Full transcript: Dr Marwan Alzarouni on London Real
0:06 Brian Rose: This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Dr Marwan Alzarouni, the keynote speaker, strategic advisor, and passionate advocate of blockchain technology. You are one of the Middle East’s most well-known crypto pioneers and have been at the forefront of supporting and promoting blockchain technology within the region for nearly a decade. You are the CEO of the Dubai Blockchain Center, which brings together thought leaders, developers, investors, and educators all under one roof. You’re also the strategic advisor to the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism, with the goal of making Dubai the smartest and happiest city in the world.
0:40 Coin Telegraph named you in the top 100 most influential people in crypto, and you have said it is imperative that we build sustainable and responsible blockchain and artificial intelligence. Your aim is to make the UAE the global leader in technology innovation and Dubai among the top three economic cities globally by 2033. You believe we must push the boundaries and push each other to work tirelessly in order to make Dubai the greatest city on the planet. Dr Marwan, welcome back to London Real in Dubai.
1:12 Marwan Alzarouni: Thank you Brian. Thank you again for having me back.
1:15 Brian Rose: It seems surreal that last time we talked you were just exploring Dubai and just literally fascinated by everything that is in Dubai and fast forward to today where you’ve experienced Dubai over the last 13 months and you have a totally different perspective and a really kind of your own take on Dubai as well. So it’s really exciting for me to talk to you and hear about your experience as well.
1:40 Marwan Alzarouni: Yeah, our first conversation was I think two or three days after I met you at Jitex, which is kind of the biggest technology conference in the world.
1:49 Brian Rose: And we sat down, I think, right in one of the booths that you had in digital Dubai and had this conversation that we called, we ended up calling the merchant of hope because that’s what you named Dubai. And I was very new. I was making observations, very curious about the place and the interactions I was having with the people. But I think at one point I said, am I moving to Dubai? And you kind of laughed out loud. And now here I am, I’m spending the entire month of January here. We have the London Real Studio here and we’re talking to the most important people in this city. And yeah, everything seemed to have changed.
2:27 So I can’t wait to talk about my experiences with you and what this place is all about. That term merchant of hope, it really stuck with me when you said that about Dubai because we can talk about the buildings. We can talk about maybe the fact that it’s the only fully digitized city in the world. We can talk about the creation of all this beachfront property, the innovations, how it attracts people all over the world, the blockchain technology. But at the end of the day, I guess it’s about people and about hope. And I thought it was a really bold statement that you said, you guys are the merchants of hope. That’s ultimately what you’re selling. And I meet people from Pakistan, from America, from Europe, from Asia, from Australia. Everyone is here. What did you mean when you said you are the merchant of hope?
3:18 Marwan Alzarouni: You see, we live even worse than last year when we talked actually in an environment and a world that is like filled with conflict. A lot of people don’t want to get involved in conflicts. A lot of people don’t want this controversy. A lot of people don’t like politics, don’t like all the other issues that people talk about. Even when they’re prosperous as a nation or as a state, we don’t focus on any of that negativity. We focus on the positivity. We focus on what people look forward to. And this is the secret formula of Dubai, getting the best out of people, getting people to be productive, providing them with the right environment, the right
3:59 Circumstance, the right enablers for them to deliver their best. Not only for them to wake up every day looking forward to tomorrow, but also ignoring all the differences they have with everybody else, whether it is a colleague at work or it is some issue with politics or religion or any other difference. No, you wake up, you have a goal in life, you have something to look forward to, something to look and raise your children looking forward to, is improving yourself incrementally, improving your inner surrounding, your sphere of influence, improving your city, improving the nation, which is the UAE, improving the world after that as well.
4:38 And you see, every single incremental success you get is fuel for you to do even better.
4:44 Brian Rose: It’s fascinating because right now in America, there is a very divisive presidential election. In London where I live, there’s a very divisive two-party system between labor and conservative. And the list goes on and on. And in the past five years, 10 years, politics has turned into entertainment and media. And every front page of every newspaper is about someone who said something or did something or is being prosecuted, and about issues from the left and the right and in the middle. And it’s just this engine of anger and hate that seems to dominate. And I don’t even know if we know why we’re doing this and engaging in this behavior, I guess, because it’s supposedly this quote unquote, democracy, this great system. But like you said, it really pulls us into this negativity loop that has nothing to do with our families, with the future, with our businesses, with making the world a better place. And in Dubai, that just doesn’t exist. And that’s intentional.
5:47 Marwan Alzarouni: Yes. And actually in Dubai, it’s illegal for you to hurt somebody over social media. It’s illegal for you to take a picture of somebody without their consent. And even in public places and a lot of other places in the world, if you are free and perceived public places, you are free to take part of anybody. For us, we considered invasion of privacy and invasion of personal space if you’re taking a picture of somebody without their permission. So these kind of soft kind of things that give you a comfort to go around without expecting people to bother you, without expecting people to try to solicit you to something. It all adds up to this kind of an environmental kind of safety and environmental perception of safety as well, when you’re walking down the streets, when you’re shopping in a mall, nobody’s like paparazzi and you’re here. You don’t see that. Even the celebrities are much more comfortable in taking pictures because the people ask for permission always. It’s not because they are courteous applied because this is the system of Dubai. This is how we grew up. This is how we are accustomed to actually respect the boundaries of people, respect that they are people after all, even celebrities, even famous people. Everybody comes and approaches you with dignity, approaches you with respect, approaches you even if they disagree with you. I’ve seen your interviewer, Mario Knopfel, when he was saying that he cannot go to certain places in the world because he
7:18 Doesn’t feel safe. But in Dubai, he can walk around safely. He doesn’t get harassed. It looks just like a given, but there’s a lot of work, a lot of laws, a lot of culture that comes with it. It’s not only culture at work, but culture in Dubai in general.
7:35 Tourists feel more comfortable in bringing their kids to the beach because there is no public showcase of intimacy on public beaches. You can bring your kids anywhere. You can bring your kids. There are also adult only places where kids are not allowed. There’s a place for everything and there’s a place and time for everything and there’s expectations that are aligned. What you expect as a tourist, what you expect as a tourist with family members, what you expect as a person shopping in a mall, there is no public display of fighting either.
8:13 There’s no fighting. There’s no cursing. Even when you’re driving, you cannot curse at people driving. All these kinds of things create this kind of environment where everybody’s focused, laser focused even, on work, on family, on getting those things aligned and the priority is right. They’re not focused that, oh, today somebody cut me off or today somebody harassed me on social media or bullied me in school or did any of this stuff.
8:43 Because it’s not an issue.
