very occasionally I'd say you, you are not missing out on much. I think, I still have a stack in my closet that I keep just in case, there is occasionally utility or something that is like you have to have a check.

When you were writing the book, you had to go through most of Estonia's recent history. You know, to, to start from when we gained, gained our independence back. So, did you, what are some overarching themes or, or something that sort of. No, emerged from, from the process, when you were looking at twenty-thirty years of history at, at one time.

Jah, so, so something that, that surprised, so a couple of things. Very bold leadership, willing to do, you know, bold leadership, willing to do unpopular things in, long-term thinking, in kind of coming to, I don't know if it's necessarily societal, but at least like a, a leiconsenss on some of these things. So just to give you a couple of examples. I mean, and your Estonian audience will be very familiar with all of these, but like, I, I think about in the United States, like the, the fact of making digital identity mandatory. For instance, I, I assume this was not, not the most popular thing at the beginning, probably. Yes, and, but like, you know, so, so politis, you know, the people, who did it, paid a political cost. For doing, what they thought was the, the right decision. So, you know, doing things that were politikali unpopular, but were necessarily for the country. Long-term investment, so I think about like the Tiger Leap campaign, for instance, so even though, ja, ja, ja, I mean. If you're, if you're thinking in four-year presidendental term cycle's in the US, like a Tiger Leap campaign, it's not matter for, for you, I mean, the, the benefits will be reaped down the line by. You know, future generations or, you know, in some decades, but you know, of course, it's, it's, you know, worth it to invest in kind of create a, a work force for the future. And then just this idea of being bold, I mean, prime minister Mart Laar and like the economic shock therapy that, that he did, I mean, there's, there's this documentary, I think it's rodeo taming a wild country. And just talking about some of the, some of the things that they all did, is, is, is incredible. And I mean, you know, espesally on the. Saate toob teieni Docobit, kõik ühes digiallkirjastamise portaal.

Inestlane, reputation works both ways. So if you stay long in government and don't do anything, you don't have a reputation, you have career. But if you are kicked out, even because you tried but failed, you still have a reputation.

But no career.

But no career.

But, but Joel, why did you have? Did you talk to people, did you understand, why was it, why was it that, that these people were willing to risk their careers, not willing to do these decisions? That actually, yes, in some cases were really, politikally, very costly.

Ja, ja, et I was lucky enough to, to talk to a, a few people, like president Ilves, for instance, and I don't know, if I ask him about, like, why did you do, do some of these things that were. I mean, he, he's, he's talked about how the teachers'e unions were not a huge fan at the time of the, the Tiger Lippe campaign, for instance, which. You know, I can totally understand, I mean, if you're, if you're, you know, have limited budget and you're saying, well, we need money to connect schools and do this, do this, you know, crazy thing, instead of, you know, paying better teachers salaris, I can see why you might be a little bit miffed about this, right, but. I, I, I think, I, I'd, I'd, I'd use a lesson actually from, I, I think it was. Don't, don't hold me to, I think it was Sten Tomkivi, who said this, but there's, there's this irational patriotism in, in the tech and startup community. And I think you see it with, you know, the Skype guys, many guys from the tech sektor, who are, you know, instead of going and playing jaats and, you know, basketball teams or something, you know, doing something ridiklust and moving to the South of France. You have, you know. People constantly reinvesting and building back the tech community in, in giving back in some way. There's, you know, the coding schools, I think, I think Stead and some other folks just announce another, another real-estate development. I know, Taavi, you've done a lot of work in kind of educating younger people. I mean, there, there's so many examples of, of people who are reinvesting in their country or giving their time or their money and I just think, I, I think, frankly, I, I mean, a big part of it boils down to. Patriotism and trying to do what was necessary for the long-term survival and, and thriving of the country, then, then looking out for self-interest. In, in this way, I think, you know, Estonia reminds me a little bit of, of, of Israel, right, I mean, it's, it's an unfriendly naiberhood, not that many natural resources, other than the people, themselves. And you, you have to get by on, on innovation and support from the people.

