Inside Influence #26 with Catlin O'Neill

Speaker A: David Castagnetti and Brody Mullins welcome you to Inside Influence. Our guest today is Caitlin O', Neill, head of US public policy and the economic graph at LinkedIn. Catlin has spent her career at the intersection of policy, technology and workforce issues. She offers a unique view into how labor market data can inform better public policy and business decisions. Caitlin, welcome to the show.

Speaker B: I believe I've had a career. I still feel so young.

Speaker A: Well, compared to me, both you and Brody are very young. Well, welcome, and we appreciate you taking the time, uh, to join us. Hey, before we, we jump into kind of talking about LinkedIn and the economic graph and what that's about, give us a little background about Caitlin and why she was involved in this business. Other than kind of blood lineage, like, that doesn't count.

Speaker B: Is it pre or it might be. Um, okay, well, uh, like, Brody grew up in the area, um, went to, uh, Stone Ridge, graduated, uh, from Stone Ridge. And, um, the only thing I could tell you about myself when I graduated was that I was never going to live in Washington D.C. and I was never gonna work in politics, truly. Like, I was open to do literally anything except for those two things. And so I went, I tried to get as far away as possible. I was very focused on going to the University of San Diego. And for reasons that, like, are irrelevant, um, I ended up going to the University of Vermont, which felt as far away as I could get. And I studied studio art, sociology, documentary filmmaking, like, just as far as you could think from being from Washington dc. Uh, after that I left and I went to Boston and I worked in the music industry. And then for various reasons, I came back to dc. It's like, just pulls you back. And so then I left again and I moved to New York and I got back into the music industry in New York. I was working at a record label below, uh, 14th street, actually. And I was there during 9 11, and all of a sudden music and just the things I had been focusing on felt so frivolous. Um, and I just didn't know I was living in La La Land. I was listening to your Ashley Davis podcast actually a second, uh, um, recently she was talking about her 911 experience and it sort of resonated, like, who Al Qaeda? What is going on? It just felt like my entire life changed in that moment. Um, and so I ended up leaving New York and came to D.C. and there were. Because everybody was. The whole world stopped. And because of that, it was really hard to find a job in D.C. and I was working at Bethesda Sport and health from, uh, five to eight in the morning for $5 an hour, which, by the way, I found in the Washington Post physical paper. Um, and, uh, then, um, my parents had mentioned to me that Bill Richardson was running for governor in New Mexico and maybe I should go work on a campaign. And I didn't hear, really, Bill Richardson. And I didn't hear campaign. I heard New Mexico. And what do you tell a young quasi hippie coming from Vermont? You tell them, go to New Mexico and get in touch with your chakras. So that is what I did. And I got in the car and I drove across the country. And I was living, uh, in Las Cruces, New Mexico, near the border, answering phones on the campaign. And as I'm sure, I know David knows and I'm sure Brody knows, like the campaign takes over your life. And it was such a tremendous opportunity because I did not know until that moment what I was, how hard I was actually capable of working. And if I had known, because you're right, you're. You're sort of hitting the point of diminishing returns and there's all this pressure and you have a deadline and you don't have enough resources and you're working seven days a week. And, and, and I just remember thinking, like, if I knew how hard I could work, I would have gone to, like, Harvard. So we won that Gubin Memorial campaign. And then, um, I stayed on to do some political director work. And I had, I didn't mention this earlier, but had, like, previously done a fundraiser for Nancy, uh, Pelosi, who was a rank and file member at the time. So before I went to New Mexico, and it was just like a real little blip on the radar. And she had just become leader. Yes. And George Crawford called me and said, we'd like you to come back and work for the first woman ever in leadership. Maybe she was whip. I can't remember. And in my head I was like, this sounds amazing. I'm going to be traveling to Paris and San Francisco, and like, I do nothing. Um, and so, uh, I came back and I started, uh, working for Nancy. And I was. They didn't really have a job for me. It was like, we're just going to make Nancy happy. Nancy wants Catlin. We're going to bring her in. And I sort of started taking everybody's odd jobs, things that they didn't want to do. And, um, I did that for three years. It was like quasi advance and, um, events and, and correspondence, and just like a hodgepodge of things. And at the time, Nancy's. She was one of the highest, if not the highest ranking Democrat in the country, but she only had 11% name recognition. So there was a lot more sort of flexibility in trying to sort of shape that office. And then, uh, three years into that, she asked me to go work on the floor for her. And I'm telling you, Brody, both of you will understand this. I did not know what a previous question was. Okay. I had been there for three years. I was so terrified. Um, and I went on the floor and you know, the parliamentarians, and it's just like a family out there. It's like a bipartisan family out there, and you all sort of take care of one another. And I remember the Republican floor staffers were sort of helping me along. It was great. And I was on the floor. My first day on the floor, you guys will love. This was Terri Schiavo, Palm Sunday. Um, that was the first day I had that job. And then I did that for seven years. Got to see some remarkable things, and then ended. She asked me to be her personal office chief of staff. Did that for two years, went to go work for Facebook, and Now I'm at LinkedIn. I have the gift of the gab. So you guys should feel free to cut me m off.