8:45 Brian Rose: And I’ve noticed that because I’ve been here for weeks and I’m walking around thinking, what would my walk be like if I was in London? In London, I might have to worry about a group of drunken Brits after a football game, yelling, being aggressive, catcalling women. I might have to worry about the homeless people and falling over them or them asking for money. I might have to worry about all these things that now I don’t even worry about. And after a while, it really does change your entire mental state. And here, it’s just not an option. It’s not allowed. You almost know it’s not allowed even without reading the rules on the side of a building. It’s like you start to realize that’s just not okay. And here’s the thing that’s interesting, Dr. Marwan, is that people in the West say, well, we’re free. We have our freedom. Okay. Well, what is your freedom? Does your freedom mean that there are no rules? Does your freedom mean that you can, like you said, the paparazzi get in your face, you can verbally assault people or with a set of rules, does that actually make you more free?
9:46 And that’s what this place feels like. And the West can say, oh, we have a democracy. We have a free press. First of all, you don’t. And second of all, it’s an illusion of freedom to a certain extent. And when you really start to drill down into it, again, look at the results.
10:01 Again, what is the user experience? It’s clearly not working because, you know, I feel safe in a lot of cities, but that’s because I can protect myself. But a lot of people don’t and they can feel, you know, dominated, they can feel uncomfortable. And it just doesn’t happen here. And I know it’s not easy. And now there’s an expression, you know, speak softly, but carry a big stick. So the user experience is a soft experience. But at the end of the day, you have a big stick and you will take somebody to the airport and they will never come back.
10:36 If they start violating rules or have that wrong. But it does feel like there’s consequences here. And I guess there has to be.
10:44 Marwan Alzarouni: Yeah. Like I mentioned, the social media, for example, there’s no social media harassment. You can sue anybody that talks bad about you on social media to defame you. If you curse anybody, even in a private chat, even in a WhatsApp group, even in any kind of perceived private space, harassment is harassment. You harass somebody, I have the right to report you. Okay. Got it. And so, but the user experience is one of empathy. So the rules are strong, but the experience is soft.
11:12 Brian Rose: Yeah. And you don’t leave room for people to literally be abusive on any kind of basis, you know, abuse is not, there’s no excuse for abuse. Right. And it stops immediately at the smallest point. So it doesn’t get more.
11:26 Yeah. And like you said, the big stick is in the law that you understand that, okay, this is not allowed. It’s not somewhere, an environment that is tolerant to this. There’s zero tolerance for violence. There’s zero tolerance for racism. There’s zero tolerance for sexism, for any kind of, you know, harassment based on ethnicity, orientation, or anything else.
11:48 You do whatever you want to do. You have your personal freedom. Nobody’s allowed to harass you in any way. And if they do, you have the right to sue them. Right. Let’s talk about something else. Cause I came here for the future blockchain summit in October. The event was timed to happen literally days after what happened in Gaza and with Israel.
12:11 And you told me that there was, I think an Israeli citizen that was uncomfortable about coming here and being in Dubai or even sharing a stage with someone from Palestine. And I think a couple of people actually canceled their trips. And I know you told me and maybe you told them that there’s no need for them to do that because this is Dubai. And you pride yourself in the fact that in that situation, an Israeli and a Palestine could be on the same stage and there will be no issue. There will be a hundred percent safety. Can you talk about that?
12:44 Because you seem very passionate when you told me that. And again, as you said before, this is a tough neighborhood. I mean, just look around us. There’s conflict. There’s lots of nations. There’s things happening. And yet in this pocket, this oasis of Dubai, because of your rules, it doesn’t happen here. Can you explain?
13:06 Marwan Alzarouni: Yeah. And the example was one of the exhibitions here. We had a person who was coming from Israel to Dubai for the launch of their company here in Dubai. And first he was hesitant, but they ended up actually coming here and doing the speech that they had to do. Out of respect, of course, they canceled any party or any other thing because of the situation. It was very early days of that situation in Israel and Palestine.
13:34 But the same guy actually employs Arab Muslim people within his company as well. It’s a multinational company as well. And the guy who went on stage with me on stage actually was a Muslim guy actually representing that company. So Dubai is a land of tolerance, is a land of living coexisting and putting our differences aside and focusing on delivering results, focusing on, like I mentioned, hope. And yeah, it’s a true story. And you can check, you can backcheck the story. And I don’t want to name the company, of course, or the people, but it is a true story that happened by an exhibition. And I was on stage with a guy that actually represented the company.
14:20 Brian Rose: And I was flying from London and a couple of people asked me, is everything going to be okay in Dubai? And I didn’t really think about it. But when I was here, there was no issue whatsoever. There was no feelings. There was no anything going on. Everybody was in a bubble of safety here. Contrast that if we had had this conference at Harvard or at MIT where I went to school or University of Pennsylvania or other American cities, you could argue that there they would have experienced problems, hate, discrimination. Like that could have easily happened in any of those other cities. And yet it didn’t happen here.
15:00 Marwan Alzarouni: Yeah, again, it is because Dubai are very tolerant. We understand that there is conflict in different places in the world. We understand that there are people that their livelihoods are changed. There are people who lost family members.
15:15 We are sensitive to that. But today and Dubai is not the stage for conflict. There is a stage for conversation, open conversation, yes, but not to put our emotions and physical violence in space. Yes, we can talk about the situation. Yes, you can support whatever cause you think you can support on social media. You can, of course, express your opinion without imposing it on other people.
15:44 Brian Rose: How do you stay safe in this region? How do you stay neutral in this region?
15:50 Because if you look at the map, it’s a pretty interesting group where Strait of Hormuz is right there. You have Iran. We’re next to Saudi. We’re next to Yemen. We’re not far from the Red Sea, which of course connects Israel and Palestine. There’s a lot going on around here. There’s warships around. You know, it’s really fascinating. If you look at the map, we are in the center of a lot of conflict, a lot of action. How does the UAA stay neutral? Because it’s one of your greatest exports, hope, safety, maybe business. How do you do it?
16:26 Marwan Alzarouni: Focus on the positives. It’s very easy. We live in a tough neighborhood. And if you live in a tough neighborhood, you follow your path, you have your KPIs, you have your performance criteria, you have the goals to look forward. Again, hope is the greatest power in the world. Looking forward to tomorrow, not worrying about the external factors. A lot of the people who look at conflict as their main driver, you imagine waking up every day and have nothing on your mind but conflict and nothing in your mind but sadness or hate towards a person because of his politics, polarization based on religion, on any other factor. Imagine waking up not having any negative energy.
