Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul delivered remarks at the 2023 New York State Innovation Summit.
B-ROLL of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of the event is available here.
PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor’s Flickr page.
A rush transcript of the Governor’s remarks is available below:
I wanted to open up with a thought that I had. I was thinking about the great innovators of our state, not just the present company, but let’s go back a little ways. Thomas Edison. And what Thomas Edison said was – when he tried to invent the light bulb, he believed in his idea. Many others did not.
He said, it was one of those, I’ve not failed, I’ve just found ten thousand ways that don’t work. I’m sure that’s something many of you feel you can relate to. Yes. Many times it doesn’t work. But then one time it does. And all of a sudden, there’s an energy and electricity around this idea that you, and perhaps you alone, or the people that you congregate with, innovate with, socialize with, have coffee with, the brilliant creative collisions that happen, and all of a sudden an idea is born.
That’s the power of innovation. And it’s something that is absolutely in the DNA of New Yorkers – no doubt about it. Look at what we’ve done. And we are not far from one of the most innovative concepts known in the history of mankind and womankind just 200 years ago, the Erie Canal.
The Erie Canal was conceived – you know this story? By a man sitting in prison. He went to debtors prison because he couldn’t get his crops to market. And while he was in jail, thinking about, “If only I could get my crops down to New York City,” which is still a little village at the time, but it’s bigger than most, “If I could do that, boy, wouldn’t that be something? Maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here in debtors jail because I couldn’t pay my debts.”
He wrote out his idea, he got it to, a long time ago, crazy governor named DeWitt Clinton. I like crazy governors, the ones who are just not satisfied with the status quo, who have this sense of urgency about making a difference. He got the idea to DeWitt Clinton. DeWitt Clinton made it happen. And he was told by Thomas Jefferson when he was President and DeWitt Clinton was asking for federal money for this, he said, “No, this guy’s crazy up in New York. We’re not going to do that.” He did it by himself, and the world changed forever.
The communities that we have in Upstate New York connecting New York City all the way to my hometown of Buffalo, but also the ability to move commerce. Little New York City became a powerhouse because of an idea by someone who just had a lot of time on his hands, solving a problem. That’s what all of you do, hopefully not in the same environment, but that’s the power of innovation in New York.
And so much has flowed from that idea. And so many others. And my job is here to just continue to believe as I do to my core in New York exceptionalism. It’s a little bit arrogant, but we’re New Yorkers. We can get away with that, right? I believe in the exceptionalism of our talent, the people who are in New York, because what we are known for is being a place where people came from other places.
I think it’s that risk taking gene that you have to have in you to leave your home country, whether it’s you or three generations before, to leave the security of your home and come to a new country. There’s something special about people who can do that. My own grandparents were teenagers, left enormous poverty in Ireland. They had nothing to stay for. They left very big families who couldn’t support them anymore.
They came here with nothing. Worked as migrant farm workers in the wheat fields of South Dakota and worked as domestic servants – finally found the promised land of making steel in Buffalo, and our lives changed forever. Everyone in this state has come from somewhere and they have that risk taking gene that’s embedded in them from their family’s history or their own. And that is why I believe there’s no place on earth that is as innovative as people are in New York. I know that. That’s a statement of fact.
And we have the talent, we have the ideas, we have the educational systems. I’m about to leave here to go speak to an AI Symposium at SUNY Albany because I’m making investments and they’re doing things with IBM and others, and the magic is happening all over this state. But it all starts with a small business.
I don’t think even the biggest tech companies started with tens of thousands of people. Do you? There might be a couple of people in college, might be some friends, but ideas start small. My own sister and brother started a small tech company 25 years ago. There were no women in tech – none. She and my brother came up with some ideas, decided to do some support staffing for tech companies that couldn’t find the workers because very few people had the talents.