Speaker C: So many, uh, questions in different directions to go here. Um, still meet theory, curveball. Um, who was your favorite Republican during that time when you're on the floor.

Speaker A: Good question.

Speaker C: I am going to cry. Not politically.

Speaker B: I. Well, Speaker Boehner was always great, but I. I was very close with Stephen Latourette. I just. I just loved him. And I shouldn't say this on the podcast because then it's evidence of the fact that this is true, but I was smoking cigarettes back then, and he was also a smoker. And we would go out onto the beach late. I mean, the late nights were. Were, like, common back then. And, um, he was just wonderful. The beach is the balcony.

Speaker C: The beach is the balcony.

Speaker B: The beach is the balcony. So, you know, ripping. Ripping butts at one o' clock in the morning with Stephen Lazarette.

Speaker C: And so tell us also about LinkedIn. Uh, there's so many fascinating things about LinkedIn, and one is that it has this brand as sort of this serious and professional wing of social media. And there's so much on social media that is crazy. And people don't believe in so much vitriol and hatred, yet there's this island that's LinkedIn. How do you protect that?

Speaker B: It's a Professional networking site. Okay, Brody. I think it's such a good question. And we're asked. I'm asked this question a lot. And I think that there's a. There's obviously a need for this space. Right. I think people want to be able to have professional conversations, learning from one another. And so there's a little bit of the community helping sort of facilitate that goal. But also we are very clear that we are about economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce and that things on the platform should be in the world of work. And that can be like water. The world of work has gotten. It's not as, um, uh, static as it once was. Right. Like water cooler conversation is still the world of work, but you're not. Your language is not as, like, flowery as it might be when you're with your friends drinking beers down at the bar. So I think that there's a space for this. We fill that space. I think it is helped by the fact that we have LinkedIn. We have an entire product that provides, um, learning resources for individuals. And the sort of ads that we have are also in the world of work, like, there's an. It's an ecosystem that helps protect that.

Speaker C: So I sort of thought. I've always thought of, you know, obviously LinkedIn as a professional network, but that it was sort of outside of government, that no one, that folks in the government had their own, uh, networks. But I saw the other day, someone sent me a list of House chief of staff and their LinkedIns, and it was almost every House chief of staff is on LinkedIn. Now, I don't know if that's filtered down, but has there been an effort to try to get into the congressional or administration world?