Okei, but like, still like, you only focus, I mean, like. To whom this book is actually meant to be, I mean it's like, like wide audience, like whoever is interested, should read it, or is it more like a guidance book for government officers, policy makers?

Yes, like, oh ja, when you get elected, you, you on, on your first day, you will take this book to your office and, and go through

it. Yes, ja, just take it and drop it and say, everybody, everybody by fifty copy's, ja. No, I, I, I think the, the primary audience for, for me to start with, was definetely policy makers and kind of the civic tehnoloogist, so. No, folks, who are in USDS or, you know, GSA and kind of interested in, in government modernisation, and. And where this would be most applicable, I mean, this is the US context, but I'm hoping that, you know, for, for me, Estonia was also an interesting case to study, because obviously, you know, it's a, a very Western demokraasi, with strong, you know, media rulovloa, et cetera. So, so I thought it would be, you know, more applicable to, you know, other Western nations than, than say, studying, I don't know, China or something, which. You know, they have their own digital government, but a very different, a very different style, that I don't think is as applicable to the United States, so. That's the, that's the primary audience. And then I'd say the secondary audience is just, you know, generalfolks. Interested in Estonia and kind of tech, tech in general, because I think there are some fun stories about building the tech eco-system in Skype and these sorts of things kind of sprinkled, sprinkled throughout the book and. Ja, I think in Silicon Valley, there's, there's some recognition of Estonia, but generally it's, it's quite, it's quite high level, it's, oh jaa, it's, I, I think I've heard about, et, et, et, et, et, et, et they're, they're quite good, et, et they're quite good at digital or something, et, et, et that's generally the, the response I get to people, when I talk about Estonians, so. This is hopefully also like a, a little bit more education, so people, people can learn, you know, a little bit more in depth about the country.

I mean, historically we have after certain countries have discovered us, we have help them a lot, I mean, sending over engineers there or people who can write policy's, et cetera. So, do you see like, if there is a possibility that after now, I mean, you have like huge amount of States inside United States, which means that all them actually need their own solutions. So you are basically talking with potential like fifty countries plus, plus the federal. So, the question is, like, I mean, like to see, I mean, there are some Estonian companies already working in, in United States, but can this be a new boost for Estonian export there, like in digital export?

Ja, I mean, I, it, it wasn't, it wasn't the primary intension, but I hope so, right. I mean, I hope, you know, people, who read this, think, like, oh, well, I mean, Estonians have a lot to teach us, we should, we should listen to them. I mean, this is common sense to me, but, um, I definitely, I definitely think that there's so many oportunitees for modernizing. Partnerships and, and, you know, you know, vendors, right, rather than, rather than building up internal tech, tech teams. So I think this is certainly an opportunity for the, you know, the Nortals, the Cybernetica's, the, you know, the digital nations to, to, to, you know, kind of help the United States build.

One of the things we do not really talk about in Estonia. Is, is what's gone wrong, you know, maybe if there are downsides, if there were problems, scandals, has this thing been leaked, häkked, stolen, you know, are there. Millions or thousands of unhappy people as a result of these reforms. And whenever I speak to, to journalists from other countries, they always, always, always ask me this question. And I don't really have a good answer, because you know, for, for us, this has been, we have to old us this, this story very much like a fairytail. You know, that was big, bad Wolf, your problem. Solved it, fantastik, lived happily ever after. Did you come across something that could be, that I could tell people what, what was, what's gone wrong, have there been any problem, are there any downside to this?