17:10 The opposite of that is having the positive energy and every day waking up and understanding that, okay, today I have a mission. This is what I’m looking for. It’s very structured. This is very looking forward. All the other stuff could happen in the world, of course, but your focus is still on your family, your health. You reorient yourself in focusing on things that you have an effect on. You might not have an effect in a conflict even 10,000 kilometers away or 20,000 or 100 kilometers or another universe. What you have an effect on is your immediate family, your work, your environment. You’re educating people around you, educating yourself about the conflict or any other thing you can. I’m not saying you can’t, but there are things that are tangible that you can focus on to make a difference in your own circle rather than trying to talk about it. Talking to people about it and really trying to flip their opinion shouldn’t be your agenda because the success rate of that and the influence of that could be there, but they are much more likely to have a better effect and have much more positivity when you focus on yourself and you focus on your family and focus on moving forward in life incrementally rather than try to persuade somebody to your opinion.
18:31 Brian Rose: I always say that Dubai is very London Real. I’ve had about a thousand conversations over the last 12 years and I speak to people and they talk about being
18:41 Kind of in a low energy vibration, like where you’re in the state of hate and you’re projecting all of your problems on other people, on other things, it’s a victim mentality, it’s their fault, or you can kind of take a higher state of vibration where you kind of take extreme ownership of everything. You focus on yourself and if you improve yourself, the rest of the world will see what you do and they’ll want to follow. How can you contribute towards humanity? How can you push yourself beyond your boundaries in order to get better? Find out what’s out there. David Goggins, the US Navy SEAL says most of us quit at 40% as in we have so much more that we can give.
19:16 That feels like something, you know, as Royal Highness would say here or something you would say. And so this city is very interesting because it has so many parallels with some of the great parts of humanity that I’ve been able to uncover with this show. The problem with some of that negative energy is it can become very addictive. You wake up in hate, hate gives you an emotion and it’s very easy to repeat that loop. It’s someone else’s fault why you’re not innovating, oh, I’m going to go get those people today. And you can fall into these really negative loops and never go anywhere, but that’s not the solution. The solution is to build something great. And do you want your children in those same hate loops? Do you want those children in those same lack of ownership loops, victim loops, or do you want them creating great people and great things? And it’s a real question to ask people because you seem like you embody that mentality here. I had a thought this week and I’m curious what you think. For me, Dubai in a way feels in a good way, a bit like a cults, a bit like a group of people that say, you know what, we don’t want to live in the world where your values seem to be this, this, this, and this.
20:26 We want to think a different way and we want to be around each other and we want to set up our own kind of rules and we want to go do things differently over here. And we feel comfortable here and we want to be a part of this way of thinking. And I kind of walk away from the other part of the world. What do you think about that analogy?
20:47 Marwan Alzarouni: I think you mentioned that the leadership in Dubai is amazing, number one. Number two, they push us actually. So they are the great motivator. You mentioned that it is a way of living, right? It’s a mentality. And a mentality comes actually from our culture, it comes from our religion, it comes from a lot of other influences, it comes from experiences we’ve had in the past. It was not always, you know, amazing in Dubai. We’ve had, we’ve done, we’ve gone through a lot of hardship in Dubai. A lot of my father and grandfather, as early as that, had a lot of hardships growing up, a lot of friction and getting to work. I saw a documentary a couple of days ago where it took hours to go from one emirate and the north and emirates just to come to Dubai. Hours, almost days sometimes, because there were no roads and it was a tough journey and a lot of people did not make it. And a lot of times, you know, during these kind of travel between different emirates. And coming from that hardship and understanding that the prosperity we got very quickly and relatively speaking compared to other
21:53 Places, we appreciate that. Another thing that intrinsic to every single emirate is unity. We know that together we can do more. We were seven small emirates with very, very small resources. All of a sudden we got good wealth, good prosperity, good infrastructure, good leadership.
22:13 And we’re holding on to that. We’re holding out to that hope again. We’re holding on to every single success that we have. We want to genuinely not go ever back to not being together, not ever go back to being, you know, separated from each other. No matter how much competition we have, that does not ruin our fabric. Our fabric is always and always will be working together towards achievable goals in a systematic way. You said that it’s so extreme. Some people can might compare to a cult. It is not a cult. It is unity. Unity is what brings us together.
22:55 It’s called the United Arab Emirates. We are Arabs and we are Emirates, but we are first and foremost united. It’s not only a Marathi that feels this way. Every Arab person, every Muslim person that lives in the UAE feel at home. Some people used to call it second home.
23:14 A lot of people call it first home now. They love it more than their own country. Not because of their physical location, but because of the mentality and the mental state that they feel when they are here in the UAE.
23:28 Brian Rose: What about the foreigners? Do they feel the same way?
23:31 Marwan Alzarouni: 100%. Because they agree to the idea of the UAE. It doesn’t matter what religion you are. It doesn’t matter where you come from. When you live in the UAE, you very quickly consider yourself an ambassador of the UAE, right? You just received your golden visa. Wasn’t that a proud moment?
23:49 Brian Rose: I was so proud. I was going to tweet out my ID, but I realized I had my information on it. But it was a huge day. I was yelling and screaming. It’s a big deal. I feel honored to be part of this incredible idea and this ethos and this thing that is Dubai and the Emirates. It’s a huge deal. And every single foreigner that’s here, I think you have secretly given them a contract with the minister of tourism because all they do is talk about how great Dubai is. And all they do is tell everybody else that this is the greatest place on earth.
24:25 And I liken it to Tesla. Elon Musk doesn’t do advertising for Tesla. He just builds the greatest car in the world. And when you have the greatest product in the world, which is the experience of living in Dubai or having the ability to stay here at a long period of time, then that customer experience is so strong. Then you just talk about it to everybody else.
24:49 Marwan Alzarouni: And we just won, not surprisingly, but I’m very, very, very humbled and very honored actually for us in Dubai to win for the third year in a row, the TripAdvisor, the best destination in the world, tourist destination in the world, as voted by people. And that’s exactly what you just said, because people are our best ambassador. Tourists who come here, review us genuinely in a positive way, because that’s how they experience Dubai. And they loved it. It’s London, by the way. Yeah, I just saw that.
25:22 Brian Rose: Three years in a row, you’ve got that. And now it’s the third most visited destination, third or fourth in the world, something like a fourth, I think it is.
25:32 Marwan Alzarouni: I’m not sure about the numbers, but I’m sure 100% about the TripAdvisor, 100%. We won three years in a row, which is unprecedented anywhere in the world.
25:41 Brian Rose: And again, you’re all about the customer experience, which is the experience of the visitor or the citizen. And you run this place like a business, because that’s how businesses run things. They always ask the customer, how did you do?