Speaker B: Not, not at all. Um, periodically we have phone calls from people who want sort of tips and tricks on best practices. But I, uh, have seen it grow. It's so funny that you say this, Brody, because I have seen it grow since I've been here for five years. How it is really actually such a perfect platform for dc, both in terms of networking and opportunities and potential for collaboration. And we've really seen people grow. I think that they want a space. We've also seen in the. The last 10 years, does sort of branding of staffers before. Right. You never, I think, you know, in early days, it was a person behind the person. You were never out there. And now there's, uh, a recognition that everybody has a brand and they represent not just their member, but they can help build networks through places like LinkedIn. Um, and I say it's funny is because I was talking to my team the other day about maybe we should pull together a, you know, one sheet document where we can talk to people about tips for and tricks, since they ask so frequently now.

Speaker C: I bet. Sorry, um, to be brainstorming on a podcast here, but I bet if there was sort of a LinkedIn networking event on Capitol Hill, every staffer would show up to figure out how to use. Because the best part about LinkedIn is, is the network. And DC is nothing but a network, right? Like everyone needs. It's only who you know and how you get to someone. And this is sort of the behind it. Like if you took the wizard of Oz of D.C. and pulled it back, it'd be linked.

Speaker B: I love that idea. How would Inside Influence like to partner with us on that?

Speaker A: We're in.

Speaker B: It's actually a really good idea. And networking is one of those things that I love to talk about. Setting aside LinkedIn entirely because you're right, it is all about the network. But I think to people outside dc, networking sounds transactional, right? Like it's a quid pro quo. And in my view, networking is everywhere. It's just that we have a name for it here, right? Like if you have a job outside of DC unrelated in government, and you want to advance in that job, you go and you build allies and you try and tell them to sort of talk about the impact that you're having on the organization such that they can do your bidding, right? Like it's a thing that is just sort of human nature. And in D.C. it is so important both in terms of we're an information based town. So how do you get that information? You get that information by reading, but like predominantly by talking to people. Because things here move so fast, even though no one believes that they think it's a snail's pace. But you are really trying to track down Bertie, you know, this, the most relevant recent information. And a lot of it feels sometimes like you're chasing rumors, right? Like, oh, there's a rumor that we're going to get out of session on Wednesday. And so you run that to ground and it's just, you have to have relationships to understand what is actually happening in real time, such that we can sort of have informed decisions, never mind influence.

Speaker A: And ah, as you use it, as people use it on the Hill and even more probably more importantly in the broader labor market, right? In terms of recruiting talent and providing people an opportunity to talk about what they're doing in their own life. Right. Which, you know, is pretty big as I watch it. And I see this through my son's, uh, eyes at 31 and 30 and how their friends utilize LinkedIn to uh, promote their careers a little bit. What are some of the policy issues that LinkedIn has to confront, um, on Capitol Hill and with other regulators?

Speaker B: So, I mean, because we are a platform, we obviously are having conversations with the committees of jurisdiction on the pieces of legislation that are impacting our peer industry. But I think what makes us a little bit unique is that we are actually trying to create economic opportunity for the global workforce. But the fact is, is that talent might be evenly distributed, opportunity is not. And so we see our role in helping inform policy makers such that there is more access to opportunity. And one of the ways that we have been doing that is focusing on skills based hiring. The idea basically that you, the way hiring has typically happened, and this is, you know, you see it everywhere, is you get referrals from friends, recommended by friends, um, um, uh, university proxies, and we're leaving a ton of talent on the table. I'm going to screw up the data point here, but I think it's like 36% of the US workforce has college degrees. So that means everybody's fighting over the same percent, but people are being skilled in other places. Right? You have on the job training, you have GEDs, you have associate's degrees, you have military training. There are lots of things where you can, there are, you're learning skills that have similarities to other jobs. And we feel like we can be a partner to policymakers to help them understand what we are seeing in the labor market and to try and identify opportunities to lift everybody up.

Speaker A: Do you feel you can find the trends before any of the government agencies can find trends?