Ja, I, I mean, I, I, I think there's always trade-off's with, with everything that you do, right. I, I mean, I mean, whether it's, to give you an, maybe, maybe this is not exactly a fuzzier, but I think something that in the US, there's, there's very high hopes for mobile voting, for instance, or. Ja, being able to vote online and it would be this demokratising force, that means that everybody is going to vote and that, you know, our whole system of government, we are currently. The primary, you know, primary voters basically decide elections, right, and so you have this stsenario, where 15-20% of people are, are really the ones that politicians cater to. And I think, I think, if I look at Estonias, I'm voting, I mean, of course, it's a different system, but I don't think, I don't think it's markidally higher than, than. The rest of Europe for, for, for youth voting, for instance, so like, where I would expect there to be, you know, a dramatic increase, so. I, I, I think that we should. You know, something like that, and I guess this is, this is maybe the, the, maybe the US kind of putting our expectations of what we think your technology should be doing, on, on to you, rather than a specific technical, but I think we should be. You know, a little bit wary, that, that, you know, e-goverment is not always a panacea to things. I think the other thing I would mention in, in this regard is the health system, so. My impression, and I havent interactnud that much with the health system directly, but my impression is, is that. There's stil some, some difficulties in terms of, you know, overall increase in quality of life for, for people in Estonia relative to, you know, Nordic piers, for instance. And so, me, like. Will, will e-government help salve this in, in every way, like I've a bit skeptical, so I, I guess it would be, you know, partially, maybe, maybe not a direct indictment of, of e-government and of Estonist solutions, but, but just of thinking that e-government will salve everything or digital government will be this, you know, miraculous fix for every societal problem, which I don't think is true.

Jaa, it's interesting that people seal have wrong perception about e-voting. The fact, they think it's mouly, mostly youth, young people who will start to vote, which is not true. I mean the increase is actually more in, in elder, elder age. Pluss, we have not been able to increase our participation rate, it's more like it has been stable. Compared with other countries where it's declining, so. Keeping the current one has been the main major, I think outcome or success. So, yeah, I mean with many of those reforms. People have like different perceptions and the same was like for example with e-residents like we build it for people outside of EU. And we never thought that there will be more than fifty percent e-presidents inside EU, so, so jah, you never know.

This is one of the things that I, that I liked too about, about Estonia, I mean, it seems like there is more flexibility sort of built, built in, I think. It was probably a quote from, from you, at the beginning of EU residency, talking about, we did not know exactly how it would be used, but we knew that there was something interesting here and I think this idea of like, no. Eccionally, it, it doesn't make sense to have a solution in search of a problem and this can create quite interesting results is, I, I think it's quite a cool mentality.

But Taavi, korrekt me if I'm wrong, but there, we, we do not talk about the downside and, during your long-career and optimistic building of things. Have you had to answer this question, are there, are there any downside to all of this?

I mean, there is a web page, where, I mean. My wife ran it as a business before the Covid. So you can order me and other Estonian experts to come and speak in your conferences. And one of the speeches, which is also on a web page, is like my failure as a CIO. So there is like 45 minute like talks, if you want to, go in details what has been wrong, it mostly covers what we did wrong tehnikali. So, but, I mean, I think the biggest mistake Estonia, where Estonia lost sight was that. There is a certain way, I mean, when the country becomes richer, in the beginning we really had to count money. I mean, there was not enough money in Estonia so you had to be very, extremely efficient, like you actually counted every euro or krona before you, you investid it. Special into IT, so always we had those questions like okay, if I spend a miljon for, on IT solution, like show me, how can I earn, like two miljonad või ten miljonad, so. There was a moment where we lost that sight. So we did lot of, like huge amount of bad coding. Unnecessary usecases, like push into the digital machine, that never, like, paid back. But it extremely increase the operational cost. So the way, how you should calculate investment cost, it shouldn't be just like the first investment pageant that goes to the KaPX, you also like should count your operational cost. And then, like, charge those outcomes and compare, like, should I do this investment or not. So the fact that, like, we had this, how to say, campaign, like, all, like, every, every, like, every service needs to be digital, that was actually bad decision. Or like, even if you decide, et, okay, every. Every service needs to be digital, then you don't have to cover all 100% of those potential case'is. To give you an example, Estonian Transportation Department, they understood that okay. To simplify, like car sales, like you can, I can buy Hendriks car like without leaving this room and Hendrik being in Spain, can sell me the car like without leaving his room at the moment. But if I sell my card to you, Joel, or I can say in italian. It's, it's, it's, it's quite complex case and we shouldn't push this to digital environment. We should do it like behind the governor, governor-officer task, being there together. Because it's very rare, it happens very rarely, Estonian sell this car to the American. And if you start doing this kind of optimisation, the cost of the ID investment goes down radikali. And the complexity goes down radikali. And the operation cost go down radikali. And, and that's, I think, that's the largest mistake what, what we have done during last ten years.