25:55 Because they realize that without the customer experience, they will no longer exist at some point. But I’ve never been in a place that literally treats the person like a customer. I was telling someone when I was getting my ID, the person in the government, when they needed me to come back to get the picture, they gave me their WhatsApp, their personal WhatsApp. I told a guy there, I was at the Dubai Blockchain Center event you had a couple of days ago, and I told a lawyer, he came from Switzerland and he said, what? What? And I said, yeah, because they wanted to make sure I had this really quick, low touch point experience. And that was what it was all about. When you’re anywhere in Dubai, after something happens, they want to know how did we do? When you land on Emirates aircraft, as soon as it happens, how was the food? How was the service? How was everything?
26:38 It’s all about that feedback loop. I never see that anywhere else. And that’s an amazing machine, actually, that is Dubai.
26:46 Marwan Alzarouni: And you mentioned the feedback loop. The way we capture feedback loops is amazing. We have this happiness index that’s live, actually.
26:54 So every touch point you have in Dubai, you have these three faces, happy, neutral, or unhappy. And yeah, we captured it almost live.
27:02 Brian Rose: Let’s talk about business. I was down at the government buildings a few days ago. There was a big conference, I think it was the Billion Follower Conference. And of course, I noticed, again, the eight principles of Dubai. And I think those were kind of put forth by His Highness probably many years ago. And they’re all fascinating. They talk about the union, they talk about no one is above the law. They talk about the three factors that drive growth, the unique personality, the economic diversification, the land for talent, and how they care about future generations. But the one that I focused on was that we are a business capital. And I thought this was interesting because I don’t know of any nation that literally has this in almost their founding principles. And it says that government of Dubai aims to improve the lives of its people through strengthening its economy. Again, no apologies there. In Europe, they apologize, I think sometimes, for their capitalist intentions.
28:04 And it says, Dubai does not invest or involve itself in politics and does not rely on politics to ensure its competitiveness. This is strong. It says, we extend a hand of friendship to those who hold good intentions toward Dubai and the UAE. Dubai is a politically neutral, business-friendly global hub that focuses on creating economic opportunities. Speak on that because those are strong words.
28:27 Marwan Alzarouni: A hundred percent. And I like to do external factors and politics and that kind of stuff. For us, we don’t get involved in that. We focus on building relationships, we build interpersonal relationships, business relationships, private-public partnerships. A lot of the time, many models of success and businesses do not come in this like client versus server or commercial entity versus customer or B2B and B2C. The lines are vague sometimes. And sometimes the incentives are vague. So you need to really focus on how to bring value to everyone involved. To the customer, to the partner, to the private sector, to the education sector. And that’s why even the ethos of Dubai Blockchain Center is built in the same way. We do not focus on actual money making or anything like that.
29:22 We focus on bringing value to everyone. We focus on building the ecosystem. We focus on the use cases that will deliver value, whether it is to a government department, whether it is to a private sector, whether it is to educate people about the technology that’s emerging. So the focus is on delivery, the focus is on the results, the focus on delivering value and value take for every single thing. When AI took off, we were one of the first people, if not the first people to have AI initiatives coming up. We had the world’s first AI minister way before chat, GPT and all these things took off. We have an AI ethics report that came out.
30:04 We had metaverse white paper that came out on telling people how we perceive the value from the metaverse and how ethical projects in the metaverse can be and how we can work together in a blueprint that does not invade the privacy of people, that does create silos and really empower us as a brand to showcase the buy and the buy values and different mediums, including an acclimated tool, the metaverse and in gaming and other aesthetics. We have actually a yearly event with an admin service focusing on how do we keep the buy ethically in the right space, how to create environmental safety for people as well. We focused two years ago on the metaverse, last year we focused on gaming, we focused on AI as well, so every single year we try to see where the puck is when it comes to technology and where people are moving to and try to see where we align with that. On the ethics front, on the governance front, do we want to place it too much, do you want to leave it open, how do we stand and we wait for the feedback loop from academics, decision makers, regulators, we give it to all the government departments to hear their feedback as well and where they stand in different aspects and this conversation is extremely important. A lot of people talk about AI and say AI is going this way, it’s going to be harmful and all the stuff and other people talk the other way, it’s the greatest invention, it’s the next wave of evolution.
31:46 Either is it one or other, we don’t know, but we can put our thoughts on how we perceive the value from it and where we can use AI for good and use blockchain and cryptocurrencies for good. Of course, every single technology we have, the first use of cases are usually, or the first value takes is realized by criminals because it is new, not a lot of people know about it. We had that with mobile phones, we’ve had that with blockchain technology, with bitcoin as a cryptocurrency, we’ve had it with every single evolution or wave of technology and we’ll continue to have it. It’s just, it will take time for us to realize the real value and make that not only mainstream, but ethical and have ethical uses of it and put the guardrails around it so we do not divert from that path, which is the path where we get the most value and minimize, not eliminate. There’s no way we can eliminate all the harmful, effective, any new technology and doing that will actually help us a lot and realizing not only what we can do as humans, but what we can do for each other.
32:58 For example, in AI you can use it to create the world’s most sophisticated weapon or you can create the most efficient engine or the best PA or helper or white collar kind of supplementation. Where do we put our effort? In harm or in good? This is the bottom line and if we wanted to guardrail this technology, how do we do it? What are the technologies that will help?
33:25 How much money and effort and time should we put in that? Should we go to market very quickly with certain things versus others? There’s a lot of other ethical issues that can be discussed with this technology. It’s very early days, but we have to start the conversation from now because conversation is the only way we can bridge a gap. Otherwise, you’ll think in your own way. I’ll think in my own way. Everybody will perceive it in their own context. We need to align and we need to talk about the emerging tech.
33:54 Brian Rose: You’re a huge proponent of not just talking about AI and talking about blockchain and throwing these buzzwords around as sometimes governments do without any results. For you, it’s about, okay, that then what is the practical steps and then what is the feedback loop to where we can really find out if we can use this technology. I know you were early in adopting blockchain for some things and you were early in abandoning in certain aspects of the government because you’re all about fast feedback loops and real world use of these technologies.
34:26 Marwan Alzarouni: As I said, we started the blockchain strategy in 2016. We finished by 2020.
34:30 We realized all the applicable use cases. AI was started way before we have AI ethics committee and Distilled AI. We have AI ethics white paper as well. We have a lot of other publications that came out. We got the feedback loop. We changed it. We have working groups all the time to deal with AI. We have a center for artificial intelligence, which was launched by Shef Hamdan, Mohammed, the Crown Prince of Dubai, and the use cases for that are already live.
35:01 A lot of pilots as well. There’s a lot of other work groups that are realizing within each government department and with a central entity, hand holding each one of those use cases moving forward.
