In an incredibly fun and interesting conversation, we catch up with Loni Mahanta to discuss her time at and after TJ. She shares advice to a younger self and talks about some of the interesting topics she focuses on, including the connection between tech, critical thinking, and policy.
Interview
[00:00:00] Matthew Troutman: [00:00:00] Thomas Jefferson school or TJ in St. Louis, Missouri is a unique place, a boarding and day school with a small community of students from all over the world. Our mission asks us as educators to provide the strongest possible academic background. Our mission also asks our students to desire to lift up the world with beauty and intellect.
Thomas Jefferson school or TJ in St. Louis, Missouri is a unique place, a boarding and day school with a small community of students from all over the world. Our mission asks us as educators to provide the strongest possible academic background. Our mission also asks our students to desire to lift up the world with beauty and intellect.
Our graduates go on to wonderful careers after TJ and this series intends to capture the stories of our alumni.
In this episode, we speak to Lonnie. Manhunter. [00:01:00] After TJ Lonnie went to Stanford and eventually to get a law degree at the university of California. After practicing as an attorney, she joined Lyft working on labor law and how that is impacted in the modern world. She's currently a non-resident fellow at the Brookings institution.
And in 2017, she was awarded a women leader in tech law by the recorder. This is a fantastic conversation. We have not just talking about TJ. But issues in work. Connections to politics. And eventually how to make an impact.
This was an incredibly fun conversation and I'm sure you're going to enjoy it as well.
So Lonnie, thanks for joining and a conversation series. Where are we finding you today?
Loni Mahanta: [00:01:48] Keep her having me excited to be chatting with you. And I'm talking a little bit about TJ and everything that's happened since then. So I live in Northern California, just North of an, a town just North of San Francisco called [00:02:00] Larkspur. I previously worked in San Francisco. But now we're all working from home, so yeah.
Matthew Troutman: [00:02:05] Is it, has that been your COVID experience? We're recording in, in March of 2021. So how, how has the last 12 months been for you?
Loni Mahanta: [00:02:14] It's been, it's been quite a whirlwind an upheaval of sort of every routine that I previously had in my life for better and for worse March of last year, March of 2020 all of a sudden we started to see everything start to shut down. You know, I, I worked in public policy at Lyft at the time.
So seeing a lot of things that were happening in other parts of the world and seeing all of a sudden, sort of a slow from my perspective response in the us. And then all of a sudden in March San Francisco just shut down. I think it was the very first week of March. And that I went home. One of like maybe on Tuesday of that week.
And I think I went back to the office two more times in the following subsequent year.
Matthew Troutman: [00:02:56] Yeah, everything seemed to be very sudden last [00:03:00] March, we made that tough decision to close the campus and yeah, it was something like making a decision on Monday and then students traveling on Wednesday and then the following, if I might be messing up the days, but sometime later that week we had the travel restrictions come down.
So we just barely got our students home in time. So
Loni Mahanta: [00:03:20] Yeah. And, you know, I had a lot, I worked with a lot of young people too. And so a lot of people were trying to figure out where do they go? What do they do? Do they stay in San Francisco? Do they go sort of, a lot of people left to go move back in with their parents actually. I saw that from a lot of people.
But for me came back, you know, just my family. My kids were out of school very quickly. And all of a sudden, you know, we're very fortunate. My husband and I both had our jobs still. But we had full-time jobs and kids at home and we're trying to all remote learn and, and be full-time parents.
And yeah, it was quite, it was the first couple months were, were really hard, really hard.
Matthew Troutman: [00:03:55] Let's jump back. You know, take a step back. I'm kind of curious how you [00:04:00] found yourself connected to TJ. And talk a little bit about your time at the school.
Loni Mahanta: [00:04:07] I remember it so well, I was in sixth grade and I was starting to think about where I was going to go for seventh grade. And so my parents really kind of like, well, let's, let's see what's out there. So I, I, I looked at a lot of different schools. I looked at gosh, what we were maybe in a Parkway district.
And so I visited this Parkway that was, you know, that I would've gone to John Burroughs a bunch of other places. And then I went to do my tour at TJ. I remember so well you know, taking the test, you know, and I, somebody, one of the older students is like, you know, gives the little, Hey, look out for the word Colonel, like, remember what that actually is, you know, I don't know if that's still something that happens, but it was like a, you know, a, a moment that really stuck with me.
And then it was either that day or, or perhaps another Danit tour as I was still deciding. I remember sitting in the sunroom in a seventh grade English [00:05:00] class. And one of the other kids that was on the tour with me was Jim Pesach who already knew everything about TJ because his older brothers were there.
And so he already knew everything that was going on and he seemed so just. Aware of everything. And I just felt like a total, like I had no idea what was going on, who all these people were. Everybody seems so smart and so sophisticated. And Jim starts reciting poetry in the middle of that class.
I'm pretty sure it was red wheelbarrow. Maybe not. I can't remember.
