Josh Sirefman
CEO, Michigan Central
Innovation can’t really happen without collaboration. We’re building an environment where people — technologists, artists, entrepreneurs — are constantly encountering others. That’s where new ideas come from.
Summary
In this episode of Leadership Matters, Alan Fleischmann sits down with Josh Sirefman, a pioneering urban strategist and the CEO of Michigan Central, to explore what it takes to reshape cities for the 21st century. With roots in New York and a career spanning public service, private enterprise, and tech innovation, Sirefman shares his journey from early community development work in Detroit to co-founding Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs, to now leading one of the most ambitious urban transformation efforts in America.
Mentions & Resources
Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story by David Maraniss
Guest Bio
Joshua Sirefman is the Chief Executive Officer of Michigan Central, a 30-acre tech and cultural hub where leaders, thinkers, communities, and creatives come together to accelerate bold ideas and technologies that shape our collective future.
Previously, Sirefman co-founded and served as president of Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs. He also founded and led a development services firm that oversaw complex, large-scale projects for corporate, nonprofits, and government entities, including creating Cornell University’s tech program in New York City and developing its Roosevelt Island campus.
Sirefman has held key leadership roles, including leading former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s economic development team, as well as Senior Vice President at Brookfield Properties, where he oversaw U.S. development.
A native of New York, Sirefman’s career started in Detroit, where he transformed a declining industrial corridor into a model urban area with Islandview Village Development Corporation and co-designing grassroots industrial retention programs with the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation.
He is an active board member of the New York Restoration Project, Fist & Heel Performance Group, and the University of Michigan’s Taubman College Urban Tech Program Advisory Board.
Sirefman earned a master’s degree in Urban Planning from the University of Michigan and a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University.
Transcript
Alan Fleischmann
Welcome to Leadership Matters on SiriusXM and at leadershipmattersshow.com. I’m your host, Alan Fleischmann. I’m joined today by a visionary in urban innovation and public-private collaboration, Josh Sirefman.
Over his career, Josh has worked to revitalize neighborhoods in Detroit and New York City; co-founded Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs; and now is leading Michigan Central — an incredible innovation hub powered by Ford that is defining the future of global mobility. With decades of work across government, the private sector, tech, and development, Josh brings a unique blend of policy insight, entrepreneurial grit, and empathy to everything he does. He has consistently been at the forefront of rethinking how cities grow, move, and thrive.
I’m excited to have Josh on today to discuss his personal and career journey, his vision for the future of inclusive innovation, his insights on encouraging economic and technological development in cities, and the many lessons in leadership he’s learned along the way.
Josh, welcome to the show.
Josh Sirefman
Great to be here. Thank you.
Alan Fleischmann
I love the boldness of your career, I’ll say it that way — you’re taking on big, big challenges. The only way we’re going to save capitalism and save democracy, in so many ways, is if we really make our communities thrive, not just survive. And I love that you take that on. It’s cultural. You take it on from an economic development point of view to actually build community, how we actually build places where people can come together — because so much in life right now separates us, and we’re not really together physically as we ought to be. That’s your life.
Let’s start with your early life. You’re born and raised in New York City. Tell us a little bit about what life was like around the house. What did your parents do? Any brothers or sisters? Anything else special about the place you grew up?
Josh Sirefman
Yeah. Born and raised in New York — Brooklyn and Long Island. Two older sisters. My father was an arbitrator. My mother ran a doctor’s office. It was a household that loved cities, and I think you’ve seen that for all of us. One of my siblings is in the architectural field, and I think it really impacted all of us.
But it was also a household of intellectual curiosity. And I think that is a theme for me — even when you’re young and you resist these things — a theme that as I got older and matured, I came to understand is critical to everything. If you don’t have that, that’s a bad thing.
Alan Fleischmann
So where did you go to high school? Anything stand out about elementary, junior, high school life?
Josh Sirefman
No. I have no memories of that. [laughs]
Alan Fleischmann
But you went to Wesleyan, so you probably remember that. It’s an amazing university actually — John Hickenlooper, who actually I started the show with, was a Wesleyan graduate as well. It’s interesting, because I know so many people who loved it. Michael Roth is the president. I know that as well.
I thought it was interesting that you majored in African American Studies.
Josh Sirefman
I mean, first — Michael Roth, I think these days, is maybe in one of the most difficult leadership roles in the country right now, running a university. I think Michael’s done a phenomenal job, just extraordinary, both for Wesleyan and for the broader space.