Speaker B: Yes, partly because we are real time. Let me go back and talk to about the economic graph, just so we have context. So the economic graph is a digital representation of the workforce. Right. We have a bunch of signals on the platform where we can get real time data, insights. And by that I mean we have supply and demand. Right. We have employers looking for employees and we have job seekers looking for jobs across regions, across industries, across, um, sectors. And we can take all of that data and understand, for example, what are employers hiring for right now? Is that limited to the US or are we seeing that more broadly, who are they hiring, what skills similarities are there, what in demand skills are there? And the reason that that is, um, advantageous for, I would say policy makers or government agencies or whatever, is that we are seeing a taxonomy for new jobs evolve over time. Right. So if someone puts to use, uh, uh, an often quoted, uh, skill. Prompt engineering. Right. If we see prompt engineering build into a broader skills taxonomy for a job, we're going to be able to see that job come to market much more quickly than anybody else because we have the employer saying that they want this. And then all of a sudden the titles of jobs start to change. Right. So for example, 20% of us uh, hires have job titles that did not exist in 2000. That's. It's huge. Wow, that's huge.

Speaker C: Is podcaster on that list?

Speaker B: Yes, as a matter of fact, lots of them. We find ourselves with respect to lawmakers and government agencies, uh, in a position where we want to be helpful, particularly in this moment of, this pivotal moment of extreme transition and speed understanding what is happening in the labor market from our perspective now, we like our data needs to be supplemented with government data. Um, it is not, you know, it cannot stand alone. It needs, it needs more. It's faster.

Speaker C: Your data is faster. I mean, uh, your labor statistics data is incredible. Not many people know about it. It's so deep. Delayed by.

Speaker B: I was thinking about this today, actually, before I came on, right when I was working on the Hill, we were all waiting with bated breath for the first Friday of the month, which by the way is like in two days. And I think they're probably doing the same thing as we did 20 years ago. We need to see what the jobs numbers are and then everybody's going to get out their press release and underscore what they think is happening right now. And we are offering a way to sort of understand that, um, in um, a more sort of, I think holistic way.

Speaker A: And do you. Oh, go ahead, Greg. No, no, I was just going to say. And Caitlin, on that. Do you provide, uh, ah, a summary to policymakers about what is going on, what you're seeing, those trends, and kind of put a pretty package together some reports.

Speaker B: Um, the most recent one we did in the U.S. was a, uh, U.S. aI report. It was called the M. I think it was the workforce AI, a workforce imperative. And what that report articulated was we're sort of in this moment where there needs to be. We have employers who are saying 66% of employers are saying they wouldn't hire anyone without AI literacy. Separate question is how do we define AI literacy? I can come back to that in a second. And we only have 14% of people who have formal training in the U.S. on top of that, the U.S. ranks 24th across the globe in AI adoption. So we are in a really critical moment here where we need to, as a whole of society, approach, figure out how we're going to address this AI moment. And I say this AI moment because the speed of it is nothing like we have ever seen before, right? We don't have time for institutions to build a traditional curriculum and then, like, just build over. We need everybody to come together to figure out what skills are needed, where are they needed, where is the skill similarity and how are we going to skill the workforce? I mean, it really. I mean, I think one of our data point, uh, insights is that,

Speaker A: um,

Speaker B: 70% of the skills required for the job that you have today is going to change in four years. So, like, jobs are changing and people are just not getting. American workers, like, are not. There's lots of access, right? Like, everybody's got a course here, but, like, what does that. Where is that getting me? And because we don't have a shared understanding of what the definition of certain skills are, everybody's sort of interpreting it differently. Let's just take broadly communications, right? Like you and I, we all know that communications is verbal communication, written communication, copy editing, author, public speaking. There's a lot of. We all agree on those. But AI literacy, what is that? Especially when AI is being embedded into everything. Is that learning Python? Is that vibe coding? Is that me just doing prompts on cloud AI? What is it? We got a lot of work to do is really the moral.

Speaker A: Can you echo those numbers again? I think that was a pretty startling 70%.

Speaker B: 70% of the 70% right now are going to change by 2030. That's in four years now. When we were talking to lawmakers four years ago, we were saying 25% of the skills required for your job are going to change by 2030. So it was still fast, but that just is demonstrative of the acceleration that AI is bringing to the workforce.