Matthew Troutman: [00:05:27] Showing off a little bit
Loni Mahanta: [00:05:28] he was showing up a little bit, but he knew what was going on, but like, it stood out to me. I loved it. And I was like, this school is so different than any of the other places that I visited in, tore it. And I just like told my parents immediately.
I was like, this is where I got to go. And it's funny because I think back and I was, I was so certain about it as a 12 year old, I guess. And my daughter is almost nine now. It's like really kind of crazy to think about her having so much being so decisive about something like this in just a couple of years, but presumably she will be.
Matthew Troutman: [00:05:59] Wow. [00:06:00] Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's kind of interesting. Sometimes when we hear stories where you know, the students are driving the conversation of where they're going. Sometimes it's the parents, of course. And sometimes it's a combination of the two. Is there, is there some element that you saw at TJ that you said, this is, this is the place I want to be. Other than, other than Mr. Pesach poetry recitation.
Loni Mahanta: [00:06:22] which went a long way. No, it was, it was the dialogue. I, it was so different than the other schools that I've visited, even in that moment, which were, that looked like that old style of learning, you know, of those 1950s classrooms of being lectured at, you know, with kids sitting in a row. And TJ just feel totally different than that.
Even as a sixth grader, I could see that it was dialogue back and forth engagement and a lot of sort of focus on, I don't know that aspect of it was very, very noticeable right away.
Matthew Troutman: [00:06:53] And so you show up to TJ, did it live up to the experience? Were there hiccups that you [00:07:00] found? How did you, how did you get along for your, I guess it would have been six years at
Loni Mahanta: [00:07:05] Yeah, well, so that was a day student. So my, my experience was, you know, specific to that, to that world, which is a little different than, you know, the five day and seven day boarders. But it was, yeah, I mean, it was seamless. Like I think as soon as I got there, I was like, this is where I was supposed to be.
Like, it felt like the right place for me immediately. I loved the classes I loved, I loved how hard they were actually. You know, now I'm like long past my schooling days, but I kind of long to go back to school. Like I love, I love, I loved that engagement and it wasn't easy. Like, things were really hard.
And then, you know, exams, especially, you know, later on in high school, the exams would be really tough and I had to like work really hard, but I dunno, I really enjoyed it. I think the only things that I found that like I had a little bit of a difficult time with were just the size of the student body at times.
It's like what? It was just like, you know, what fosters such a great small class [00:08:00] environment. But at the same time, I felt like I wasn't, there was some other social experiences that were out there in the world that I wasn't getting access to or something like that. So I think that was always the other side of the coin.
I mean, I was a little bit lucky because I also did gymnastics quite competitively and analyzed. And so I had practice several hours a day afterschool. And so I had a little bit of an external community from, from that group of people too.
Matthew Troutman: [00:08:27] Do you think that added to the need for time management and working hard? Or was it, was it a TJ helping gymnastics basically. How did that outside experience impact what you were doing at school?
Loni Mahanta: [00:08:41] I had to be really, really organized. And so I think one of the things that like always stood out to me again, back to the sunroom, these like weird little memories keep popping up. I would always make sure that I did my homework as soon as classes ended. So like class would end at 12 and like, maybe I'd like hang out for a little bit, [00:09:00] but by and large, it would be like a, have to go and get stuff done right now because I have to go to practice at four and I'll be in practice from four till eight, you know?
And so I'd like to try to get there. I got these funny little memories come back. There were things that I could do more easily earlier in the day and things that were harder to do early in the day. So I feel like reading like English Orr. In Greek were things that I needed to do earlier in the day, and I can do math and chem or something like, you know, whatever, whatever science class I was taking at the time, those were the things that I could do even after practice.
And when I was like tired but I could never do Greek at the end of the night. Like it just never could
But that time management skill I think is like critical. I've definitely taken that with me. And sometimes I'm better at practicing that and sometimes I not, but what actually, what I've found is that in my life, when I'm busier, when I have more things going on, I'm much more efficient.
Matthew Troutman: [00:09:52] Is that how you would describe things now, even today?
Loni Mahanta: [00:09:55] Hundred percent, a hundred percent,
[00:10:00] Matthew Troutman: [00:10:00] I'm kind of curious, are there any moments or you, you kind of mentioned a few around the sunroom, that seems to be the, the locus of of some sort of important formative experiences for you. Are there are there other locations, other moments, other things that stick out in your head.
Loni Mahanta: [00:10:17] so many like little academic things, and then just hanging out things, you know it's just like go up to Mr. Roth's office and like get help with my Greek homework or be doing some extra credit memory work and sort of going over that with him, you know time and time again, and sort of sitting and having those conversations a lot of in depth conversations.
I have a lot of visual memories of sitting in Mr. Morgan's office when we would do the senior when the seniors would pick the book that we were going to be reading. I think Jim and I did it together and I think we picked Dr.
Faustus and the other students were not happy with us. That's what we bet.
