 Fadi Shahadi, ICANN CEO from 2012 to 2016. Fadi, let's jump right into it. Had the IANA stewardship transition not occurred in October 2016, would it have occurred at all? Unlikely in the short term. I think that the assessment we had made before I left was that either administration, whether it would have been a Republican administration or a Clinton administration, would have had difficulty carrying through with the political way that was necessary to get us through the transition. The transition occurred when it did because it was a moment. It was a moment in time where so many things came together to actually make that possible. I think if we had missed that deadline and there were clearly many possible scenarios to miss that deadline, it would have been very hard to recreate that moment again with the same political urgency and frankly political will and commitment to bring that through. Let's deal with that for just a second. Between the time of the announcement, March 2014, Strictly announces, want the global internet community to come up with a transition proposal and when it actually happened in October 2016, was there ever a point when you said to yourself, this isn't going to happen? There were a couple of moments where I was quite worried. One of them had to do with the unity of the community around a proposal and I believed that the unity of our community was necessary not just to produce the proposal but to actually assure and reassure everyone who was concerned about how ICANN will be managed without the role of the US government that this community can hold together. In a way, what Larry said fourth was not just a process to produce a document. It was a process to test the community's metal. Is this a community that will come together in difficult times and form a proposal that they all agree on? There were a couple of moments where our community's unity was truly being tested because we had a lot of interests that needed to be aligned. We had private sector interests. We had also interests from governments and civil society that had to be aligned. The second aspect that worried me at some point was frankly some governments that sincerely and genuinely did not believe that there could be a governance model that is not anchored in the international system as we know it today. They really did not believe so. We have governments that for years had even lobbied for a UN-like structure for what ICANN does. They believed that that's the right way to go. This was not something against ICANN. This is where their years of understanding of how we will agree on things at a global level need to happen. If those governments had continued their deep mistrust and therefore did not come around to say, and frankly I have to give huge credit to governments like China and India and others who came around and at the end said this is the right model and this is remarkable. They could have potentially delayed the transition. So these were the two issues. What was the greater challenge here? Because in my mind the story of the transition is really two stories. It was one, the community coming up with a proposal. The second was getting acceptance both within Washington and globally of the proposal. Which was the greater challenge for you? I had thought that the international community's support of this proposal would be the harder path. But frankly both were equally difficult. Because once we got down to the details that Larry Strickling had asked us to develop, the community found itself in a very, very detailed and complex area of governance and policy and law that frankly is unprecedented. I mean we, in many ways, credit goes to our community for creating what I would call the first ever transnational governance model for real shared resources on a global level. And we did that. We created that governance model. This is the subject of frankly major breakthroughs in global governance. Now the international side was difficult at the beginning because there were, as I said, exiting from the wicket. Some very clear views about what is right and what is possible. And turning that around, as you know very well, Brad, required massive shuttle diplomacy around the world, visiting with global leaders and getting them to A, to get them to B, appreciate and understand the model. What is multi-stakeholder governance? How does it work? And secondly to understand why this is good for their own people, their own economy, their own society. And so we had to build that understanding and deliver one country at a time so we can get them on board. Let's talk about the community for a second. March 14, 2014, Larry Strickling asked for ICANN's help in facilitating a global dialogue on developing a proposal. What he didn't ask for were accountability enhancements. The community brought that up. That became part of the package. Was that a mistake? I think Larry reacted, as he should have, to the community's own concerns about and some government's concerns that the multi-stakeholder model doesn't have enough belts and suspenders to ensure the accountability of the actors within it. And that stems from two areas, as Larry would agree. The first was that, again, there was lack of understanding of our processes. And frankly our processes are not, let's say, legal documented processes. They are processes that grew with the ICANN community and with the Internet community and therefore there was a lot of art in these processes. But that was not sufficient for many people who had not understood how these processes work. And they were concerned that these processes would be rigged or influenced or unclear and the insiders would be able to prevail. And so that was one driver, lack of understanding. The other driver was frankly some of the requirements coming to us from the U.S. government. Even beyond Larry Strickling and NTIA from Congress, from various committees. That were telling us, look, we understand why it is important for the U.S. to finally fulfill its commitment to let ICANN be independent. However, what we do want to make sure is that we have built all the accountability measures that would assure us before we let go that this governance structure you're proposing