When I was there, I didn’t know what I was going to study when I went into college. Honestly, the whole time there, my real aspiration was to become a musician. I was a drummer, and I thought that was the direction I’d go. But then I found all these classes — Wesleyan has an American Studies and African American Studies program. I loved them. And it was all these subjects that I just had a natural interest in. And so I just went with it.
It was Wesleyan, so I was also trained that the profit motive is bad. So it’s not like I was there thinking, “What am I going to study that’s going to set me off on a career?” It was really, “What do I find interesting and truly compelling?” It was extraordinary for that.
And I will say this, Alan — I find that Wesleyan graduates have an ability to think critically that I thought was very powerful in the teaching there, and I really valued that.
Alan Fleischmann
What was it — the way they taught you, I mean — which you probably didn’t know was different when you were in it, but you now realize it?
Josh Sirefman
Yeah. I’m not even sure I could honestly describe it, but it’s constant questioning. It’s really critical analysis. It’s, “How do you know what you know?” How do you search for truth within something? Questioning your ongoing assumptions. How do you communicate? How do you write? How do you organize thoughts?
I’ve just found that my entire career, that foundation has been very, very useful.
Alan Fleischmann
That’s very cool. Any mentors at Wesleyan?
Josh Sirefman
You know, I look back — I have an 18-year-old who’s going to be a college freshman in the fall, and going back and looking at schools — I’m not the only one to say this — I just can’t believe how much I didn’t take advantage of. I played in bands. I was very focused on the music and other things. So I was shy academically, I didn’t seek out mentors. It really wasn’t until later that I started understanding that one could find mentors and then actually finding them.
Alan Fleischmann
Curious — where’s your 18-year-old going to college this year?
Josh Sirefman
She is going to be a freshman at the University of Michigan. She chose day one that that’s where she wanted to go, and it’s amazingly exciting.
Alan Fleischmann
I have a nephew and two nieces — one who’s currently a junior at Ann Arbor at University of Michigan. And a nephew who graduated two years ago and a niece who graduated four years ago. So a lot of University of Michigan in our family. A nephew is actually going there now as well.
But you also went to University of Michigan. You got your master’s there in urban planning, so that’s where, I guess, you began the journey to get involved in what became a lifelong career.
Josh Sirefman
Yeah, it’s absolutely true. I mentioned before — I graduated from Wesleyan with this notion that somehow the profit motive was a bad thing. So I worked in the arts field for a few years, and I had sort of summarily dismissed getting an MBA or a law degree. I look back now, it’s sort of absurd, but it was what it was.
But I decided it was time, and there was a lot of pressure from the parents. I decided it was time to go back to school. And I found this thing called urban planning that, frankly, I’d never even heard of. I didn’t know what it was. But as I read through all the courses, it was all the things I was interested in. It sort of picked up where I left off in my studies at Wesleyan. So I went, got a master’s in urban planning. And that was really a turning point for me. That’s where the start of my career began. I got very involved in Detroit as part of that, and that started things.
Alan Fleischmann
And was it a two-year master’s degree?
Josh Sirefman
Yes, a two-year program.
Alan Fleischmann
And that’s when you went to work at Island View Village Development Corporation.
Josh Sirefman
I started that while getting my degree. One of the things was, at that time, I got very interested in Detroit. There were a couple of faculty members who had strong ties, but as a university and as a program, they had not yet really established strong ties to Detroit. So myself and a couple other students sort of found our own path to get involved.
I ended up getting funding… The Clinton-era big urban program was something called called Empowerment Zones. And in 1994, Detroit got awarded an Empowerment Zone. They also started the AmeriCorps program. So I got funding, while I was still in school, through the AmeriCorps program to work at a community development corporation on the east side of Detroit. So I started during school, and then continued when I finished, and then went to the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation.
Alan Fleischmann
That’s very cool. And that was really a major change of things — the Empowerment Zones, attracting folks, finding incentives, bringing people together. I remember Andrew Cuomo was a part of that, I think in the second term. But the first term was someone else.
Josh Sirefman
I believe it was Henry Cisneros at the time.
Alan Fleischmann
That’s right. So then you stayed in Detroit?
Josh Sirefman
No. So I fell in love with Detroit, I really did. But two things happened. One, for family reasons, I wanted to go back to New York. And two, if I’m being honest, in Detroit in the early to mid-’90s, it was a little hard to build a social life. I was young and wanted to be doing stuff. So those two things conspired, and I ended up moving back to New York. And then didn’t come back to Detroit until round two here at Michigan Central, many years later.