Matthew Troutman: [00:10:54] Were there other I've I've heard though that there are a lot of choices that [00:11:00] some people will do just to get that kind of reaction out of people. Was there a little bit of that in choosing Dr. Fastest,
Loni Mahanta: [00:11:07] Probably, I mean, undoubtedly there was, I'm sure we were like, you know, making a little bit of a point and I'm probably getting some of these details wrong. My, my brain doesn't work with like very specific memories and details and Jim's as much better. So he'll, you'll have to bring him on after and he'll he'll fact check everything that I'm saying and what I'm getting wrong here.
What are some other things? Yeah, we, you know, is there a, still that tree behind the really tall tree behind yellow? Yeah,
Matthew Troutman: [00:11:32] there. I mean, it's a, it's a wider tree. That's behind yellow,
Loni Mahanta: [00:11:36] there is a really tall tree that used to be back there. I don't know, but Jim and I used to climb it all the time. Like we would go so far up there and I am actually shocked that we didn't get told that. I mean, it was. There was a million branches. We were fine. Except if we fell, we definitely would not have been fine.
But we spent a lot of time up there and a lot of times sort of in the field and just sort of like in the more [00:12:00] wild space around campus, we would kind of just be outside, hanging out. And I don't even know what just talking and I'm musing.
Matthew Troutman: [00:12:09] But being outside a little bit more, obviously for health and safety reasons right now but we're kind of unlocked this very special experience of lunchtime. Having everybody sit outside at lunch, she'd used to be just in cafeteria or sometimes at the table outside of Maine.
But but now there's just people are using the pavilion. People are using the green space. It's almost like a college campus from time to time there hide and seek is now a game that's happening. It's a it's and it's not just middle school students. It's all students are doing it during lunch.
It's it's really special. I think we've kind of stumbled onto a new tradition here.
Loni Mahanta: [00:12:46] I love that. That's really great.
Matthew Troutman: [00:12:49] I meant to ask were you part of any clubs or sports? I know if you were doing the gym class or gym class, if you were doing gymnastics outside of TJ, it might not leave a [00:13:00] lot of time to participate in other things, but did you somehow squeeze in a club or other activities?
Loni Mahanta: [00:13:06] Yeah. So not sports. Although DJ did try to get me to join volleyball for a little bit. I backed out once I started having a lot of gymnastics practice. But I w Jim and I were on the declaration. We were co-editors of the declaration. And so I still get my declaration copies and my kids and my husband always feel like, what is this?
And I'm like, that was my high school newspaper. Yeah. And we did a lot of sourcing of the articles, but, you know, layout and that was one where we are oftentimes would procrastinate until the last minute, but would always get done. And yeah, it was fun.
Matthew Troutman: [00:13:36] And that stays till today. I think see the, the late night printing that happens overnight before the deadline. Going forward talk about your experience after TJ. What are some of the well, first let's do a narrative of, of what happened after that.
Loni Mahanta: [00:13:52] Yeah, so after so my senior year, you know, I started to think about like, you know, we're actually when junior year, you know, as I'm thinking about colleges and where to apply [00:14:00] I applied to maybe, I don't know, maybe five or six schools. I didn't visit every, every place in part, because it was, I was still competing.
And so it was hard for me to go and travel and visit. So I was like, okay, I'll go visit after I find out where I've gotten in. And, but the only place that I did visit before was Columbia. It's really where I wanted to go. It w I had my heart set on it and I fell in love with New York. And I'm like, this is what I'm doing.
And well, I get home from that tour. And I get two envelopes in the mail. I got the small envelope from Columbia and the big envelope from Stanford. And so I, in that moment, I was like, heartbroken, just utterly heartbroken that I wasn't going to Columbia. Like he couldn't, I was inconsolable. But.
You know, didn't take too long for me to be like, okay, Stanford is a pretty awesome opportunity. I'm pretty excited about it. And then I went, I went and visited the campus and it was like, this is incredible, beautiful place. Went to Stanford you know, did my, did my four years there had like formative experiences.
Today is my [00:15:00] best friend from Stanford, 40th birthday. We met the first day of school. Maybe I, maybe I just really bond with people I meet on the first day of school.
I will say that I think that there were, it was like a big shock to the system. TJ was such a small ecosystem where I just knew everybody so well. I knew my teachers so well, they all knew me.
I sort of knew how to push myself hard. And I had other people around me who are pushing me also. You know, those, I think back and thinking of formative experiences, I think about those Greek classes Greek two and three were just a couple of people in the class. And you know, we don't have, you know, we'd have like individualized.
Tests, you know, oral quizzes that that's such a unique thing. I mean, where do you get such individualized learning ever again? Really. And so then I get dropped into this sort of much larger school and Stanford isn't that big? I mean, the undergraduate school is, I don't know, two or 3000, but still it was gigantic compared to [00:16:00] TJ.
And I also felt like I wasn't, I think for the first time I felt like, Oh, all these other people around me are like so smart and so accomplished. And, you know, I no longer felt like I was that person. So there was a little bit of adjustment to sort of. Focusing learning how to navigate within Stanford.