is actually stable and resilient. Now, to finish answering the question, was it a mistake? I think we could have done all of us, not just Larry, a better job in how we paired the two. The way we paired them put us in a sometimes difficult situation. What does that mean? How we paired them? We made them interdependent to a degree that made, put the whole project potentially in danger. Having said that, I agreed, and most of us agreed, with the purpose of the accountability track, but it added a huge new dimension and interdependencies with the technical work and operational work to complete the transition. We worried at some point that that tight interdependency would delay the transition beyond the point where the moment allowed us. However, we did get through and we finished. I pushed this question to Strickling. He said, well, we included accountability because the community wanted that, but he also expressed surprise. He said, I was on ATRT2, and you could have heard a pen drop. There wasn't a lot of concern or activity. My initial response was kind of, and I'm quoting him here, okay, we'll do this, but where were you around ATRT2? Was that a community feeling and not making that a focal point for improving accountability as opposed to assigning it to the transition? When ATRT2 meetings and activities were taking place, there was no backdrop of a power shift. When you pair that with a power shift, because no matter what we say about the administrative nature of the U.S. role in the IANA functions, having said that, it was clear who is defining that whole power structure. It was the U.S. government. Now, when people realize that the U.S. government indeed is going to cede its shaping of that system, this is called a power shift. Any time there's a power shift, accountability and the methods by which we check on it become heightened in the minds of a lot of people. That's why people woke up and said, hey, we need to look at this now. Yes, where were you when we did a lot of ATRT2? Some were in fairness, many were there, but the whole issue of accountability became central to who is going to check on the new power that this community has. That blip on the radar became brighter, became bigger. Oh, hugely brighter. And again, it shifted. It used to be controlled by a contract that the U.S. government had. Once you shift that to a community, a much broader community, not just NTIA, then suddenly the equation becomes far more complex. That's why accountability measures had to be part of it. We just, I wouldn't say we were surprised by the community's request for that. What we were taken aback by, and this happened in Istanbul, was just the quick interdependency that was built with the transition. And we feared that this could be used by some interests to delay the whole transition. We had no issue with the need for accountability measures. We just were worried about the process and about potential use of it, misuse of it to delay the whole transition. Were you surprised after the transition had been announced, the community comes up with a transition proposal? At that point, things seemed to switch over to the political arena. The legislative branch of the U.S. government, i.e., the U.S. Congress, becomes involved. Did you accurately predict their interest and did you accurately predict the opposition in some quarters to the transition? Yes. I gave the proposal to the U.S. government on my last day at ICANN, March 12th. And when I left the scene, I had, we had already done internally the assessment to understand that in a political season, in an election year, it would be impossible for this to just go through. Because there was a school of thought that said because they're busy with the election and the campaigns, then no one will pay attention and it will just go through the process. I was with several members of my team of the opinion that actually this will be, this will play perfectly into the hands of anyone that wishes to portray this administration as weak or as unable to stand up to global pressure. When, in fact, I can say that today openly, the transition did not occur because of global pressure. The transition occurred because of a number of reasons that made the timing of the U.S. showing the world that a multi-stakeholder model can work on its own, perfectly that. And the wicked opened the door for that because it was now or never, are we going to show the world that the multi-stakeholder model works? Because so long as that model was hinged to a government, then it's not multi-stakeholder. Then it's a single stakeholder who is making sure all the other stakeholders behave. And so the end of that was the vindication of the multi-stakeholder model, of showing that indeed we live in a world where private sector, public sector, and civic sector can come together and actually govern something of value. When we interviewed Vint Cerf, he talked about the early days of ICANN and how Republicans in Congress specifically from years ago frequently had an attitude of sort of we invented it, we own it toward the Internet and toward its governance structure, toward ICANN. Is it fair to say that that lasted for decades right up to the end or is that an inaccurate statement? It is an accurate statement. This is like any parent. I'm a father and I look at my boys who are five inches taller than me and it took a long time for me to say they're not mine and they're not my boys and they have to do what I say. Just there is a moment where as a father you let go and you say these things need to fly and in fact holding them actually takes away from their value. So this is not any different. The US government parented in many ways those institutions including ICANN with great care, with great generosity, with great stewardship and there was a moment where good people on both sides of the eye saw that it was time to show the world what we created and that it's able to stand on its own two feet and that's brilliant. That's brilliant. That was a moment and there were many Republicans who understood that moment. This was not about Democrats, Obama, this was a moment where we engaged in deep dialogue with heads of Senate committees and House committees