35:14 Brian Rose: Let’s talk about the big aspirations of this region. Literally, the tallest building in the world is right down the road. You built, I think you told me more new beachfront property than any nation in the world. The Palm Jamira, I get to look at every single day. The other night, you drove me around another one of the manmade islands that’s pushing out into the sea.
35:38 I think I made a note of, wow, isn’t what amazing you can build in the Emirates. You said, no, Brian, we always collaborate with the best in the world. The Burj Khalifa was a collaboration. The Palm Jamira was a collaboration. Then you went on to tell me a story is that you found the best of the best to help you build your vision. I think at the time for building the Palm Jamira, it was the Dutch and the Japanese because the Dutch had been reclaiming land from the ocean for centuries and the Japanese had built that airport, I think, in the ocean. You asked them to help you build the project. I think the first feedback they gave you was, this is impossible and you should just not bother. I believe your reply was, we didn’t ask for your opinion. We asked for you to help us build it. That is very Emirati, that attitude. Can you talk about that attitude, having these big bodacious goals, these visions and dreams that last beyond a lifetime? I still don’t understand how everybody here seems to think of that as the default option when you dream of the future. Not 10% better, 20% better. Let’s build the biggest and the best and let’s build things that it’d be hard to even dream of and then show the world that we did it and then continue going in almost this strange, positive feedback loop. It’s a few questions, but your thoughts on what I just said.
37:08 Marwan Alzarouni: Yeah, I’ll give you a very good example. Elon Musk himself, when he came to Dubai, he had this keynote at the footsteps of the Burj Khalifa. In the middle of his talk, he was talking about Tesla statistics numbers, what they’re doing and how impossible it was, what people were saying as never going to happen. In the context of Tesla, midway through his speech, he stopped and he looked at the Burj Khalifa and he was like, wow, you guys get things done.
37:47 If we can impress Elon Musk as Dubai, I think Dubai is doing the right thing. I think to aim high and to aim to be the best, it sends a very soft message, but very strong signal that we mean business. And as I said it very, very, very clearly in the eight principles, we are here to set new standards. We are here to be the business hub. We are here to drive you to every single person here in the UAE, to wake up wanting to be part of the story, wanting to be a part of that narrative that I am involved in this. The guy who was heading the Burj Khalifa project was not an architect. He was not. He worked in Dubai Academy and Tourism where I work right now. And he built the world’s big building. You don’t need to be the world’s best architect to build the tallest building. You just need motivation, you need insight, you need a real good drive behind you. You need to try. You will try and you will fail and you will try again because you are not occupied with doing anything else.
39:04 You are really focused, laser focused even on getting things done, laser focused on vision, laser focused on your goal. Drive to do better. You are always driven to do what is best for you, what is best worldwide. Why aim for second best? You all should always work towards first.
39:27 There is no second place. This is a Dubai material. This is a Zionist Sheikh Mohammed’s mentality. You always aim for number one. You never aim for second place. Nobody thinks about second place.
39:39 Brian Rose: You also said, you know, don’t compete with other people. You should be competing with who you were yesterday.
39:46 Marwan Alzarouni: 100%. You will set your own bar, right? It’s the world’s tallest building. You should not compete with who else build the tallest building. Your aim is built to build.
39:57 This is your goal. It’s not a competition.
39:59 Brian Rose: There’s a rumor you might have a building that might be bigger than your current tallest building in the works.
40:05 Marwan Alzarouni: Why not? Why not?
40:06 Why not?
40:07 Brian Rose: You also said last time, and I think it was a Zionist Sheikh Mohammed that once said, everybody here, when you wake up in the morning, you wake up and get ready to run. You know, I think you said whether you’re the lion or you’re the gazelle, everyone is kind of expected to wake up and run. What did you mean by that?
40:27 Marwan Alzarouni: Yes, and it’s actually in His Highness’s book, the President’s CEO. So the Sheikh’s CEO, I think it’s called. It is the ethos of Dubai, right? You wake up, have goals in your mind.
40:39 You sleep every night soundly because you are looking forward to tomorrow. You are not, you know, depressed because of a certain issue. You’re looking forward to tomorrow. You’re not financially. Again, this is extremely important. A lot of people in Dubai are financially stable because they have a job. They have a roof over their head. They have content that nobody is actually trying to rob them at night. And I don’t know your experience about this, and I wanted to ask you this, how will you sleep here at night? Do you check if your door is locked?
41:16 Do you have that thought even in your head? Do you check if your car, if you hear an alarm, or somebody’s trying to rob me or something?
41:23 Brian Rose: You don’t have that. It’s not even an issue.
41:26 Marwan Alzarouni: It’s not something that’s on your mind passively or actively or any other way, right?
41:30 You wake up, you go to sleep, not worrying about your personal security, not to worry about not getting a bank, not worrying about your transaction being blocked, not worrying about not getting your next paycheck, not worrying about any other stuff financially or safety or security-wise or any other kind of thing that would bother you and any other place in the world. That is usually an issue in other places in the world. Imagine living in a world, the whole world, not just the white, now let’s think globally, in a world that this is not an issue. Wouldn’t that world be an amazing place to live in? That we can do much more as humans.
42:11 Brian Rose: I mean, and this is a deep question, is that the ultimate goal of what you’re doing here? Do you think that this mentality, do you think you will show the world somehow that maybe this can be the standard? Do you think in 100 years from now, like this might be so infectious and you might execute it to such a high degree that it spreads around the world?
42:34 Marwan Alzarouni: And I think and we are as the Y, not only in the UAE as well, we are leading by example, even when it comes to empowering other nations, empowering people to read. So we have reading competitions worldwide. We have a coding Arab coders competition that goes worldwide. That’s what any Arab anywhere in the world can learn to program in Arabic, because that’s one of the biggest pain points is learning how to call it. The language of the future is coding.
43:03 We have a lot of other initiatives that are global initiatives for sustainability, for any other things that we think our priority is not only for us in Dubai, but our priority is worldwide. Our priority is for the UAE to have this soft power elsewhere. We are true believers in soft power. We believe by doing things that we believe are right, leading by example, showcasing that we can do it not only in the aesthetics of it, but also in numbers. Numbers are important and they are super powerful indicator to everybody in the world that okay, we can do things and we can show you by numbers that this can be done. We can show you the results by numbers. It’s very clear. You can check the numbers transparently. You can check how we are doing by adopting a certain policy or using a certain methodology for getting business and how many people actually renew their licenses. All this stuff is captured in numbers.