And I think that actually, in some ways I focused a little bit more on the sort of social side of things or social doesn't sound quite right. It wasn't like we were just like partying all the time, but it was, you know, a little less academic focused and a little bit more on sort of the other things that were, that were happening.
Like I met my husband my sophomore year. And you know, that sort of became a big part of my life back then, too. I will say that even the academic classes that I did take, none of them ever felt as challenging as TJ. It's like it was, yeah, it just like, I think I was, I was challenged more there was more that was expected of of me as a student.
Just little things, you know, you're not going to get a hundred percent on a writing project. How can you get a hundred percent? There's no such thing [00:17:00] as perfect.That is something, that's a concept that I, that stuck with me from TJ days, but I never really saw that again anywhere else.
Matthew Troutman: [00:17:08] At TJ you're kind of always experiencing being pushed and pushed and pushed and in this unique academic environment. And then you go on and it's just kind of, is, is there a chance that it's a little bit more of that just over and over again?
Or was it truly a different level challenge?
Loni Mahanta: [00:17:28] I think the biggest difference for me was actually probably how much I was also being pushed. Like it, TJ, there was all, always people around me that. I think we're also helping make sure that I was working. I was doing my best and I was doing my hardest. I'm working my hardest. I think, I mean, a lot of it was internal drive, but then I also had this other group of people, the teachers really, that, you know, helps kind of make sure that I wasn't, they wouldn't, they wouldn't cut me Slack.
If I decided to kind of Slack off [00:18:00] in college, it wasn't like that. You know, if I chose to kind of Slack off, I would not do as well. And nobody would say anything about it. I mean, that was just sort of me, right? Like it was, it was sort of up to me to make that, make those decisions. And I think it took me a little bit to kind of rebuild some of that just entirely on my own before I fit.
Cause I also found like I didn't have as many close connections with professors at Stanford as I did at TJ. So like one of the biggest things that I think about I can go back to my college days would be to like really Establish those relationships with some of my professors earlier.
Matthew Troutman: [00:18:36] And at the same time, it sounds like you were building maybe those relationships with other, with a larger community of students. So maybe there's, there's a trade off there.
Loni Mahanta: [00:18:45] yeah. I think that's a great call. I think that there was
Matthew Troutman: [00:18:48] are only 24 hours in the day, so we kind of run out of priority so you can focus on
Loni Mahanta: [00:18:54] Sure. And I still have like a great, I had a great experience there. And then, you know, after I left after I [00:19:00] graduated, I took a year off and then I decided to go to law school. And so that was the sort of next academic venture for me.
Matthew Troutman: [00:19:09] And how did that compare? I mean, that's a, that's a different level, you know, grads graduate school in any field is, is just there's the focus. There's usually a smaller community, not quite as focused on exploring socially, maybe and the academic challenge, you know, usually Verizon's a little bit.
So how did that compare to previous experiences?
Loni Mahanta: [00:19:28] So it was a lot less open-ended for better, for worse. Right? So there was, there was the more you know, you could pick a lot of your classes, your first year classes are dictated for you. And then second and third, you can kind of pick what you want to go into, but still everybody's sort of moving towards the same, it's the same academic world.
Right. You know, when you're in college, there's so many different things that you could be doing. I really liked law school though. I actually found that, especially after the first year classes, the type of analysis that you were. [00:20:00] Asked to perform and undergo was actually, there was pieces of it that were very similar to the type of schooling that I had at TJ.
There was a lot of work to be done. Like I actually also knew how to navigate the academic side of law school fairly well, because it's a lot of, you know, note taking, but then you need to like synthesize it and, and become, you know, have a facility with a lot of different material. And you, how do you digest it and sort of make sure that you're able to use it on the, you know, when you get to your, you know, twice a year exams, which are the only grades that you get.
And I think I knew how to navigate that. Those were not skills that I didn't have. Those were skills that I had. And interestingly, I gained those skills, not from college, but from TJ, those are things that I like very much pulled back from like my high school, high school days.
Matthew Troutman: [00:20:51] Right. That's it, that's interesting that the skills it is, you know, in a lot of ways, what we hear often is that there's, there's kind of a foundation that we're [00:21:00] trying to provide at TJ, right? There's the, not just in the coursework, but in some of the study skills. And then from that foundation, you can go on and explore any field after that.
Loni Mahanta: [00:21:10] I think it's funny. Like I think we had like some civics class with Ms. Fair bank. And I think we were talking about some things that I remember that being the first time that I like thought about whether or not I wanted to be a lawyer.
Like it never really occurred to me before. And I was like, I do like arguing. So maybe that's something. And then I decided, no, there's no way. That's what I want to do. I want to be a lawyer. And then, you know, and here I am.
Matthew Troutman: [00:21:31] do you end up using a lot of argumentative skills? Did that, did that fit in as much as you thought?
Loni Mahanta: [00:21:38] yes, it's a lot. And it's, but it's, it's, it's more nuanced too. It's it's persuasion. And you know, how do you convince people how do you make, and who's your audience, you know, learning those types of things really really matter. And actually that's sort of the things I've explored more recently, which is out of the sort of strictly will the world and into the political and policy world, which is adjacent, but like all [00:22:00] the constraints are thrown off.