Speaker C: Um, slightly different topic, the LinkedIn. In the conversation I have, LinkedIn is increasingly seen as a great marketing tool for companies in advocacy trying to get to the right eyeballs in D.C. uh, you know, there's all sorts of privacy rules, but a great thing. What I've heard from, uh, you know, marketers and companies trying to get to Hill is that, you know, you can't target a particular person, but you could say chief of staff and you've got, boom, hundreds of chiefs of staff on Capitol Hill that pop up or communications director or whatever. How have you seen that side of your business change? And grow. It must be growing incredibly quickly right now as people are trying to figure out the best ways to.

Speaker B: I mean it's a really good question and I sort of go back to your original question about how do we stay in this space that we find ourselves in. Um, our um, ads are vastly more expensive than the other company. So I think that you have to come to our product with a very disciplined strategy and plan and targeted audience and m message that you want to tailor. Because we're just, we have different audience, we have a different space. Space. And um, but like, yeah, we're, we're. Business is good. Business is good. And I think that like, because of the point that you made earlier, we have um, more eyeballs on the platform and I'm talking about like staffers and agency members than we have before. But they still actually sort of keep it different because you know, they're using it as obviously an opportunity to network but also to keep their options open. Right. They're current employers are likely on the platform and there would be employers are on the platform which helps reinforce the sort of ecosystem that we were talking about earlier. Um, which is all to say that we are seeing a, actually I don't know how specific the government um, uh, sort of advertising um, ecosystem is working vis a vis like how it has grown since the eyeballs. But I have to assume that it is by virtue of the fact that there are definitely More People in D.C. on the platform now. Look, no one's like spending hours. The reason why you need to have a very disciplined targeted advertising strategy on LinkedIn.

Speaker A: But I think in this changing dynamic of public affairs that we live in, the communication to people is one of the driving forces. How I consume information is different than you, is different than Brody. We all consume in slightly different ways. One interesting thing though I think we're seeing is this confluence of GR people, communications people, marketing people, investor relations folks, all kind of communicating more and more. Right. As the company becomes more integrated and realizes everything's a public message and explain a little bit to our audience, how did the audience. How did the economic graph end up uh, uh, in public policy and not out of communications or analytics within the company?

Speaker B: Uh, it's unique in that the origin story for the economic graph is that the economic graph is a um, really three department department. So it is a cross functional department of three different entities. It was, it is led by our uh, chief economist Karen Kimbrough and she was previously at the New York Fed and she has a team of economists and data scientists who work with all this data that is laid on. Like public policy comes in, global public policy comes in to sort of say, here are the things that are shaping the conversation. Where we are. And broadly speaking, it's very similar, right? We're talking about, um, digital workforce. So for that cyber AI, everything in sort of the tech universe, we're talking about, um, what do green skills look like? We've seen an emergence of green skills. Um, we talk about just the skills in general. It's the sort of wraparound of all of these sort of bespoke reports that we do. Um, and then with that we have a comms team and we all work together. So I wouldn't, it's not, it does not, it's not folded under public policy. But we're all like head of US Public policy and economic graph, like head of comms and economic graph. Um, so it's a collaborative process, I would say,

Speaker A: reinforcing the nature of the changing world of public affairs. Right. Economists having to think a little bit different is kind of an interesting place for them or for us to look at, uh, uh, an economist's report. That's not something we read every day, I would assume.

Speaker B: Shape it into something.

Speaker C: David, any final, uh, questions?

Speaker A: Caitlin. Usually we end by give us a fun fact about Caitlin. But man, you've given us so many in this conversation that if you have one more to add, that would be awesome. But there's a lot there.