You mentioned something about mentors earlier, and the first real mentor that I had was when I worked at Island View Village Development Corporation. There was a man who ran it — and was the sole employee other than me when I joined — was a man named Donald Softley. And Donald was truly extraordinary. He’s no longer alive, but Donald was the first person who really taught me — I know it sounds like a cliché — how to follow the money and understand power dynamics, understand things like representation and inclusion. How to understand community-based development, how to understand big city politics. A whole bunch of things.
He was an extraordinary individual, and for me, truly my first mentor. He was based in Detroit. He ran Island View Village Development Corporation. He lived in the same neighborhood, worked out of the basement of St. Charles Borromeo Church on Baldwin Street on the east side of Detroit. It was a very formative experience for me.
Alan Fleischmann
So even during brief period where you actually left to go back to New York, you yearned for going back.
Josh Sirefman
I did. I always wanted to do something, be involved again in Detroit. Life takes off, and things conspire. It took quite a while to find the right thing, but eventually…
Alan Fleischmann
And was that the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation?
Josh Sirefman
No, that was the last job I had in Detroit before I moved back to New York.
Alan Fleischmann
Got it. What was the right thing? Then you joined New York City’s Economic Development Corporation, and you worked with some pretty legendary people there too.
Josh Sirefman
I did. Although — if we’re going to be accurate about the path — I may be the only person who’s worked at the New York City Economic Development Corporation three times.
The first time, Giuliani was there. I started as a project manager, and the only real economic development that the Giuliani administration focused on was baseball. So I ended up working on and reporting to City Hall on what became the two minor league ballparks in New York, and then what preceded, later under the Bloomberg years, the start of new stadiums for the Yankees and the Mets. So that was my first stint.
Then I actually went into the private sector. There’s a niche consulting firm focused on this kind of work — economic development, complex real estate, public-private — called HRNA. I was there for a few years before I went back into government.
I got to work on things there that have had a very lasting impact for both my career and my personal life. For example, if you know New York well, the transformation of the Brooklyn waterfront. There’s a project called Brooklyn Bridge Park, which is one of the great public spaces in the world. When I was at HRNA, I was the project manager for the process to create the plan for it. Then when I ended up going back into government in the Bloomberg administration, I got to really lead making it happen.
So it’s a good example of how my career has been across all these boundaries, but they all tend to come together.
Alan Fleischmann
And then you worked with Dan Doctoroff?
Josh Sirefman
Yes. So on the subject of mentors, we get into one of the greatest of all time.
When I went back into government, first I was back at EDC as Chief Operating Officer, working with an amazing individual named Andy Alper, who had spent his entire career — 20-something years — at Goldman Sachs, and then all of a sudden decided to take on this public sector experience. Andy remains a great influence, mentor, and friend for me.
We worked closely with Dan, who was deputy mayor. And then I went from EDC into City Hall as Dan’s Chief of Staff. Dan is a true force. He and I have had two professional collaborations — first working in city government under Mike Bloomberg, and then years later, we co-founded a company called Sidewalk Labs. We don’t have enough time for the lessons learned from Dan. His ability to drive transformation at an extraordinary level is remarkable.
I should mention, that time period was an embarrassment of riches. I look back now and I’m so grateful for the experience. I’m not sure we knew at the time how special it was, but Mike Bloomberg was phenomenal. He allowed us to do things that will have generations of impact.
Alan Fleischmann
Really, one of his great imprints and legacy was his ability to hire great talent, people who really had an urgency for doing things quickly and creating change.
Josh Sirefman
100%. And interestingly, that was married with an encouragement to take the long view. And when you do this kind of work… Dan always talks about, and I think it’s something a bunch of us have adopted, having to work on two speeds at the same time, all the time. Balancing patience and urgency in everything. Mike really created an environment that encouraged that.
Alan Fleischmann
The tactical urgency of getting something done, but strategically — I mean, you look at the High Line, you look at the transformation of parts of the city that, frankly, were vacant warehouses, and now there’s something there. It’s incredible.
Josh Sirefman
This is one of my own guiding principles, and it’s true here at Michigan Central — every step you take, if you want to do something differently, the pressure to conform to the norm is relentless. It’s at the most tactical levels and at the strategic level. It’s tiny things and it’s major things. So you have to constantly have that urgency for every single step. You’ve got to keep going. You’ve got to move. But you have to have the patience, recognizing that you’re living within these systems, that you may be disrupting them, but you’re not going to get there if you don’t understand how to navigate that. So patience and urgency is a critical thing for me.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. And you got to experience, also, that you can be in government and be part of extraordinary innovation. You can be part of the private sector where you’re part of that as well. But not everybody understands how incredibly innovative government is and can be.
Josh Sirefman
Yeah. And no question, there are things we didn’t get right, things that looking back we could have done differently. But the volume of what we accomplished and the impact for so many people, it was extraordinary.
