On this episode of Bruin to Bruin, contributor Jace Dominguez interviews UCLA alumnus William Cooper, who shares his journey from being an unremarkable student to successful business law attorney and published author.

Jace Dominguez: Hello and welcome to Bruin to Bruin. On this show, we sit down with members of the UCLA community to hear their story and advice for students. My name is Jace Dominguez, and I’m a podcast contributor at the Daily Bruin. Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing William Cooper. William Cooper is a UCLA alumnus from the class of ’04, and has since gone on to be a business law attorney after completing his law degree at UC Berkeley. Mr. Cooper is also an active writer, and his insightful opinions have been featured in more than 100 publications, including CNN, Newsweek and more. In our conversation, we talk about William’s life and times at UCLA, his professional journey since then, as well as contemporary issues such as politics in America, upcoming elections, and an outlook on the immediate future of Bruin life, our college and our country.

Mr. Will Cooper, thank you for coming in today.

William Cooper: Thanks for having me, Jace. Great to be here.

JD: Absolutely. I would really like to start with the journey you had as a young man, getting into college, learning about the world. What were some of your experiences, what stood out to you during that time in your life?

WC: I went to junior college up in the Bay Area where I’m from, after high school. I was not a scholar, to put it mildly, but by the time I got to junior college, I started taking things seriously and got into UCLA. Transferred in 2002 – it’s been over 20 years now, hard to believe – and I got here as a communication studies major. Had a blast. I learned so much here. They always say it’s sort of a cliche that in college you learn how to think. And I really did, just had great professors … great experience, and tons of fun. Every time I walk around campus, I remember something nice, something that happened there, some class I had in this building. It was a great time and really helped me – really formative for me.

JD: Very good. I was kind of in the same position – wasn’t much of a scholar in high school, not at all. Then some time passed. I had to deal with COVID at the time, so that was a pretty unique experience for me. I was working a menial grocery store job at the time, and I said, “I think I’d like to get up to something else.” Sounds like we had a similar path. I came here, and the explosion of knowledge was just very profound – new people, new lifestyle, new sites. Did any of that stand out? Was there ever a culture shock coming from the Bay to here, things you expected about LA and UCLA that might have changed?

WC: I was very insulated in the Bay Area. I was at junior college doing my studies there, but I really wasn’t exposed to a lot of really intelligent, informed perspectives. I get here, and your first day, you’ve got your professors, your students, everybody’s just really excited, knowledgeable. My brain was just exploding. The person that left here on graduation was just so much more enlightened than the person that showed up. That’s really what I remember most about my time here.

JD: Very nice. So who was that person when you left? Graduation – who were you? What were you thinking about post-grad? What were some of the more valuable things you think you got from your experience at the college?

WC: I learned a lot about thinking through issues. That’s only part of professional life – there’s a lot of components to professional life. One of them that’s really important is working well with people. Here at the Daily Bruin, you’ve got your colleagues, teammates, learning to work with them. Super valuable and important, and that’s something that will pay a lot of dividends in the future.

When I graduated, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. In the same way that I was kind of a late bloomer academically, I was kind of a late bloomer professionally. I floundered around for a few years and then decided to go to law school. That was a big moment for me. I’d always kind of thought about it – something I was interested in, but I wasn’t one of those people who from the time they’re children say, “I want to be a lawyer. I want to stand up in front of a jury like I see on TV.” I wasn’t one of those people, but I always liked arguing. I liked the intellectual side of it, and so after a few years, I decided to go in and be a lawyer, and that’s what I am now.

It took me a few phases and a few years. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-20s that I really felt like I was on the right course and knew what I wanted to do.

JD: That’s very helpful, because coming in, especially like transfer pathway and areas of life where you’re not necessarily tailored, or talents are identified at a young age, and you’re kind of cultivated, nurtured to be like the outstanding individuals you see at the school who are talking about going to top 10 law schools, building a ray gun and doing amazing things. And you kind of come in not necessarily on bad footing, but a little uncertain. It’s cool to hear that you were able to sort of push through that mentally and get to where you are now.

WC: Looking back, this was true at UCLA and also true at law school, where some of the more flashy students with grand ideas who seemed like they had all their stuff together – actually, when they get into the real world, it doesn’t correlate that strongly, if at all, with success. Everybody at UCLA is really smart – you don’t get here unless you cross a threshold where you’re sufficient to go and do just about anything in the world.

The key factors that differentiate people are not, “Oh, I have this really creative grand idea as an undergrad” – it’s the people that work the hardest, the people that get along with others the most. A lot of what I think professional success boils down to is just being practical and rational, thinking things through the right way. That doesn’t always correspond with academia. You could be an A+ student and not work well with people. You could be prolific on standardized tests, but when it comes to thinking things through practically in a day-to-day context, you might not be that good.

So thankfully for people like you and me, who don’t necessarily have everything figured out from an early age, as long as you put one foot in front of the other the right way once you get out, your upside’s just as high as all the other maybe more flashy students.