There's like rigid rules when you're in court and you have to follow those rules or, you know, the judge is going to smack you down. You have a similar playground in the policy political world, but there's very few rules. And so then it's much more just about who's your audience, what's persuasive. I've had a lot of time actually feedback that I've gotten from managers and bosses and that, you know, all the different places where it's like, okay, You want to get into lawyer speak.
You want to get into the specifics, the details, the exact answer to somebody's question. And I'm like, of course, I want to answer the person's question. I'm trying to convince them of like, you know, I help them understand some issue. Like, no, no, no, that's not persuasive. People don't understand things in that way.
Or even if maybe some fuse, you know, wonky people do. If you're trying to convince the public of something, you've got to be more high level, more soundbite. And that those were hard things for me because I want to kind of be in the specifics and in the [00:23:00] answers. And so it's, so a lot of it is just sort of knowing who your audience is and what you're trying to accomplish.
Matthew Troutman: [00:23:05] It resonates a lot with me, you know, coming from a science background, you definitely need to back up your, your arguments with facts and, and oftentimes actual data. And that's not always the case when you're trying to make an argument about something in the public sphere. You probably know this better than I do.
There's a lot of research about what actually works to convince people, to change their mind. And it's not what we would, what most of us. Oh, it's, which is logic and arguments. What are some of those, those issues that you're exploring that you're really passionate about exploring right now.
And and yeah. Talk a little bit about, about what you're currently working on.
Loni Mahanta: [00:23:44] Okay. So I'll tell you what I'm calling work on. And then I want to go back to, and talk a little bit about the sort of transition that I made sort of going from a law firm into tech, because I think that there's like a, sort of a big trend position for me when I made that.
I went to the law after law school. I went to a law firm for did the traditional law firm [00:24:00] routes. Kind of hated it. I mean, great people. I picked a small firm on purpose, but the work was mind numbing and I'm like, why am I doing this? But I stuck at it for longer than I probably should have out of a lack of imagination, frankly.
And then at some point I was like, this is not working. I gotta do something else. So I decided to figure out how to go. In-house honestly, I was like, there's a lot going on in tech, how do I get into tech? And I guess being in, you know, not, I guess being in Silicon Valley and knowing a lot of people here already just help.
And so I started talking to people and I went to Lyft. It was in the legal team and moved over into policy. I have now left lifts. And some of the things that I'm working on that are, I'm really excited about, there's sort of two things. So one I'm actually just finalizing a a non-resident fellowship with the Brookings institution.
We're gonna be focusing on tech policy and emerging tech which is super fun. So I actually have been doing a lot of stuff that gets back to things that I really enjoy, which is just reading and learning and learning about things that are really foreign to me. So I'm you know, I'm not. I'm [00:25:00] not a tech, I'm not an engineer.
And so when I'm there, I think one of the things, the first things I want to focus on is around facial recognition technology and sort of policy implications. And there's a lot of information that's already out there, but I think there's more to do. And so you can talk about inherent bias and sort of bias and algorithms and sort of all of those things.
But I am not an engineer. I'm not a data scientist. I'm not any of those things, but I, you know, spent enough time working with people in tech and people in policy that I can sort of act a little bit as the bridge between those two areas. And so I'm, it's really fun to like, learn about new areas and think about what those policy implications might be.
I really liked this area as well, because it's focusing on things before they're politicized. So you know, really right when I started to kind of get into the policy world, I had a a friend and a colleague tell me, he said, you know, I love policy and I hate politics. And I'm like, yeah, that's, that's it.
That's it. You've got it there. I mean, unfortunately, yeah, you don't ever [00:26:00] get to implement policy without politics. There is no such thing in our society anyways. But the politicization of policy issues makes is a very difficult one to sort of navigate and in our highly politicized world right now, particularly.
It's really fun to work on emerging tech issues.
Matthew Troutman: [00:26:15] And you mentioned the phrase that I want to come back to is you said before, you know, focusing on these issues before they get politicized. So do you have an example or maybe something you're working on now where you see making some policy decisions? Now that 10 years from now five years from now, I don't know what a timeline is or whatever's appropriate.
What is an example of, of where you see that happening or where it could be happening?
Loni Mahanta: [00:26:40] Yeah. So an example of something that's already happened. So like the timeframe, but like five years back from what you just said is around section two 30 and the and sort of questions around platform freedom, and sort of, what if, what if internet companies are liable for speech that is on their platforms?
Communications section two 30 of the communications [00:27:00] decency act. So this was a broad legislation. Most of it was struck down By the Supreme court except for section two 30. So that's what remains, but a lot of people rightly I think credited with the existence of sort of our large open internet because you know, I'm not a super section, two 30 expert, but generally speaking, it means that your company both is not liable for the speech of, of users who are sort of using their platform.