Alan Fleischmann
When you go through these places where you had such impact — and you should tell us a little about the projects themselves — you must feel an enormous sense of pride, because they’re physical. You can actually say you helped make this happen.
I saw the interview on 60 Minutes this weekend with Barry Diller, and he was walking at the High Line — I guess he was one of the investors or donors. He was explaining what a great legacy of his giving it was — that he can walk and see the city through that. And that’s something you guys created.
Josh Sirefman
Yeah, it’s truly rewarding, and I have many, including Brooklyn Bridge Park. I mentioned my daughter — when she was little, she called it “Daddy’s Park.” Governor’s Island — I did the deal with the federal government when New York City and New York State together bought it from the federal government. Cornell Tech — that was later in my career, but deeply involved in every aspect of Cornell Tech happening. I’ve had a long relationship with the High Line, the transformation of downtown Brooklyn. There’s a ton in New York. I could keep going on — there’s this incredible physical manifestation of my work.
Later, I had the opportunity to help lead an effort with the University of Chicago to create a vibrant commercial district in Hyde Park. I go back every now and then just to see, and it’s thriving. It’s incredibly rewarding to see that.
Alan Fleischmann
That’s so cool. How long were you in government before you started your own firm?
Josh Sirefman
Well, I was with the Bloomberg administration for five years. Then actually, before starting my own firm, I went from that to a large commercial real estate company, Brookfield Properties.
At Brookfield, I oversaw developments in the US, and that was an important experience for me, it was an incredible education. For me, that was the first time where I was in a position where you’re really focused on the responsibility of stewarding capital. When I started at Brookfield, development was the hot growth area trying to catch up. They had a large portfolio of development opportunities for quite a while. So it was a crash course in what it means to be managing things from the capital side.
That was great. Then the world ended — the financial meltdown, and development became, instead of this hot growth area, something where we couldn’t finance anything. It really got quiet. So I went out on my own, and that’s when I started my company. I will confess that I had no plan. I didn’t know exactly what it was going to be. It just kind of organically evolved into something really special.
I essentially became what I would describe as a rented CEO for transformative projects — for entities that didn’t have the capacity on their own to do that. Multi-year engagements. I deliberately didn’t want to build a consulting firm. I wanted to really have impact and be involved. I love the complicated stuff, where the impact is going to be big, there are lots of different variables and involved parties and stakeholders. The real estate is the foundation of it, but it’s really about transformation of place.
So I built this business where I got to do that. The University of Chicago work was through that. And for Cornell, when New York City, still under Mike’s leadership, wanted to attract a new Applied Sciences graduate program to really be a talent catalyst for the then-burgeoning tech ecosystem in New York. They offered up land and money to universities, and it really sparked interest. I think part of that was, it was extremely well thought out and crafted by the city. Part of it was that Mike Bloomberg himself really embracing it and being a spokesperson for it. Cornell University was very eager, and I ended up helping lead Cornell’s bid. We won, it came down to Cornell and Stanford.
Alan Fleischmann
It was such a shock. No one expected it at all.
Josh Sirefman
Well, we did. We had an amazing group and we were very deliberate in our strategy.
What’s interesting is, at the end of the day, the institution that had a strategic and compelling reason to pursue it emerged. For Cornell, there was a very strong feeling that they had to have an increased presence in the city and that it would help them, given Ithaca is a bit removed. I don’t know how they feel about it now, but at the time, there was a very strong strategic interest. But we also had a great strategy, and we ended up winning.
At the time, Cornell also wanted to create this new program and campus, but had a policy of not taking on new debt. So so several of the buildings of the campus on Roosevelt Island — the Cornell Tech campus — are partnership deals with developers that I structured and negotiated.
So, things like that. I worked with the New York Public Library, which was the only time not doing something was the right answer. They were in this incredible situation. Coming out of the mid-2000s, they’d done an analysis with management consulting folks and the board, basically saying that the information age and digital transformation would reduce the need for space for libraries. One consequence of this was that they could downsize the facilities in Midtown, including the central building on 42nd and Fifth, and sell the biggest circulating library across the street and put it inside what had been the historic space.
Long story short, for whatever reason, this whole idea became like the greatest enemy for the international literary set. They spent a decade trying to make it happen, then decided they needed a professional. I came in, and it was interesting — what we actually discovered was that things were not quite what they seemed. The best path forward was actually to not do it. So that was an incredible experience, of having to tell a powerhouse New York board that what they had thought was the strategy and the truth was actually different. Tony Marx, who’s still the president there, was great. He and I together really advanced not proceeding with it.