44:00 So it’s leading by example, and also giving that free to the world to fee, how we did it, and why not have a world where we are much more likely to work together. We actually, as D33, started a relationship with cities. We’re actually starting. Our goal is to have 400 different cities in our economic model that we have never done business with before. So introducing new cities to our global partners program. So that is a powerful thing. We want people to work with us. We don’t do MOUs. We do a memorandum of collaborations where we know what we want from them, what is their value that they bring to us, and what value we bring to them. So this mutual kind of benefit is extremely important. Is the D33 this 2033 goal and initiative of what you’re doing for the next 10 years? Yes, the bi-economic agenda. It includes a lot of initiatives, but it creates jobs for local people, traders of local people as well. This is our DNA. DNA is trading. Our DNA in Dubai is traders. We are traders that remember the merchants of hope.
45:14 We are merchants. Retail is an important sector for us. Property is an important. Property and technology within properties is a huge idea that we are exporting all over the world. Health and well-being. You, a mental well-being of a person in Dubai, like I mentioned, would solve power just with these ideas that you sleep soundly at night. It’s a powerful thing.
45:39 You exercise. We have Dubai around. We have so many runs. We’ve had one last week, two weeks ago, and continuously we have these large numbers of people running and we close the roads and you’ve seen them. You’ve seen part of some of them as well.
45:56 Run to, you know, a marathon or 10 kilometers or five kilometers, whatever you can. And we literally run and shut down Sheikh Zayed Lot, which is the main highway in Dubai. So people can run in the tens of thousands. And together, again, together is powerful. Running, everybody’s equal. Everybody’s running together. Everybody’s, you know, enjoying Dubai and looking at the buildings, not from their car, but running in the main road.
46:24 Brian Rose: What does this place look like in 2033? What has happened? I know you can’t share everything with me. I know it’s kind of top secret, some of the plans, but like, where do you want to be in 10 years?
46:34 Marwan Alzarouni: Number one, number one place to live in. Number one, this is a tourist destination.
46:38 We’re already there. Hopefully continue to do that. But also we are open for ideas. There’s no, there’s no two taboo of an idea. We don’t know how the world’s going to turn out.
46:51 We don’t know how AI is going to change. It’s definitely going to be a part of what we do. AI is overarching over everything. So incredible use of AI, I think everything that we do in Dubai, whether it is, you know, augmenting work, augmenting the mental state of people. One of the projects I’m working with privately is anti-stress AI. So it looks at how you look actually and pulse and your dilation of your eye and a lot of other indicators and tries to see what’s your mental state. Are you stressed? Are you relaxed? Are you all the stuff? What’s your pulse like? The color of your face, your skin pigmentation, all this other stuff just to determine your mental state and try to help you to relax. So relaxing, working out in yourself, supplementing with, you know, longevity is a huge thing for us as D33. We want people to have not only better lives physically, but also mentally and fitness wise. You’re a fitness person as well.
48:01 I follow you very closely as well. And having longevity and lifespan is extremely important and wellness, whether it’s mental or physical, is super, super important. And it translates to not only yourself, but also how you educate your kids to be the same.
48:21 Brian Rose: Okay. So one of the top financial hubs, top tourist destination, keep innovating, longer lives, more healthy lives for everyone. You guys want it all. You want a talent hub as well.
48:35 Marwan Alzarouni: So we want the most talented people to be here. We have programs to attract them here. We want the top companies to have their global headquarters here. We want to buy to be the business hub of the world. Varna, number one. Top three, but we go for number one.
48:52 Brian Rose: You know, if you’re not careful, you just might get there. You just might get there. Why here? Why the Emirates? Why Dubai? Like of all the places in the world, why does this happen here? You said you’re a nation of traders, merchants. You talked about your father and your grandfather. You know, of all the places that this might happen, how does this mentality spring up in a place that used to be a place where there was pearl diving?
49:20 Have you thought about why? And I just want to give you some of my thoughts. I’ve lived in London for 20 years and I always thought what makes this city or what made it so innovative and so forward looking. And I always thought, well, it was a city of traders because it had a Thames River and it was surrounded by water. And so that means they were pro-business. They were also open to other cultures because you’re doing business with other cultures. So they were open-minded, which is actually good for business and good for immigration. And I always thought, okay, that was maybe why. Maybe that was why New York City. And so that makes sense. Maybe why this place was open to ideas pro-business. But there seems to be a little some extra in the water here to create the mentality of Dubai and the Emirates. Have you ever thought about why?
50:04 Is it, I mean, you talked about it, the culture, the religion, the area, but anything else, why? You know, and what was your grandpa like to be able to make this today?
50:17 Marwan Alzarouni: 100%. Look, I don’t know what the secret sauce is, but being merchants and being really business oriented and having that melting pot of cultures coming in and having this inflow of people coming from all over the world to Dubai through the Gulf itself, the Arabian Gulf. We found that the best way to do business is to be genuine, number one. And number two, to have this mutual benefit and value take from each other. So one of the simple things that you can do when somebody comes to you with the business is to do a little bit of extra towards them.
50:58 So when you start to do a business with somebody, if you go an extra mile to help them out to do the business, to sweeten up the deal or whatever other step you take towards them, guess what happens automatically? They take, you know, honest on themselves to be a little bit more extra nice to you as well. And that goes a long way. So just opening up the conversation in that way. And this is what we did here in Dubai as well. We were extremely nice to people to come here to land their ships, to do business with us. We were extremely friendly with having these open kind of markets were very transparent, very accommodating to any kind of person from any kind of nationality. It created this kind of business hub in the early sixties, fifties.
51:45 And from there, a lot of people started settling here because they like, again, the aesthetics of the place. And then when oil came here, just the momentum shift. And the focus was not on the actual infrastructure. The focus was on the people. So human resources, people settling here and the people building in Dubai, whether they were gold merchants or spice merchants from India, or they were fabric or any kind of goods, you know, merchants, they ended up staying in Dubai because they liked it, because they felt safe, because they felt looked after by the leadership here, which were big ones at the time. Right.
52:26 But the leadership here very quickly realized that the human capital is the wealth of Dubai. And that to keep that human capital, we need number one is good business coming in. Number two, attract talent. Number three, keep the talent here. Number four, give them something to look forward to tomorrow. So these are things that are intrinsic within our culture. Humans will be always our number one focus, not only in Dubai, but across the whole. And the Hizanah Sheikh Zayed, the founder of the UAE, and intrinsically put that in every mind of us. We used to call him Baba Zayed, which means Father Zayed, because every single one feels like we are his son or daughter. And until today, my kids call the founder of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed, Baba Zayed. This is a family kind of effect. This is a belonging, sense of belonging, sense of contributing every day, whatever you do to that idea, that you are part of the story, you are part of the narrative, you are part of building this great nation, not only for yourself, but for the nation, for your family, for every family in this. And we’re all in it together, basically.