And also it allows for companies to regulate some of the speech and, and allows them to do it if they choose to, in some circumstances, the both of those sides are really important and now all of a sudden there's questions around two 30 as everything has come up around Twitter and, you know, banning former president Trump and sort of that deep politicization of sort of what happens.
But the thing that is very confusing to me and I still haven't gotten to the bottom of, is repealing section two 30 is not going to mean that everybody that wants to [00:28:00] say anything can stay up, it can do that. It's actually going to have the opposite impact where companies are going to be liable for everything that is said on their platforms.
And there will be much more restrictive speech on the other side of it. And so these questions sort of around what is the obligation of a company like Twitter or Facebook to come back this information to combat hate speech. I think they're really thorny issues. They're not easy, you know, they're not governmental actors, they're not the public square.
But clearly they have massive implications to society. That's like one where section two 30 has become super politicized, even though there's like a real substantive policy conversation to be had about it. Antitrust is another one that I think has heard as having like a revival right now of like, what does antitrust, what does it, what does the trust mean right now when you have, when you, when it used to be anchored around consumer harm in a family is not harming consumers because consumers get cheap goods.
Is there still a different case to be made for sort of antitrust? And [00:29:00] is it still Andy competitive in some other ways? I think those are some interesting areas. As I'm digging into these questions around facial recognition technology there's so many questions around privacy and bias inherent in the systems that are used to kind of develop the AI.
And it seems to me like there's a pretty clear. Easy, actually, there's a few low hanging fruit that municipalities could engage in cities. It's around sort of just warning labels that, you know, a, a lineup that says that these people are potential matches. You know, a police officers cannot use that without doing an additional investigative research to make sure that people are matching because there there's so many false positives or incorrect information that are coming in when police are using AI.
But we see things moving so quickly already. Cause you know, if you just look at the January 6th, the capital insurrection. You know, official recognition technologies was used to identify participants. And for me, there's a part of me. That's very happy to see that the other part of me is terrified for what it [00:30:00] means when every camera that's out there in the world is capturing all of our faces and it's being put into police databases and police and law enforcement are under no obligation to tell people if facial recognition technology has been used.
So some disclosure requirements seem like they could be really at least a first step to mitigating some large-scale harm, but it's very political to impose any restrictions on law enforcement. Sorry, went way off here.
Matthew Troutman: [00:30:31] This is a really fascinating, so, you know, what are some of the, so if you're, you're kind of thinking about I guess a question is what do we need to put in place, right. To start to, to not hinder the technology, but use it in a way that we think is going to be beneficial to society.
Is that kind of a, a way to summarize that?
Loni Mahanta: [00:30:53] Yes, I think that's exactly right. And I think that the thing I would add to that is it's very [00:31:00] difficult to regulate technology because technology shifts so quickly. So how do you figure out and lawmakers on top of that, lawmakers are very far removed from even basic technology. That's probably sounds disparaging, but it's absolutely true.
I was in DC on the Hill, in. Let's see, probably 2015, 2016. And there were some people, some congressional members that I was speaking to that did not know what Lyft and Uber were like, didn't know how to pull it up on their app. They know what that mean. Didn't know what that meant. And so these were you introduced that were like regulating, potentially going to be regulating, which I think regulation is necessary, but how do you do it in a way that allows for the amount of iteration that happens?
So like, how do you have things like high enough to kind of cover what's happening, but also allow for the rapid technological change? I don't have an answer to that, but I think that's what the trick is, you know?
Matthew Troutman: [00:31:53] Do you have an example of where that is done? Well, and maybe there isn't one, but is there a [00:32:00] technology or a a field where this is, this has done pretty well.
Loni Mahanta: [00:32:05] it's a really good question. And I'm actually going to take a note of that because I'm going to put that in my Brookings. Next, the thing that I talk about, which is like, where is this done? Because I think this is the actual question that we need to kind of know. And, you know, I'm really immersed in a couple areas.
I need to look more broadly. And see, I would say that there's been, there's a lot more regulation around financial industry, but I wouldn't necessarily say that means they've been able to keep up. I would say that like, you know, a lot of things around in FinTech and FinTech regulation is, is also not necessarily caught up.
I think that things that are regulated at the city and state level have been move more quickly. And so they tend to just be more iterative in that way.
Matthew Troutman: [00:32:48] Is that just because they can, they can adapt to what their, their constituents are, are hearing, feeling, seeing.
Loni Mahanta: [00:32:55] Yeah, I think they can, they're closer to what's happening. And their process is [00:33:00] such that it just can move more quickly, you know, dealing with cities, a city can decide it ha there's an issue that it wants to address. Can have a city council hearing do maybe a little bit of notice and comment, and the thing can be out the door in like a month, like very, very quickly for things to move at the federal level.
I wonder, I think in California cannabis regulation, which is sort of a new area that has like popped up, they had done. I think from what I can tell a good job of sort of thinking really closely about public safety issues, but also allowing for there to be a strong, you know, and regulated cannabis market here.