So that was the company — taking on these multi-year projects where it was really more about leading these things. And the combination of what I brought — being both inside and outside — was what was needed to move them forward.
Alan Fleischmann
So cool. How long did you have your own firm?
Josh Sirefman
Depending on when you stop the clock, that was around seven years. Then Dan Doctoroff got a call from some of the folks at Google — they had not yet created Alphabet.
Dan had gone on, post-city government, to run Bloomberg the company, and then had decided he was going to move on from that. So people were reaching out. Some folks at Google reached out and said they’d been thinking about cities, and that Larry Page had been thinking about cities. Dan called me and said, “I don’t know what this is, but this sounds interesting. Do you want to explore it?” So we ended up exploring that together, and eventually there was a moment where I said, “I’m no longer doing my company and I’m doing this.” It just sort of took over. We created our company, and I had a job suddenly.
So that period on my own was somewhere in the six to seven years.
Alan Fleischmann
That’s cool. And that firm was not just New York-based, obviously — it was your base, but it was borderless in its work.
Josh Sirefman
Yes, that’s correct. I was based in New York, but took on things wherever. The work is interesting, no matter where it is.
Alan Fleischmann
Then tell us a little bit about what brought you back to Detroit. Is that the next iteration?
Josh Sirefman
Well, so there was Sidewalk Labs first.
Alan Fleischmann
Oh yeah, tell us a little bit more about that.
Josh Sirefman
So, it was probably the most intense learning experience of my career. The fundamental idea was, we had all of this capability that technology has enabled, and we’re not really applying it to how we think about city building, city shaping, addressing the major challenges of our time — whether it be climate, whether it be affordability. The main urban challenges we’re facing.
So we started really delving into what would be possible if you could, in fact, leverage technology. We started by deciding that we would focus on this at a district level, meaning there was a way to think differently about a neighborhood scale — how you could create urban places and opportunity for people. We spent a year coming up with a vision for this, which we brought to Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Then that vision was the basis for everything forward at Sidewalk.
We got a lot of attention — we were approached by some folks in Toronto who control the waterfront about engaging in a project like that there. That took on a life of its own and was an incredibly interesting experience. But it overshadows what was the broader impact of the work at Sidewalk Labs, which, in many ways, was on the front lines of urban innovation and thinking about how we do things differently in cities. We created a number of companies that we spun out. We had a number of insights that have now informed things happening all around the world. We had an incredible array of talent that is now all over the world. Some things we created got absorbed into Google.
But the learning was crazy. I’d grown up as an urbanist, with an understanding of how to do big things in cities. You then have to merge with people who understand technology. We’ve come a long way, all of us, in the last five or six years. But when we started this, those two worlds had not really come together. So it was a very intense learning experience, very challenging, with one of the smartest groups of people.
I think one of the things that Dan and I both loved is that — to your point about talent — when we were at the city, we had an incredible team of amazing people, and at Sidewalk we were able to do that again. That’s a rare and wonderful gift to be able to have a team like that. Though it can also drive you crazy. Smart people, everybody has an opinion.
Alan Fleischmann
When you’re with creative people who have a calling, it can be hard.
Josh Sirefman
It’s extraordinary. Then when you throw in the tech types and the software engineers — it was an adventure.
Then, shortly after COVID had started, I decided I was going to step back from Sidewalk. I didn’t really know what I was going to do. Didn’t have a plan, just wanted to take a little time — really, the first break I’d taken in many years.
I was dabbling — Senior Advisor for McKinsey’s real estate team on various things, helping friends. Dan and I actually put a proposal together for something. Then I got a call from the folks at Ford about Michigan Central. And for me, it was perfect — all things coming together. It had three ingredients that were irresistible for me.
One, the context of being in Detroit. I’d always wanted to come back to Detroit, and this was an opportunity of that with scale.
Second, it centered around physical assets that have outsized importance and value. The former train station that is the center point of Michigan Central, as well as a great warehouse building right next to it — for decades these have been symbols of the death of Detroit, the death of the American city. It was overly used as outside statements. But there are incredible opportunities to think about reinventing what they can do.
The third is, a pretty extraordinary investment from Ford Motor Company to catalyze something unique.
You don’t get that combination — those things don’t grow on trees. So for me, it was the perfect thing. As cliché as it is, it sort of feels like I’ve been training my whole career for this. It pulls together literally every aspect.
What we’re building here is a true hub of talent focused on innovation. It’s complicated real estate at its core. It’s public-private. It touches literally every aspect of things I’ve been involved in.
Alan Fleischmann
Was it easy to move back?