and we talked about this and they could have put all kinds of impediments for us to not have arrived to the final point but the majority saw the value of this moment as an American moment. As a moment that in my opinion embodies everything about American values, the generosity with which America gave and continues to give to the world, that was that moment and they fulfilled it. There was a lot of talk around the time in 2014, around the time Strickling made the announcement. Yes. About ICANN's maturation. ICANN has now matured to a point where this can happen. When I talked to Vincere and I said, regardless of all this talk about maturation, could this transition have happened earlier? His answer was yes and it probably should have. Is that your sense? Look, I wasn't there earlier. Vint is far more able to answer this accurately. I do believe that several of my predecessors had broached that topic or that project. But as I learned throughout my career, it's timing. It's a moment. There was a moment in the late 2012 through late 2013 where the world enabled that to happen. Is it number of factors? It started at the Wicked in Dubai. The Wicked being the UN conference where governments of the world gather to set basically some treaties for the future of the space. And at that moment in Dubai, in December 2012, it became very clear that those who understood and believed the multi-stakeholder model of governance that has private, public and civic players working together, collaborating, works were actually a minority. They were a minority. And exiting from that the realization that the model we so believe in is actually not understood or embraced by the world became straight in our face as something we need to work on. And then, only a few months later, in early 2013, a mega event caused anything to do with the Internet to become front lines. It was the Snowden Revelation. Once Snowden revealed what he did, the discussion about who controls the Internet and the waves and the calls became not a discussion happening in some small Internet governance circles. It became a discussion happening at the level of heads of state, at the level of CEOs. And so what Snowden did was not to solve or cause the problem. What Snowden's revelations did was to heighten the political focus on this. So much so that if you combine that with what happened at the Wicked only a few months before, there was a moment, frankly, where we felt a crisis. Well, that begs the question. Would the transition have occurred without the Snowden revelations? I think without the Snowden revelations, without the Wicked, without the tremendous growth of the digital economy, which we were witnessing in early 2013, huge. I mean, we went from nothing to a few trillion last year, close to four trillion. All of these things made the moment. But yes, Snowden contributed to that. There is no question that had those revelations not happened, it would have been a different political environment. And that's obviously what led people like, at the time, Angela Merkel talking about a European Internet. And then a German Internet. It led President Rousseff, who traditionally as Brazil does, opening the UN General Assembly in 2013, to call for a new world regime in order to deal with the digital matters. This was quite critical stuff. We've never heard a head of state come in at that level and make such important request. So all of this happened. She made that speech because of Snowden and the revelations that her own phone could have been tapped into. So all of these things led to a huge politicization of the question of who controls the Internet. And that's when we entered a space where it became very critical to figure out where to go next. And I will say something to you here. We had two options at that point. Either every government was going to sit, insist to sit next to the US government in an equal way at the table to, quote, unquote, manage our affairs and govern ICANN. Or, which is the solution we went for, none of them would be in a controlled position, but rather in a co-equal position where they're advising and participating along with the private sector and the civic sector. But there was nothing in between. I think the status quo of one government controlling was being pressured by all these events I mentioned, the wicked and so on and so forth. The idea that ICANN would be handed to all governments in an equal way or some security council-like arrangement to run ICANN was not desirable by most people in the ICANN community. And therefore the only third option was that we actually create a model akin to the International Red Cross, for example, where no one controls. And in fact, I flew to the ICRC headquarters in Geneva and I spent time with them and they shared with me documentation to help me understand, well, how do you create an environment where no one government is in control? Especially that what we do touches every citizen in the world and every human in the world. And therefore, it's not like some small resource on the side. This is something that now affects most of the economy. Let's jump back to the Snowden revelations for just a second. Did the U.S. government, in your interactions with them, was there a perception this is an opportunity, the Snowden revelations, or is this something we have to overcome? It depends whom in the U.S. government. There were people in the U.S. government that viewed the Snowden revelations as frankly a very unfortunate and untimely thing to happen. And there was some reasonable credence to that. There were others who were very, very focused in a microwave on the multi-stakeholder governance model, an open model that includes everybody, et cetera, as what is sacred here. And therefore, they said, if the Snowden revelations would help us cement that model and make it the model for how the world progresses in governing its digital affairs, then let's use that moment so they saw it as an opportunity. But there were both camps. And sometimes I find myself in both camps. But what we did do is we carefully and without, frankly, taking a position on what Snowden did because it's not our role, we actually moved forward with strengthening the case