53:41 Brian Rose: You said that to me the other night. You said, what makes this different, this region, different of this place, different is leadership. You know, that real vision that’s real and a visionary leader who’s congruent with it, and then passes that vision and leadership on to others.
54:00 Even in adversity, even in conflict, even in all these kinds of hardships.
54:05 Marwan Alzarouni: So, one of the statements that really resonated with everybody living in the UAE is what Hizanah Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed said, during COVID, he said, that’s in UNHIM, which means don’t worry about anything. As a person of the UAE, no matter who you are, no matter what ethnicity, what race, what social status, to everyone. It’s a general statement to every single person of the UAE.
54:32 Do not worry. We’ve got you. And this is what happened. We took care of every single person, no matter what social status, race, nation, whether he’s a tourist, resident, passing through, it took care of everyone during COVID.
54:49 Brian Rose: Leadership. When I premiered my film three months ago, I re-told a story that I think you might have told me, maybe somebody would have told you about something that happened maybe 40, 50 years ago. And I think it was a very young, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed, who was sitting around a room full of elders and blurted out an idea to make Dubai the number one tourism destination in the world. And at the time, I think there were some elders that laughed out loud and thought it was an amusing concept because at the time, it looked nothing like that. And yet, he persisted with that vision and that leadership. And I mean, look at you today. What can we learn from that story? And is it accurate?
55:40 Marwan Alzarouni: Yeah, 100%. The story is accurate. It was told by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed. The young guy was, I think, 16-year-old, or maybe even younger, Sheikh Mohammed Marashid, who is the ruler of Dubai and the prime minister of the UAE. And the idea for him was, wow, you can put yourself in a box, right? If we think of ourselves that we are not worthy, we don’t have the resources, we don’t have the capability, you are your worst enemy if you do that.
56:06 Your perception is your worst enemy. If you perceive that, oh, I have that vision, I can be even as much as possible, not even able to do this, you are the one that is putting yourself in that box. If you have no box and you aim high and you aim for number one and you aim for being the greatest nation in the world, being the greatest city in the world to live and to work and to raise your family. There’s nothing more noble than that, right? You should aim for it. Why not? That might be absurd at the beginning, but all great ideas are absurd, right, at the beginning. But you take one step. You wake up every day, like you said, and as the Sheikh CEO, he mentioned that you wake up every day and run. It’s incremental work, incremental goals, you know, realigning yourself. This is one of the things I learned also from his eyes, personally, is when we started the bioenergy city, very early 2000s, I did this form for people to sign up for something called inverse internet association.
57:10 And every single time we show it to showcase that form to designers, you would say, make it easier and easier and easier and easier. So to be customer focused is extremely important. To make things easier, it’s extremely focused. He is the person that came out and said, our government services are going to be, and this photo still hangs in the prime minister’s office and in all the executive offices in the Amherst Towers, where he has a mobile phone. I said, we will do the services on the mobile phone in the age and time where everything was on paper and you had to go to multiple government departments to get things approved. That idea, when the iPhone came out initially to change the government from a government that you go to and finish your services to create a culture where you can finish all your government services on your mobile phone is extremely powerful. Nobody, not even any, you know, first nation world countries thought of this said that we will do everything. This digital identity is same thing. It was absurd.
58:13 Everybody else in the world, we went on a road trip. A lot of countries in Scandinavia and Europe had some aspect of, you know, digital identity, but it was not overarching. All services, there was not a single window payment service anywhere in the world. Some people consider that idea to be absurd because for example, if you look at a nation like the United States, it’s so siloed. Every state has their own identity, their own driver’s license, their own DMV, their own all the stuff. It’s a nightmare to do a kind of digital identity state, you know, countrywide, you know, it’s an impossible job. Logistically, think about all the different databases. Of course, blockchain makes it easier.
58:55 But we said we’ll do it and we’ll do it not only on the federal level, but we’ll do it on the state and federal level. We’ll put payments in there. It’s extremely, extremely, extremely ambitious project. But we do it. And it’s live today. A pass is there. I got my son’s birth certificate from my mobile phone. I didn’t even have to do anything. My wife did everything.
59:20 And it was on her phone that was delivered to home. Her passport, his identity, his birth certificate was all delivered at home. Days, days after he’s born probably. Yes. With a letter from his honesty of Hanman Zayed saying, welcoming the son home and saying that you are part of a great nation. Again, the soft power saying, getting a letter for every single and a coin for every single person that is born, saying that you are part of us now. You are my son.
59:48 You have a great load on your shoulder. This nation is on your shoulder. You are carrying the burden of this nation. It’s success. And I’m starting you off with a coin.
1:00:07 Brian Rose: What do you do in 10 years from now? How are you going to continue to contribute?
1:00:12 Marwan Alzarouni: I don’t know. I don’t like these kind of questions because I don’t think anybody can predict anything 10 years ahead of time. We put goals that, like you said, have to be super ambitious. But the actual plans have to be one, two, three years. And we have to revisit every single year. So for me, in 10 years, I want to be a better person. I want to help people as well, as much as I can, and whatever kind of capacity I can. But my focus in every single year is something different. The puck is always moving. The goal posts are always moving. No matter how much goals you have and what direction, you need to always reorient yourself every single year. And it might be a goal that you might say that 10 years will be number one. We might get there in one year.
1:00:58 We did that in one year for tourism, as voted by a trip advisor. So now what do we do in the next four years? We always have to re-align yourself. No matter how ambitious a goal, you have to put in your plans. But actually, on the ground, every single year, you have to have executables. The difference between a successful business, a successful nation, a successful anything, is execution. You can have the best plans in the world without execution.
1:01:24 Brian Rose: You can end it there. What would you say to people who are thinking about coming to Dubai, but they just don’t know what it’s all about? I think it has a lot of misconceptions, probably because it was created so fast. Some people think it’s like the Las Vegas in the desert. Some people think it’s dangerous because it’s in the Middle East. It was interesting. Dana White, who runs the UFC, a mixed martial arts organization, was talking to Tucker Carlson recently. And he happened to mention that Abu Dhabi has owned 10% of that company for a long time. And Tucker said, oh, well, is it safe? Which might be a typical American question. I spent some time in that country and a lot of that country doesn’t leave. They read the news and they don’t know much about this. And Dana went on to say that his experience with the Emirates via Abu Dhabi was the most incredible thing. When they go and put fights on Yaz Island, he said, the production is excellent. The service is excellent. Everything is incredible. He said, the people are the most accomplished, but also the most humble and the most open to ideas.