Josh Sirefman
Yeah. I mean, because of the child I mentioned before, I did not want to disrupt her school situation. I have, for multiple years now, actually split my time going back and forth between New York and Detroit. With her enrollment at the University of Michigan, it will allow me to maybe reduce some of the back and forth.
But yeah, it was fantastic to re-engage in Detroit. If you know Detroit — in some ways, extraordinary, amazing, things have happened here. Many things have changed. Some things have not. There’s still a long road. It’s a very special, unique city. I’m not sure I have the right words to describe why that is, but it’s great to be back.
Alan Fleischmann
Are different cities looking to you? Are they coming to you? I think what you’re doing in Detroit is so innovative and so exciting and challenging. Are there other cities for whom it is logical to come to you?
Josh Sirefman
Oh yeah, it’s been extraordinary. We’ve had folks from around the country and around the world reach out to us and come visit to see what we’re doing at Michigan Central. And more broadly; a lot of other folks are doing amazing work in Detroit. So yeah, absolutely.
The station is such an iconic building and symbol — we’ve had an extraordinary amount of media interest from around the world. I think one of the impacts of that, which has been extremely important, is that I think we’ve helped shift that national and global narrative about Detroit. And as a consequence, we see a huge amount of interest from folks all over.
Alan Fleischmann
Because people see, if you can do it there, you can do it anywhere. That’s not entirely true — everyone knows there are challenges, but there are also opportunities that are uniquely Detroit as well.
Josh Sirefman
I think that’s right. It’s also been both misrepresented and misunderstood by many for many years. There are extraordinary things that have always been here. The work that’s happening now is just building on that foundation and expanding further.
Alan Fleischmann
That’s so cool. How do you get your talent, and how many people work there?
Josh Sirefman
We’re a team of around 50 people. It’s a mix of local and being able to attract people from elsewhere. Part of building that profile is therefore being able to attract talent.
What we’re doing is both complicated and different than most other things, so it takes a team with a lot of different skills and different backgrounds. We’ve also greatly valued having a team that reflects the diversity of Detroit and the diversity of what’s needed to create what we describe as a tech and culture hub here at Michigan Central. So I’ve attracted talent from around the country and also tried to find the best talent here in Detroit.
Alan Fleischmann
How much is your work dependent on federal government as well?
Josh Sirefman
Mostly indirectly. If you think about really focusing on legitimate innovation in fields like advanced manufacturing, mobility, energy — whatever space it is — these things where the federal government’s policy has changed quite dramatically — immigration policy, research, university research — will have a trickle-down effect for all of us. We see things like that. But in the day-to-day work we do, the local city and state relationships are much more important.
It’s important to give context for what Michigan Central is. I mentioned this investment from Ford. It’s really unique, because that investment is with the intent of creating what I would describe as an open platform — meaning it’s actually meant to create a hub of activity that includes many, many companies. It’s not about Ford in that sense. My business objective is for it to be self-sufficient, so that it can keep growing this ecosystem that we’re creating. We’ve got a couple hundred companies here at Michigan Central already and continue to grow.
The underlying concept is that, in addition to attracting all of that talent, we also have to create an environment that the talent wants to be in, and that also engages a community around it. That’s why we put an emphasis on both building up this tech ecosystem and really becoming a hub of culture — providing all kinds of reasons for people to reactivate these buildings and the area around them. Over time, we hope to grow this into literally a world-leading epicenter of innovation and activity.
Alan Fleischmann
That’s so cool. I love it. When you say the vision… If you compare where we are today in Detroit and what you imagine — know it’s hard to see without renderings — what do you imagine it looking like, and how long do you think it’ll take?
Josh Sirefman
So we’ve already got the first building that we launched — what we call New Lab at Michigan Central. We have a partnership with an entity called New Lab and multiple others to grow this innovation ecosystem. We’ve got almost 1,000 people working in that building.
Then we launched the station, where we’ve got an incredible array of things happening — from events to public programming to music to tours. We’re close to announcing the hotel that will be in there. We’ve got Ford as a commercial tenant. We’ve got Detroit youth working on innovation in partnership with Google and the local nonprofit Boys and Girls Club of Southeast Michigan. So we’ve got an array of activity there, and that will just continue to grow.
Then we have real scale potential. We have additional properties around us. We have partnerships. This will become truly a thriving center of innovation — an urban campus, if you will — of an incredibly diverse array of activities that I think you just don’t find anywhere. It’s not a university. It’s not a government-led thing. It’s really its own model.
Alan Fleischmann
Are you getting the support you need from the governor, the mayor, and city councils? And is crime going down — are the stats changing as you’re building?
