Billionaire Caruso Says He Won't Build in LA Anymore

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00:00San Francisco has AI booming. What has LA got that's, you know, a future for AI? I mean,

00:07a future for the city and the economy here? Homeless. We seem to control that group.

00:15You know, I was just in San Francisco last night. I mean, the great thing about San Francisco now

00:19is what you're just saying. And that city, because of their new mayor, is really starting

00:24to turn the corner. Dan Lurie is doing a great job. And they've got AI that's filling office

00:31buildings back up, which is terrific. We've got the entertainment industry. Nobody else has that.

00:37We've got the smartest, most innovative people in the world here. Let's build up on that. And let's

00:44start bringing jobs back into LA in order to do that. So we've got a lot of great things in Los

00:50Angeles. Best city in the world, no doubt. And we've got to recognize some things that we've

00:58really got to change in order to support families, support businesses, small businesses, and get back

01:05on the right trajectory here. And we can do it. I've got confidence that it can be done.

01:09So big issue in not just LA, but California is cost of housing. How do you get that down? How do you

01:16make this an affordable place to own a house? Affordability is incredibly important. It's

01:22ridiculous what's happening here statewide and citywide. Forty percent of the cost of housing

01:27is regulations. You've got to get rid of the bureaucracies, get rid of the layers. As a company

01:33that takes great pride in being LA-based, we no longer build within the city of Los Angeles

01:38business. Because of the unpredictability, the cost of doing it, the multiple layers of bureaucracy

01:46that you have to go through for approvals. And we, I made that decision long before I ever ran for

01:51office. And so what people need to understand, what leadership needs to understand is money is going

01:56to travel in directions that has the less friction to it, the less risk to it. And LA is redlined now

02:05because of the fires, because of the homeless problem, because of the crime problem. Find a

02:10crane in LA. In 10 years, the lowest amount of housing is now. In 10 years, there was an article

02:20in the LA Times about it last week because of overregulation. There's no reason for that.

02:25That's just, it's wrong and it's sad. You can change that. You cut through the red tape. Cities and

02:31states have done it. I mean, this isn't any big heavy lift or any great genius idea, but you can do it

02:38and bring that back in. We shouldn't be having industries have to drive two hours for people

02:46to get home and two hours back. And you can't do that. So it can be changed.