Matthew Troutman: [00:33:37] In, in many ways that is comparatively traditional, right. If we're talking about the, the, either from the agriculture side or the medical side, right. Or the, the recreational use side, there's, there's examples to, to lay on top of right. You can with agriculture and growing, there's a, there's an easy system that's already set up with the medical regulation.
There's a system that's set up. So [00:34:00] I'm wondering if we start emerging and, or, you know, kind of venturing into these tech areas that we don't have something to hang our framework on. Right. So is that a good thing, a bad thing? Is it what does
Loni Mahanta: [00:34:10] Yeah, I think it makes it all the more challenging. I would say that a lot of times what we mean by tech now is so broad. It can almost encompass anything. The more platform type of tech companies or the ones that are focused on. I mean, I can, you can't even say the AI because like companies that are using AI and machine learning, that's also integrated within every aspect of of, of some other company that's happening.
So like, you know, as Lyft, a technology company, I mean maybe yes. There's a lot of investment on the tech side of the house. The employees are all tackers, like huge engineering resources, but it also connects people in the real world out on the ground. And so there's an operational base to it. There is a lot of algorithmic algorithms that are obviously being used.
But then, you [00:35:00] know, questions around yeah. Bias and machine learning are being used in that. But you know, where is that? I think within a tech system, I don't, you know, it's a different question maybe. I think that like at the end of the day, there's going to be a lot of analogs. None of the things that we're dealing with are like completely brand new.
And so there is a place to start. If, if policy makers are willing to do it and also sort of have the capacity because it's also hard. I don't want to disparage policymakers. They have a million different issues. Not a lot of time. They have, you know, they go an inch deep on a lot of different things.
And keeping up with tech is very hard for even the people that are immersed in it.
Matthew Troutman: [00:35:36] If you were to talk to a current sophomore, so 10th grade, somewhere around the 16, 15 year old whether they're interested in this or not. Do you have any things they should be paying attention to either for future employment or, or just general things to pay attention to in this space and then maybe broaden out from there.
Do you have any kind of general recommendations or advice that you would give to, [00:36:00] to a current sophomore.
Loni Mahanta: [00:36:01] I'm going to take the second part first. Cause I think it is an umbrella over the whole thing which is take risks. I think that's, I think I've gotten very good at taking risks now and by taking risks, I mean, Push yourself, try new things that, that are challenging for you academically, professionally, that don't feel like the set path.
It's very much what I did for a while. Kind of going down the law school, a law firm, you know, trudging towards a partnership that I didn't really want. And I think it was only when I really started to have, I don't know, just decide to take the leap and try something new that I really I grew a lot myself and got to have a lot of, much more interesting experiences professionally and did a lot of other ways as well.
So take risks. It's the thing that I'm like, I, I tell my daughter, my daughter is like a very studious and thoughtful, sweet artistic girl. And she's, she's, she's a risk of, she's a risk averse kid. She's a rule follower. She [00:37:00] like, she wants to know what the rules are and wants to follow them. And that's great.
I get it, you know, I totally get where she's coming from, but I want her to like take risks and not be afraid of failure. And, you know, you only get to know how far you can get if you push yourself far enough to see where you failed. So I wish I had done that a little bit more, I think give myself that advice and I would very much give that advice to high school sophomore right now.
And then. In the, in the other area that I think really jumped out at me as I got deeper immersed into Silicon Valley and seeing what's happening here are really these other areas that I think are super interesting intersections of the liberal arts background and what are needed in traditional tech companies.
And I think that I thought for a long time, that tech meant do, you know, really hard sciences, just, you know, engineering, coding, that kind of thing. But there's so many other areas that are really interesting where I think a liberal arts background is massively helpful. I'm an analytical background. I was actually telling [00:38:00] my cousins, kids who, you know, wanted was before he had gotten, he, wasn't probably like a sophomore in high school, maybe junior.
There's so many cool jobs in data analytics and you don't have to be somebody who majored in a hard science. To learn that area. And there's so, so many jobs and not that any sophomore is going to be necessarily thinking about where to get a job later on in their life, but the work is interesting and there's so much need for it.
And so that's like, sort of on the, just like the day-to-day type of jobs that exist, these like data science jobs, product management, you need people that are analytical, know how to analyze problems and they know how to communicate about them and come up with proposals and solutions. So like that's one area I think is super interesting.
The other area that I'm spending a lot of time on right now is just like ethical questions in tech. And if you don't have an integration between the sort of liberal arts people and the science people, you're never going to kind of get to a unified [00:39:00] or to any kind of understanding of what the ethical obligations are or implications are of, you know, that business.
So I think there's just a lot of stuff to do. And, and for me, I mentioned that because I think earlier when I was a high school student, I thought that they were two very binary, black and whites separate systems. And I don't think that they are, and if there's a lot of interesting stuff that's happening.
So I'm very happy where I've been able to kind of get into what I'm doing here, but I think that there's going to be so many more opportunities for young people growing up today. And I hope that people know about these opportunities because I don't think I would have known about it necessarily. In St. Louis back then,
Matthew Troutman: [00:39:39] That makes a lot of sense. It fits with what you said before, too about forging your own path.