Josh Sirefman
We get incredible support from the mayor in Detroit and the entire city team, the city council, from Governor Whitmer, and all the state entities. We have tremendous relationships and tremendous support.
It’s a fiction, in my view, that Detroit is not safe. It’s extraordinary what Mayor Duggan and his team have accomplished here, building on what others did before. It’s a thriving, vibrant, dynamic city. We always tell people, you’ve got to come visit. You’ve got to see it, because every time you get that “Wait — I had no idea, this is amazing” reaction. So you should come see it.
Alan Fleischmann
I definitely want to come see it. I went not long ago — I think Forbes did a 30 Under 30 big gathering a few years ago and I was one of the speakers. That was exciting. I got to see and hear about all the stuff that was happening there. And I know that folks in the car industry have talked about all this innovation that’s happening there as well.
Josh Sirefman
What’s happening that’s super exciting is that, in a lot of ways, there is a new competitive advantage emerging for Detroit. You have this base of talent from the auto industry, and now the ability to advance ideas in the Detroit context is very advantageous. If you’re an entrepreneur, it’s a great environment to be in. So what you’re seeing now is the next phase — it was once this incredible center of entrepreneurship and innovation, and you’re seeing an entirely new version of that, literally 100 years later. But it’s really exciting to see that start to emerge.
Alan Fleischmann
How does it work with artificial intelligence and AI — things changing job-wise, as the workforce starts to adapt? What does it end up looking like, and how does that fit into your planning?
Josh Sirefman
AI is a tool — there are tons of companies here at Michigan Central where AI is either an inherent tool within what they’re developing, or what they’re developing is, in fact, an application of AI. I think none of us know all the answers. But what I get to see from the Michigan Central vantage point is that as much as it is a tool that could replace people in some things, it’s also something that’s creating new opportunities and new jobs. We see it all the time, and it’s an important factor.
One of the things we love to do at Michigan Central is use the platform here to also become a center of thought and research — applied research on AI and how it can apply, whether in mobility and energy. We also do a lot with the universities. So there’s a lot of potential for it as a critical element of everything that goes on here.
Alan Fleischmann
As you’re thinking about the innovation and creation, how much of it is about curation of culture too?
Josh Sirefman
A fair amount, because it’s also about creating this dynamic environment. One of the foundations of Michigan Central is this notion that innovation can’t really happen without collaboration. So we’re also trying to create an environment where people are constantly encountering others.
Culture is a part of that environment. We think a lot about creating an innovation ecosystem that’s not just about a bunch of software engineers. Artists are innovators too. You can apply culture across many ways. What we’re trying to do is create an environment that’s rich in culture, knowing that that helps foster thinking differently. It helps foster collaboration — people encountering things they had not seen or thought before.
I hear all the time about entrepreneurs and their companies here: “We met so and so doing this,” or “We went to this experience and it changed things.” So it’s this ability to convene folks across culture and technology that’s at the heart of it.
Alan Fleischmann
That’s actually really cool. Because at the end of the day, it’s about building community and building culture, about really connecting in collaboration, so that we can invent.
Josh Sirefman
To your point at the start of our conversation — in some ways, it’s more important now than ever.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah. I think people are feeling more isolated, more lonely. People are feeling less coordinated, honestly, less communicative with people. Even though we’re on social media, in some ways, you’re talking more to yourself than you are to others. It doesn’t feel the same as when we’re looking each other in the eye and we’re walking down the street, we’re having a talk, planning a business, or talking about schools, things like that.
Josh Sirefman
Exactly right.
Alan Fleischmann
How much time do you spend mentoring people now? And when you do, what do you say to them? What do you say to the 18-year-old — like your daughter — or to the young person who’s early in their career, or the person in the middle of their career?
Josh Sirefman
Well, for the 18-year-old, I have to be super crafty so it doesn’t seem like I’m trying to mentor her.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, exactly. I understand.
Josh Sirefman
I do spend a lot of time — and I hope it’s viewed as mentoring — across the entirety of the Michigan Central team and for lots of others.
It’s a good question. I try to guide people on how to push themselves further, how to think strategically, how to move things forward in a complicated environment, how to balance complicated variables. If I have one skill, it’s understanding how to move something super complicated forward. So I try to find ways to help folks understand for themselves: How do you do that? How do you think about all this array of complexity around them?
Alan Fleischmann
And do you urge people to go to urban planning? Is that the right degree today to do what you do?
