Ben Gilbert: belief

Transcript context

…The process starts in 1968. It all wraps up in either 1970 or 1971. Importantly, we've talked about antitrust and DOJ a bunch here. You would think that this would be setting off massive alarm bells in Washington and with the Department of Justice. They get ahead of this. Dee goes to see them, and he gives the same pitch to the government. He says, look, obviously, this is the whole industry, all the competitors in the industry colluding to work together. That's the whole premise of the organization. But what we can create by doing this would not be possible otherwise, and it will be so profoundly useful and important to the American consumer and American businesses that it is worth you letting us do this. They actually get a letter from the DOJ saying, hall pass, you're good on this one. Wow, it's just like the Presidential exceptions for the NFL, an antitrust exemption where, yeah, we're amenable to the fact that you're collaborating, potentially colluding, but it is actually one of the things that we believe will make the country better, so go for it. America wants both its football and its credit cards. Amazing. That was a key point and then going and convincing all the other banks to sign up for this, because that was one of the first questions they asked. Hey, if we do this, aren't we inviting the DOJ on our backs. Dee is able to say, nope, got the letter right here, we're good.…

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