Speaker B: Oh, I wasn't gonna bring that up. Okay, I can talk about that. So I, I sailed like little dinghy boats, summer camp kind of thing. And I always really, really, really loved it. Fancied myself a sailor. I went to UVM and I joined the sailing club and I capsized my first day into Lake Champlain and it was so cold, I was like, I'm never doing this again. And then, um, fast forward a couple decades and um, I found myself wanting to sort of get back on it. So I joined a class. It was like an adult sailing class, ah, about five years ago. And um, the woman who runs it is this phenomenal powerhouse sailor who's all about getting more women involved in sailing. And what she has recently done is assembled a crew of women with full time jobs who just like to do, to sail occasionally. And she has us on a two year campaign starting with the Fagawi in a couple weeks, which will be my longest race and biggest boat I have ever been on in sailing. And then ending with this race to Alaska, which is actually terrifying. It is a 750 mile open water race from Bellingham, Washington to Ketchikan, Alaska. And, uh, I think she thinks I'm doing it. I don't know if I've actually, uh, the courage to do it, but I'm definitely gonna do the fagawi. Cause that will be a stretch goal. And it's just fun to be with women and being out on the water and doing things that you don't even really know how to do. And God willing, I come back.

Speaker A: We hope to see you again.

Speaker B: People about this, they all say, oh, you got to get the fagawi swag. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And they're like, it's very limited edition. Nobody can get it. You got to bring me home a hat. And I'm like, what? What? That is so, so dc. I love it. Pring be homes with Birch from nk. It feels like maybe we have a little vibe going here, guys. So if you need another host for your podcast,

Speaker A: You're very hip and cool for us though, so.

Speaker C: Well, thanks so much for joining us on Inside Influence. We'll, uh, we'll talk next time. Thank you. Welcome back to Inside Influence. A fascinating conversation. David, what do you think?

Speaker A: Wow, there was a lot there, huh? Not only about the changing nature of jobs, what it means in the policy space, how you deal with advertising in that space, which is a higher end advertiser. I thought to me, the most interesting takeaway wasn't related necessarily to what we do every day in the public affairs space, but the 70% of skills needed will change. Uh, I'm sorry, by 2030, 70% of the skills needed for jobs don't exist today. That is like, mind numbing to me when you think about it. And I think she said it was two years ago, it was like 25%. Right? Like, it's a, it's a changing dynamic that we live in. I also think the other interesting piece is when she was talking about the economic graph and the relationship between her department, uh, comms and the chief economist. Really interesting. Where it's a company recognizing that they have a product that can move across the company in a broader scale in a way to promote the company and promote these trends that are happening in this, in this professional, uh, job changing environment that we live in. Really, uh, interesting stuff. I thought. I don't know, Brody, your takeaways today.

Speaker C: Yeah, I thought totally, um, agree with you. Um, we've talked a lot about how in all sorts of professions, the individual is becoming more important than the brand and the strategist and the lobbyist. Uh, I think Ashley Davis first mentioned this need to come out and be their own brands. And that's why you're out there on social media and LinkedIn and whatnot. Not no longer sort of hiding behind and giving strategy, but out there up front. But I never heard about staffers. I still thought that congressional staffers are still the number one person who is behind the scenes behind the member. And Caitlin seemed to say that's starting to change, um, which I had not heard before. And I think, you know, thinking to be a little careful getting out in front of the member, of course. But it is interesting that staffers feel like it's time to be their own brands. And if that's the case, well, LinkedIn is the perfect place to start, um, because that's how you can kind of get your thoughts out there or, you know, have build your network, uh, so that people know who you are apart from your employer.

Speaker A: Yeah. You know, actually the one other inner in terms of jobs, too, to your point. The other thing I thought that she said was really interesting was when she was working for then Congresswoman Pelosi, she took all the jobs that nobody else wanted, and she made herself invaluable in the organization because she was just making things happen. I mean, that's a good lesson for all of us in our careers that, hey, you just, you know, as I kind of say, keep hoarding the cherries and next thing you know, you're running the office as she did so.

Speaker C: Fascinating. Well, uh, thanks again. Thanks for joining us on Inside Influence, and we'll see you next week.