Josh Sirefman
It’s interesting. Actually — shameless pitch — my daughter is enrolled in a program at the University of Michigan that’s four years old now, created by a former colleague of mine, called Urban Technology. If anybody comes to me for counsel on what kind of education they should pursue, I think urban planning at this point in time is not enough on its own. What I love about the Urban Technology program is that it’s intended to provide graduates with the comfort level and fluency of understanding in tech and technology. It doesn’t mean they have to become coders or software engineers, or be technologists. It’s just such an incredibly important, critical aspect, and increasingly will be, of everything we do.
We saw this at Sidewalk Labs all the time, there was nowhere that was training folks this way. But every now and then, we’d find a true unicorn — somebody who had an understanding of urban issues, policy, development, and planning, but who also understood technology.
So now I say: you’ve got to understand finance. You’ve got to understand how the dollars work. I don’t think planning education is enough on its own for that. And if you can understand technology — I think that’s super powerful.
Alan Fleischmann
And you need education to do this? Or can you just dive right in?
Josh Sirefman
I’m a believer in the value of education. Are there people talented and capable enough to dive right in? Sure. But I think you’ll always find it will broaden your perspective, broaden your way of thinking. So I’m an advocate. I think there’s a high value in education.
Alan Fleischmann
I’m curious also if internships are a thing that people should do too. I’ll tell you why: I have a child who actually does love urban planning. Years ago, I read a book — I don’t think the author has stood the test of time, but it was called The Geography of Nowhere. It was a great book. And it really talked about building sidewalks and creating garages that were behind the house, not in front. I think it was a northern Florida neighborhood.
Josh Sirefman
Celebration — which Disney had been involved in.
Alan Fleischmann
Yes. How to actually build a neighborhood, build a community.
Josh Sirefman
Yeah. It was part of, at the time, what was called the New Urbanism movement. But it was also one of the first books really talking about sprawl and the implications of it.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah. The idea that design and architecture can actually change everything about the community. What might look convenient on one end — if I have the garage where it is, you run into the kitchen, unload — doesn’t necessarily encourage community, in the sense of knowing your neighbor, communicating with your neighbor, and kind of being on a shared life journey together.
Josh Sirefman
Yeah. But to your question — I think internships are great. The more exposure people get, the better. It’s only additive.
Alan Fleischmann
What didn’t I ask you, Josh, that I should have asked you on this show?
Josh Sirefman
I don’t know. We got to talk about Michigan Central. I think you covered a lot of things.
Alan Fleischmann
Are you on any boards that we should know about as well?
Josh Sirefman
I’m on a couple of boards now. I usually have two to three.
Two nonprofit boards in New York. One is an organization called the New York Restoration Project, which is really an incredible organization that creates and manages hundreds of parks throughout New York City, particularly parks and community gardens in neighborhoods that are underparked and don’t have a lot of green space in the city system.
And for many years I’ve been on my friend Reggie Wilson’s board, he’s an amazing choreographer. I’m not on any corporate boards at the moment, but at some point in time when I go back to dabbling, that would be a lovely thing to do. I’ve got my hands full right now.
Alan Fleischmann
That’s very exciting. It’s such a pleasure.
You’re listening to Leadership Matters on SiriusXM and at leadershipmattersshow.com. I’m your host, Alan Fleischmann. We just spent the last hour with Josh Sirefman, the CEO of Michigan Central. You’ve been an incredible innovator with an amazing legacy of impact in New York, in Detroit — practically influencing other parts of the country for sure as well.
I have one last question. If there were one or two books that you would recommend to someone who’s interested in being on a mission like this — either professionally or just being supportive — what would those books be? For the layman and for those who really want to dive in?
Josh Sirefman
Well, I’m going to give a shameless plug here. There’s a book about Detroit called Once in a Great City by a multiple Pulitzer-winning journalist and author, David Maraniss. It’s about the early ’60s, Detroit being at its apex, but also the evidence being there of what’s to come in the decades ahead. But it’s done in a way that’s a very rare perspective — it understands and doesn’t treat it as, “Oh, then the city just died.” It’s really amazing. So I would shamelessly plug that.
After that, I would say, anything that you enjoy is additive and helpful. I don’t think there’s anything you’ve got to read to know this stuff. I think you need to understand diverse perspectives.
Alan Fleischmann
It’s a love of community.
Josh Sirefman
Yes, yeah.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, Josh, it’s such a pleasure. Really an incredible pleasure. I will get to Michigan. I want to see Detroit.
Josh Sirefman
You’ve got to come in. I would urge everybody, it’s worth seeing. There’s something special happening here in Detroit and at Michigan Central. It’s really a place that I think will increasingly be driving transformation in material ways. So I look forward to you visiting.
Alan Fleischmann
Me too. Thank you.