They came up with this idea to solve a problem, which is what you’re doing, solving a problem for somebody. And as a result, she worked hard, was able to move out of her attic office. She brought on her older sister to be her attorney. And I had to negotiate all the contracts. And she ended up growing, and I was negotiating contracts with Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin and all the defense agencies and she ended up being an incredible – fastest growing, woman owned business in the State of Maryland, unfortunately.
That’s because there were no jobs in New York. My entire family had to leave when I was growing up. There were no jobs in New York. So they all prospered elsewhere. It’s heartbreaking to me, but that’s where it was. But I saw how hard she worked, and the ideas that worked. And sometimes you got a patent, sometimes you didn’t. And how hard it was to be an MWBE, to get the certification, it takes forever, why are they making it so hard on us?
I lived through her anguish. And today, she loves to rub it in that she sold her company for a fortune and she’s younger than me and has been retired a long time. Okay, so that’s possible too. Or you can just stay in government, and my family never quite understood why I didn’t go full time family business. But I love public service.
But if I can use this position to facilitate the explosive growth and create more jobs so no family has to be separated again like mine was when I have so many grandkids, kids, nieces and nephews, all in another state because we went through 40 years of decline, especially here in Upstate. And now I feel the rebirth, the resurgence. It’s happening because you are taking your ideas, working so hard, commercializing them, trying to get the grants, trying to get the customers, coming to this great place to share ideas.
And I had a chance to meet some incredible people who are so optimistic and enthusiastic. But at the end of the day, you know what you’re doing for me? You’re creating jobs, creating jobs – tens of thousands of jobs. And not just in tech, and we are surpassing every other part of the nation when it comes to tech jobs. We’re blowing them out of the water. No, it is not Austin, Texas, my friends. It is New York State. And even California, if you look at the New York City metro area, which will include New Jersey, that’s alright. We’re number one in the nation. If that puts us at number one to include New Jersey, why not, right?
I just did that. So that’s alright. What they say, a tech leader recently said, “The West Coast is where your friends are, New York is where your customers are.” This is where you’re going to grow. And I want you to understand that. I believe that. And so I have a whole list of programs and funding and all kinds of great things that I can read to you all day here.
But we have boosted and created so many more opportunities to innovate and creating manufacturing jobs. Anybody hear of Micron, by the way? And I love GlobalFoundries. I’ve toured GlobalFoundries. But when you add a GlobalFoundries and combine a Micron, which do not take for granted that they came to New York State.
Oh, they were going somewhere else. Because I was in the arena – look up Teddy Roosevelt’s “In the Arena” speech. I was in there, and I was not leaving until we were victorious. We had to win this one.
So what does 50,000 jobs do the psychology of a community that whose identity was so depressed after years of seeing the great businesses come and go? Especially along our Erie Canal Corridor, Upstate New York here. 50,000 jobs, and all the supply chain – you wouldn’t believe all the supply chain businesses I’ve been able to recruit now.
I’m on the phone calling a company in London, 600 jobs going to Batavia. What do they do? They make heat pumps to supply Micron. Would they have come to Batavia before? Maybe, but probably not. That’s the beauty of creating an ecosystem. And it’s not all about semiconductors, but why not have that be the foundation because so much flows from that.
And it makes me proud as an American too, to have these innovations and these products commercialized and manufactured here in New York because I don’t want to be captive to foreign supply chains anymore. I don’t want to have to tell Detroit or Buffalo, “You can’t manufacture cars because the chips are stuck on ships that have not been able to make it here from South Asia.”
No, those days are over. We’ll make it right here in New York like we’ve always done. We can make anything here in New York. And I will pledge to you the full support of our government. This is what I love about this job, that I can help someone lift a hand and just let you know we support you and talk to all the different sources of funding and loans and all the products we have because I need you to succeed.
You succeed, New York succeeds. It’s that simple. So I thank you all for gathering here. Support all those entrepreneurs that are out there showing us how brilliant they are. It makes me so proud to be your Governor. So let’s make it here in New York. Thank you everybody.
