How to Kill Corruption With Technology (with President of Estonia Toomas Ilves)

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Under its fourth president, Toomas Ilves, Estonia went from a struggling newly liberated democracy to one of the most technologically sophisticated nations in the world. In this hourlong conversation, Ilves describes what Estonia can teach us about how to fight corruption through technology, truly root out waste and fraud, and empower everyday citizens — and what it looks like when things go the wrong way.

Ilves and I were fellows together at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, where he taught me how Soviet rule — and the kleptocracy and favoritism it made possible — stalled the cultural and economic development of his nation, like fruit in a deep freeze. He’s uniquely qualified to speak to what it’s like when only the powerful and their friends have the good things, and the rest of the population is relegated to a lower status, and he knows better than anyone what’s at stake in the long term when that happens.

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