I have some quick questions for you. How about this might be an easier question. A couple or one memorable teacher or teachers while you were a student
Loni Mahanta: [00:39:56] I mean, I've blocked some memorable teachers. I mean, I, you know what [00:40:00] we'll do, we'll do Mr. Roth and my Greek for the class
Matthew Troutman: [00:40:04] grade three. Yeah. Th that's the smaller class. You mentioned how many students were in that class?
Loni Mahanta: [00:40:10] six, maybe.
Matthew Troutman: [00:40:11] Okay. Yep. The smallest I've taught is five. Something happens between five and 10 where it just feels like exponential as you increase the number of students from there. I don't
Loni Mahanta: [00:40:21] by the way, if you say that to anybody else in the world, that's like glass, what are you talking about?
Matthew Troutman: [00:40:27] yeah, absolutely. In fact, actually to kind of nerd out a little bit on this, there is some a lot of meta studies about class size and, and learning. And oftentimes they'll find no, no real significant results in the change of class size between say mid twenties and 20 to 15 to 20. So around there you don't really see a lot of change.
Depending on the studies you're looking at there, there is some change when you go smaller than that. And that's where, you know, most of TJ class sizes are. And then there's a whole other level of our teachers trained [00:41:00] to work. Had those class sizes, that's, that's a different aspect of the research that I think makes an impact too, but there's, there's just, yeah.
Yeah. So if you that's oftentimes the those results, well, I shouldn't say oftentimes sometimes those results are used to justify larger class sizes because there doesn't seem to be a lot of research on it. And then at the other end, the extreme end there's, there is a lot of research about the learning gains for one-on-one tutoring style teaching.
I think if we're closer to that, which we are, and we have teachers who know how to utilize the smaller classes, I think we see those benefits there.
Loni Mahanta: [00:41:37] Totally.
Matthew Troutman: [00:41:38] sorry, I traded off a little bit of a nerdy
Loni Mahanta: [00:41:41] I love it.
Matthew Troutman: [00:41:41] How about this favorite book from the TJ curriculum?
Loni Mahanta: [00:41:44] You know, the book that stuck with me for, I dunno why it's heart of darkness. Yeah. And I've turned back to it and read it many times. Since high school.
Matthew Troutman: [00:41:55] Yeah, that one hasn't come up before, so that's, that's a good one. And then how about this [00:42:00] best dorm and using one word as an explanation? Why is it the best.
Loni Mahanta: [00:42:13] I was a day student. I would just like, hang out with like wherever my friends were hanging out. So I think I was in yellow and that's the one I liked the most that like memories of, but I didn't actually do a whole lot in yellow, so maybe that's not. So maybe it would be like, you know what, maybe it would be like the top of Gables to Gable Solaire.
Matthew Troutman: [00:42:33] Yep. Yeah. And we, we refer to as up Gables now and up cables and down Gables. That's a, that's a nice space. And Oh, the reason one word.
Loni Mahanta: [00:42:45] It's private.
Matthew Troutman: [00:42:47] that's fair. Yeah. Well if one final, question's the end of our mission is that we instill in our students a desire to lift up the world with beauty and intellect. So I'm kind of curious how [00:43:00] you today live the mission of TJ.
Loni Mahanta: [00:43:04] Well, I hope that I do. I'm not sure I get to say that. I don't know if I can say that conclusively. We can strive, we can strive towards it. I think the biggest place I think about is just how do we, how I try to raise how I'm raising my children. And how I think about that's like such a specific and unique impact in the world. Trying to raise empathetic kind. Courageous people.
And then the other thing maybe is I think a lot about where do I have impact. So I think there's a lot of things that I do for work that are broad scale and deal with a lot of different people. And then there are ways that I impact people, just, you know, being a senior leader within an organization in terms of my time for mentoring or just representation being a woman of color in a senior position, those things matter and just really trying to take being intentional and try to take time for the people that are a little earlier in their career for whatever that might be, this is a sounding board.
But try to be, try to be the type of leader that I would want to [00:44:00] see. That's I think a lot about how I think about my specific impact on the way.
Matthew Troutman: [00:44:06] It's a perfect place to end things. Thanks for joining today.
Loni Mahanta: [00:44:10] Thank you so much for having me. It was really nice to chat
Matthew Troutman: [00:44:13] If you'd like more information about TJ, please go to TJ s.org, or you can find us on social media. Look for Thomas Jefferson school on Facebook or TJ underscore S T L on Instagram. If you want to help by contributing to TJ to help support us in delivering our mission or to bring more conversations like this one, go to T J s.org/giving.
If you know, an alumna or alumnus who would be interested in participating in this conversation series or know somebody who should be, please reach out to me@mtroutmanattjs.org.
Loni Mahanta: [00:44:52] well, that's great news. I feel like that just means like normalcy is on the horizon.
Matthew Troutman: [00:44:57] we can see some hope for sure.