for the multi-stakeholder model and we prevent. Do you regret having taken part in the World Internet Conference in Huzhen, China? That ended up being a huge fear around your trip there. Do you regret that now? No, I don't. And I went back the next year. I think that what I do regret, quite frankly, was that I did not pre-brief, as I should have, my board before accepting the appointment to be Jack Ma's co-chairman on that advisory board. But this was a source of ammunition for many of the opponents of the opposition. You heard it mentioned time and time again on the hill. Yes. Again, we had, if I wanted to be careful as opposed to do the right thing, I would not have gone in order to make sure the transition can finish. Because, in fact, it did stress the transition. It did stress the process. It caused Larry, Strickling, and others more pressure than any of us needed at that point. So, yes, in that regard, it was a risky. But it was very important for me and frankly for ICANN to show that there are a lot of Internet users in that part of the world. And that as we move forward with our plans to make Internet independent, we are not taking sides. We're with a neutral, open, logical infrastructure for the whole Internet. And we committed to make sure that China, Latin America, Brazil, Russia, everyone in the world can leverage that same powerful singularity that the ICANN unique identifiers provide. That was our mission because that's the right thing for the Internet. So, walking away from China may have been a politically cautious thing to do. But walking away from China or any country, however small or big, that makes part of this one world community that ICANN believes in, I think would have been cowardice. And that's why I went, even though I knew that there will be some backlash about being in China. Let me ask you this. When you look back at your tenure at ICANN, what was the most problematic point in your interactions with the U.S. government, whether it be a committee on the Hill, whether it be NTIA, whether it's the transition or any other issue? What was your most problematic point? In the early stages of the transition, which are not yet well documented, this is even before the announcement on March 14th, 2013, 14, even before that announcement. There were some very difficult discussions that we needed to have to reach that point. And there were tense moments. But I think we managed to get there at the end and the announcement was made because it was clear at that time. But there was a very small circle of people having these dialogues and I was frankly orchestrating that so that we can get to a decision for the U.S. to announce this. And that date was also not the original date. The original date of the announcement was to be in September and then it was moved to March 17th. And the reason it moved was the Net Mundial meeting in April in Sao Paulo. So we moved that date so that we can go and meet the global community with that transition announced. And March 17th of course moved to March 14th because there was a leak that caused one major newspaper to want to publish a story on the 14th. That's why our hand was forced to announce on that Friday, unfortunately late on a Friday. And many people, you know, unfortunately and wrongly went after Larry and myself for making that announcement on Friday but you know very well Brad, that was, our hand was forced. We were planning to do it calmly on a Monday and share and have the whole week to. Of course the news conference. Let me ask you this. In hindsight, and I'm sure you've heard this, many people will go, what was the deal with Net Mundial? It was sort of there. It was a flash. It kind of went away. It's off a lot of people's radar. How would you answer that question? Oh my goodness. Net Mundial was the moment where we turned the corner on the global acceptance of the multi-stakeholder model. Remember, wicked. We left the wicked with people saying, ah, this model we're not sure. Net Mundial was a moment when everyone from the secretary general to, of key organizations to representation by tens of governments, by businesses all came together with a presidential presence from President Trusso at the time to back the multi-stakeholder model. That was the moment where everything we worried about at the wicked was turned around. That's when you got the international acceptance. Yes, and of course as a result of that, walking out of the Net Mundial meeting, President Trusso asked to meet me in her private suite. So I went to meet her in the Hyatt in Sao Paulo and we talked and we agreed that now we need to bring many other key governments to publicly also make the same level of commitment to ICANN being the global authority responsible for the logical layer, the logical infrastructure of the Internet to come along. Because President Trusso told me that alone she cannot hold that torch. We need others to come. And of course history will record that this was in April 2014 and in June 2014 China sent its most senior official reporting to the president to the ICANN meeting in London to announce that ICANN is the institution that China will back to manage this. So we had achieved that huge turnaround starting in Net Mundial. If we had not had President Trusso with the success of Net Mundial and the success of the multi-stakeholder model, I don't think China would have come around and later India with his excellency the Indian minister speaking to the ICANN meeting in Buenos Aires and announcing the same thing. How important was that international acceptance to the legislative branch, to Congress? In private, most of our meetings with Senate and the House leaders, I think most of them understood the importance of these positions by those governments even if they're not always governments we agree on in how the digital space should be run. But their agreement at least to maintain one Internet infrastructure was very important. And the way we, and you know we got help from very, very senior public officials or ex-officials in Republican administrations, the positioning that we used which was truthful for why this is important was if we can get all those players all those governments to work with