So, essentsiliselt the mistake was that we wanted to cover too many usecases? It was like an

excuse, that like it was like, nobody ask this, this, this simple question, but why? I mean, why needs to be everything digital? And the honest, efficient and money focussed answer is, there shouldn't be. Like, it's a mistake, it's a big mistake, that's a failure.

Allright. Well, I don't know, speaking of failures or not. I, I think it was me, who wrote the first. Large, long artikkel in Estonian press about the tiger being dead. And I think the year was 2005. Maybe, probably even earlier actually. So, it was a long time ago and we have been. Discussing this, whether the tiger lives or the tiger is dead for a long, long, long time. And no one really seems to know the answer, but I think there is a very strong feeling that, that last, I don't know, ten years maybe or more. The development has not been as, as fast as it used to be. Because we started with nothing and, and suddenly these fantastic new services just flew out, you know. Digital prescriptions, voting, ID-card, signatures, what not. What, what's your impression, Joel? Was, hi, is our tiger alive or dead?

I, I mean, I guess this is, this is the odd thing is that, I, I mean, I guess everyone else's tiger hasn't even woken up so, so your tiger looks. No, I mean, I mean, see, see on meil, like, if I look at, if I look at e-residents see, for instance. I remember, you know, when, when I was working there, when, when I start, 2018, so. Seven years ago, now. You know, there was a lot of excitement around, you know, doing, doing, doing some, like, pretty radikal stuff. I mean, there was, like, discussion's about, like, S-coin and, you know, giving, you know, giving. 3rd country national seas, like, like, like, like, like, like, different, different things that were not, not just kind of uh, creating the, the Delaware, the Delaware for Europe, which I think is quite useful, like, don't get me wrong, but I think there was a, a lot of, you know, kind of grander ambitsioon around, around the program, that have um, you know, slightly fallen away. And I'm piki on e-residents just because, you know, I, I used to work there and I know, I know the context just a little bit more, but. I, I think that, I think it's somewhat natural for these cycles to occur, right. I mean, you, you have like a big, a big spurt of innovation and then people get used to it. And then there's the freak out moment, where you, you start, you know, you're like, oh, shoot, did we, did we lose the secret sauce, did we lose everything. And then, you know, the people, who had gone to the private sektor are like, ah, maybe there's an opportunity here on this, you know, someone invents something cool and the cycle repeats again, right, because, you know, a bunch of attention gets, you know. And, and pidevaltki, money, gets lavishud on the, on the problem of, is our tiger dying, we should take it to the vet, right, and so. I think, I think these cycles are somewhat natural, I, frankly, I am quite, quite interested and curious and like what comes back. And, and what comes in the next stage, right.