1:02:29 And it was really interesting to watch Dana explain that to Tucker. And Tucker’s mind was kind of blown. And Dana was like, I’ve been doing business with these guys for 10 years. And I’m telling you, you’re going to be blown away when you go there. What would you say to people that are thinking, but might not understand what Dubai is all about? What is it all about? What’s the real Dubai?
1:02:50 Marwan Alzarouni: Yeah, I 100% am a big follower of UFC as well and mixed martial arts in general.
1:02:54 And I think you have seen the right decision by coming to the UAE. And I think having the fight island that nobody else in the world wanted to attend the idea when Abu Dhabi said that you can do it on Yaz Island. It’s an amazing move, right? But you have to understand that perception will always be there. People have their own perception of anything. It is an uphill battle to change that perception. But what you can do is actually, little by little, try to have, let me say, the best way forward is have people come here and deliver that message to people.
1:03:30 And Dana White now became an ambassador for the UAE, for Abu Dhabi, for Dubai even. A lot of people think as well that if Dubai does something or Abu Dhabi something, it is an Abu Dhabi thing or a Dubai thing. No, like I mentioned, the basic thing that we have in the UAE is this unity. Whatever success Abu Dhabi gets with UFC, guess what? It is a success for us in the UAE in general and Dubai in particular. That message, that perception change for Tucker is a perception change, not only for Abu Dhabi and the UAE, but it’s a perception change for the whole perception of Dubai. The UAE could be even all the whole Middle East that it is not all a war zone. We live in a tough neighborhood, but there are places that are extremely modern, extremely westernized, extremely comfortable to live in, extremely safe, extremely welcoming to doing business. A lot of people don’t understand the texts and centers in Dubai.
1:04:23 All they have to do is do some research. You have no excuse right now. The internet is there. You can watch videos. A lot of people have the opposite perception of Dubai, that this is a wonderland, that there’s a hundred theme parks, that it’s all from social media.
1:04:39 So perception is perception. And unless you experience it yourself, it’s still a hearsay of somebody else. And the more people we have that advertising Dubai and the UAE, and it buzzes weird, the better for us. But end of the day, you have to have your own experience as well. If you are not sure about Dubai, come here. Look at the place, visit the place, take a vacation, you owe it to yourself to do that as well.
1:05:06 So yeah, just come here, experience the UAE, experience Dubai, experience Abu Dhabi, experience Rasaheemah, experience a lot of other immigrants that have a lot of tours of action. I have Westerners that come to Dubai. And the first thing they do is do a rocho. They go to Hatta, for example. And I tell them, like, how did you even know about Hatta?
1:05:28 They say, oh, some friend of mine just went there for, you know, doing one of their attractions or we have this thing called X Dubai, which is like extreme sports. So yeah, a lot of extreme sports, fanatics do a lot of stuff in the mountains here in Hatta. And yeah, so why not find an excuse, come here.
1:05:52 Brian Rose: Well, I’m starting to learn much more about Dubai and the Emirates. I’ve been to Sharjah already. I was out playing with the Tigers out there a couple of days ago. I’ve been petting the dolphins in the water park with my boys. I have an e-foiling around the lagoons of the palm.
1:06:13 I’m going to probably have to the mountains and the desert soon. And I’m just seeing more and more and more. And you always said, come here, not just for a conference or not just for a holiday, but live here. And I’ve been living here now for three weeks. And I was concerned because at a conference, it’s easy to feel the buzz because there’s events every night and you’re here.
1:06:30 But there’s been no conference. And every day, my life is like a movie here. It’s uncanny how I keep bumping into like-minded individuals and people that want to help, they want to network, they want to introduce. And it literally is like a pinball machine. I find just constantly meeting incredible people that all intentionally want to be here to make their life better. And it’s very hard for me to overstate how important that is. Everybody here wakes up and runs every day.
1:07:02 And that energy level is different and everyone feels safe. And that’s different. When I walk around London, I’d say most of the people don’t want to be there. They woke up and didn’t want to run. They woke up and there’s a lot of negativity and it’s just not the same vibe. And so I’m feeling that. I’m really enjoying that. I want to thank you for the Golden Visa. It means a lot to me. And I think it was Spider-Man that once said, with great power comes great responsibility. So count me in on taking up that burden every morning of contributing to this incredible place, which is the Emirates, because I feel like a calling to me to talk about this place and to honestly contribute to this place because it feels like being a privilege here every day. It really does. And I think everyone feels that way, but if they don’t, they should definitely realize that it is a privilege to be here.
1:07:57 You need to follow the rules. And I do think you need to contribute. And I do think there’s almost that feeling that if you’re here, yeah, we expect you to get up and run and be a part of this great vision that we’re going to create together. And it feels great to be in this type of a place. And again, it’s so different than many places I’ve lived before, whether it’s New York City or Los Angeles or London. It’s very energizing. So thank you. And as I said, watch this space because I will be talking more and doing more here going forward.
1:08:33 Marwan Alzarouni: And it’s a pleasure to have you here in Dubai. And it’s a pleasure to have your voice actually representing Dubai and representing what we are all about here in Dubai. And it’s contagious, right? You have a message on your shoulder. The social media is a powerful thing. This platform, London Real, is a powerful thing. And I’ve learned a great deal from you from how to hack your own life, how to develop businesses, great minds that you’ve had on the podcast. And it’s an honor, privilege to be on that platform. As humble as I can be, I consider myself nobody. And I always look forward to working with people and rubbing shoulders against people like yours. And I learned every single day that I spend with you. I learned something new. And it’s an honor and privilege to be invited again to your platform. So thank you.
1:09:28 Brian Rose: It’s my honor. And you have a wry smile like you knew this was going to happen. Look at that smile.
1:09:35 Marwan Alzarouni: No idea. I had no idea. I was very optimistic when you proposed that you have a… And I didn’t know anything about you in the first interview. So I had introduced us the first time. And I was like, yeah, I’ll do the interview. But then I did some research before the interview. And I was like, wow, this guy is really powerful and popular and a really good, good interviewer. And I loved it. And the feedback from the interview that we had first, which is the Merchant of Hope was amazing. And yeah,
1:10:08 It’s a no-brainer for me to be here. But again, I’m humbled to be here.
1:10:12 Brian Rose: Well, thank you. This is Merchant of Hope, part two. Dr. Marwan, you’re a legend. I appreciate you personally and everything else. And we’ll do this again in the future and see where we go from here.
1:10:25 Marwan Alzarouni: All right. All right. Maybe we’ll match Dubai’s record three times.
1:10:29 Brian Rose: Thanks so much for being here. And thanks to Web3 TV for having us. We’ll see you next time on London Real.