us on one Internet infrastructure at the logical level that it's very good for business. It's very good for societies. It supports our ideals of liberalism and openness and inclusivity and these are if I may say very Republican ideals as well. And so I think they all saw that this was for the public good for the global good and that we should do it together. So I must say of course in hearings as you know very well Brad from your experience as well when you go into hearings it's a different theater and it's a different dynamic, right? I mean I'm not saying what happens in hearings is different from what happens in reality but it's just a different purpose for the hearings. And I thought frankly that every hearing I was subjected to and every question in general I was asked was it very good faith and these experiences I think enlightened all of us, enlightened many senators about our good will, our commitment to American values and an open Internet for everyone that we were not competing with them in whose more American in our approach actually they all came along and gave us much of the green light to move forward because they saw that we are one in our goals. I remember having a conversation with you when the transition was being debated on the Hill and you had asked me you said what do you think is the greatest threat to the transition and my response to you was it becomes a presidential election issue but you never told me your opinion. Was that ever a serious concern of yours? It became a concern after I left on March 12th, not before. I got very worried. You, I was very very focused on the moment when we talked about this you and I Brad and you were looking much further down you were thinking about the election. After I left on March 12th because up to March 12th I had one goal get that proposal in the hands of Mr. Strickland because if we hadn't every day at that point was becoming really really dangerously shortening our window and so I focused entirely on that. Once March 12th passed not only did I give the proposal but I also decided to resign and leave on that day I watched of course as then the presidential campaign was heating up and I must say I did become worried that this would become a political football and I remembered your comment I remembered our conversation and thankfully it didn't because of one thing and only one thing the hard work our community put to get that proposal in the hands of Strickland is unbelievable and I hope somewhere in all of this dialogue people remember the sacrifices that were made by our community. I mean serious sacrifices for those who are watching us here and I don't know I can all of our community are volunteers who put in time to figure that out. Yes we had a lot of help from legal firms but a lot of sacrifices put in had all this work become a political football between candidates it would have been a shame not only because the transition wouldn't have happened but it would have in my opinion taken away a unique and golden opportunity which we got to actually show everyone that there is a different model in the 21st century to actually manage transnational resources and that's I mean as you know I'm now working both at Oxford and Harvard in their government schools as a fellow and this what we did at ICANN is the subject of what I call innovation and governance like nothing that's happened in the last 30-40 years it's very powerful and it actually is serving us now to start thinking how do we govern and build solutions for things like ethical frameworks for artificial intelligence and big data for things like how do we make IoT devices safe when they're deployed all of these things which are upon us now which are not in ICANN's remit we're using the success of our ICANN transition and the governance model that emerged to actually guide us it doesn't mean it's the right one for these issues but it's guiding us so thankfully all of that came together Final question for you if you had to summarize the transition basically forever altered the US government relationship with ICANN Yes Prior to the transition how would you summarize historically ICANN's relationship with the United States government? The US government's role with us was very much and I don't know if many people would believe that but was actually very much limited and defined by what was in the contract so many people thought that there's much more to it they must be, they must have a red line to fight it and tell them do this or don't do that actually that wasn't the case at all in fact the characterization of that relationship by Larry is correct that it was an administrative role and that it was a role that gave the US government the backstop role should ICANN's experiment go back and that gave many people comfort and guarantee that there is a backstop so that was how I would characterize it having said that I think that the presence of the US through that contract in our affairs in my opinion was had to end at some point and the point had come because every day it stayed it basically took away from the credibility of the multistakeholder it basically said this model is okay but we can't leave it alone and that ran counter to everything the founders of ICANN the fathers of the internet believed it they believed that we the people through processes that are clear, transparent and inclusive involving government's advice and business and civil society actually can govern this or manage it right? and so every day the US stayed the message was we can't really let this thing fly yet it can go around in the airport in circles but it cannot fly the moment the US decided to let go and in fact let go it was the clearest message to the whole world and now with Brazil and China and everybody agreeing in India that this model is ready now to manage a resource that maintains the stability of a layer that has become enmeshed in every aspect of society and the economy in the world and that's in my opinion the absolute sweetest thing about this transition in that we were able to make this clear to the world with that I'll thank you very much Fadi for taking the time to talk to us thank you, this was my pleasure good to see you again Brad