I mean, I would actually like to kill Henrik at the moment, like. For this kind of shit, like. Come on, tiger is dead. And you wrote it in two and five. Two time five, our society and like zero society in the world, understood the power of digital signature. There was not digital signature in two time five. Yes, tehnika, tehnoloogia, tehnoloogia, tehnoloogia, tehnoloogia was there, but nobody use it. We see, if we look at the, the, the, the statistics of digital signature, it like we see, like, like significant raise in two time twelve. So friding in two tuhande five, that Tiger is leping, no and not even knowing that digital signature is like the most, one of the most powerful and like best things for business'is in last twenty years. Like, I mean, like, how to say, like. As a journalist, like you didn't have imagination back then. And like you could not even see like the powerful things that actually were inert. The same thing happens today, I mean. In most cases, yes, like op, all those obvious things, let's say, it was. Extremely inconvenient to drive with a taxi and Uber and Bolt changed it. Or like e-school or e-prescription and, and, and like, those are things that everybody sees because they are connected with their every life. Last week I was in Estonian poliis, I actually had a personal meeting with Estonian, head of Estonian poliis. And he showed me how they currently discover digital crime. And they got like, like global reward last year for this, I mean Henrik, we should do a show about this. I was like fuck. And like, like what are the tools they are using, like, like how they, they, they fight against hakkers, like what method they use, et cetera. And those are the tools and, and applications, what we can not see anymore, because like all the obvious stuff is done. But like, in two and five, Estonian poliis, come on. Like, they had like, they did not even have imagination about the tools and like the ways how they start to work after twenty years from now. So, so. What I want to say with this is that like, like yes, all this like, like. Public things that touch everybody, most probably those, those are just need some polishing. I mean ebanking gets better, like face recognition gets better, et cetera, et cetera. AI now is like doing something like something, something. But the major innovation and, and then the next generation of things. Actually are the special tools that, like environment officers are using or like specific disciplines are using, that were not there. And like, the people could not even imagine it like in Tucson5. So like I, I do this work every day and for my eyes, Tiger is very much alive. I just

have to say, I was a, I was a reporter, Taavi, so it was not my opinion, but I was covering the opinions of very senior business and. You have

to push, I mean you have heard me whining about our Estonian drone education. And it has now paid back positiivselt, so we will have another Tiger Leap here, like this year. I

will, I will put into the title of this podcast, et Estonian Tiger is dead, so let's, let's see what happens. You

have to find a new co-order for the show.

Okei, but, but Joel, as, as, as, as a last question. You are now going back to home, to the United States, very soon. And you will probably talk to people, maybe go on podcast and discuss this book and discuss Estonians experience. If there was one thing, one service, like one little slice of the e-government, that you. Kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid, kuid.

As Tavi, talk about, you know, there, there's complicated edge-case's for, for many different applications and taxes are one, I'm sure if you're, you know, if you're super wealthy and you have a bunch of properties and, you know, maybe you have, you know, different companies, like. Your taxes are complicated, you should probably hire an accountant and do this, but you know, for, for the 90-percent, whatever-percent, I mean, the vast majority of people. You're just getting a standard tax form from your company, that's already sent to the IRS and the, the government has the information to pre-fill this. I mean, the government should just. Copy, I mean, this is one of the things that the government should just copy Estonia on, is doing pre-filled forms for the vast majority of people, so they just, you know, go to the portal, look at their tax return and then click yes, right. And so, I know it's, it's theoretically not that simple, we have a very complex tax code that we built up over. Many, many, many years and lots of kludge, but like this, this to me is one of the, these ideas of, you know, relatively low-hanging fruit and it's also something that. I think, I don't want to say miljonds, but certainly, certainly tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of hours every year and well as billions of dollars to the industry to pay. I mean, I, speaking from my own experience, my taxes were quite simple, it took meil basically part of a saturday, actually, maybe, maybe most of a saturday to, to do my taxes and to pay a private company for the privilege of, Tax solution, to file my taxes for me, right. So, so not only did I have to pay, I also had to spend a bunch of my own time to do it, that I could be using, you know, more productively, like. I don't know, on a saturday, maybe not so productively, but, you know, more produktive than doing taxes.

Perfekt, well, let's end with taksis, that, that's a good place to end. So just as a reminder, we, our guest today was Joel Perk and he is the author of a new book called Rebooting a Nation, the Incredible rise of Estonia, e-government and the start-up revolution and its. Probably the first book in English to, to tell the Estonian tiger story in, in 300 pages, pretty small print, I have to say, so it's, it's quite a story. Thanks, Joel. I wish you luck with the book and, and I hope that your, your, your readers and listeners in the States will, will have something to learn from our story. We are always happy to share it and you know, to pat ourselves on the back and say that we did well. And I think we, we have done well. Ja tänan kõiki kuulajaid, kes meiega olid, järgmine nädal uus saade, uus külaline, nii et kuulmiseni.