JD: I agree. Coming in, just because we don’t necessarily have things figured out, either if you’re undergrad before or after, you’re always learning something if you’re paying attention. When I was working my grocery job, I was learning how to deal with others, obviously more technical stuff like how to use certain terminals to do online work and digital work. It really stood out to me too, because I found myself in a position of being more outspoken than I thought I would be at the school. It’s kind of put me in this position to meet people like you and do these cool things. I’d really like for people to just pay attention to those little details because I feel a lot of students have a lot of pressure to get things on paper right – get the good grades, the quality transcripts, and having all these internships. But at the end of the day, it really comes down to who you are as a person and how you operate in these difficult spaces.

WC: So true. I usually tell this to law students, but it’s equally true for undergrads: The things that feel super important when you’re in school are usually not important at all. It’s who you are intrinsically that’s going to dictate your future. If you do this internship or you don’t do it, or you take this job or you don’t do it, or this project or that project, your trajectory in life is going to be the same either way.

Sometimes people get really worked up – “Oh, my grades were lower than I wanted to be” or “I don’t have enough on my resume.” Over time, it’s who you are. So focusing on building your own skill set and your own personality traits, that’s the key, not your resume. Resume really doesn’t correlate all that strongly.

The company I work for now – the two founders are brothers, and they founded the company, a cyber security company, 25 years ago. Neither one of them has a fancy graduate degree. They’re just really smart, really good people. They’re both multi-billionaires. Not that that’s the measure of success, but it’s an example where they weren’t focused on their internships – they were just focused on doing what they really liked. Over time, because of that focus, they became successful.

JD: Interestingly enough, in your new book, you talk all about systems, our institutions, our governments – local, state, federal. I was just curious, whether it’s right now or as a young man, how has your faith and belief in systems and things outside of your control changed or remained the same?

WC: Great question, and that harkens back to what we talked about just a few minutes ago at UCLA, because I was really exposed to thinking about those questions when I was here, whereas before I wasn’t. One of the great things about being a professor and being a student is you have a lot of time to focus on this. One of the things that happens when people go into professional life and they have kids and they get real busy is they don’t have time to follow politics – that’s very common, and it’s pretty unfortunate.

But universities are a bunch of smart people – professors, students, alumni – that get involved thinking all day about really important issues. They have time to do it. They’re educated, so I think they play a really vital role. And then the student gets to decide, “Okay, what do I think is right? What do I think is the correct version for me?” And over your lifetime, if you’re a thoughtful person, that’s gonna evolve.

JD: There was another idea in your book that I wanted to get after. It was in chapter 10, “Immediate Future” – you’re talking about how there’s a lot of developments that sort of cause a lot of these issues, particularly when it comes to the internet and how ideas are disseminated. I wanted to hear you expand on that, how you think – at least when it comes to UCLA students – imagining some of the things that may be most concerning to you looking back and imagining being back in this place at this time.

WC: First is age-old cognitive bias. I learned about that here at UCLA – I took a psychology course in cognitive bias, and it really resonated with me. It was a great class. All humans have it, just a matter of degree. Some people have it more than others. Then the second element is the political system itself – the more the tribes, the less the tribalism in general. And so you’ve got a choice of one or the other, and that just creates even more of the problem.

The third element is really the newest one, which is the internet, social media, the echo chambers where you can go find things to confirm your biases and you can just ignore the things you don’t like.

The last thing I would add is try to be aware of your biases. Because one of the biases I talked about this in the book, that all humans have, just to one degree, is we don’t think we’re biased. We have all these biases, me included, but the part of our brain that’s malfunctioning along with other parts is this part that says, “But you’re not biased. You’re above it.”

If people can be aware of that and slow down and say, “Are my biases working here? If I’m just jumping on the bandwagon for my team, maybe I’m not being actually accurate in my view.” We are not truth-seeking machines. Human beings are a lot more like lawyers than they are like scientists typically. We want to prove our point. We want to reinforce what we’ve said earlier, and that is very, very powerful. The laws of science and nature dictate reality, and so if you’re always interpreting something from one perspective or the other, you’re going to be wrong a lot of the time.

JD: And you mentioned that in the book – you talk about the evaluation process. As you say, when it comes to assessing truth and politics and quality ideas, you mentioned that we confuse what feels good with what’s right. That’s obviously very difficult. I’m sure the more you grow, the more it sort of makes sense to you. How does one try to navigate that – trying to figure out what feels good versus what’s right and what’s true?

WC: Well, if you’re a politician, you have incentives to believe and to say things that support your candidacy or your platform. If you’re a political operative, if you’re working for the governor or you’re in politics, you have an incentive to create narratives and to express them. But if you’re just a citizen, which is where most of us fit in, accuracy should be your primary focus.

One of the things that you’ll find – most people find – is that once you get out in the real world and you start working, it’s a lot different than you thought it would be. The difference between academia and professional life can be really dramatic, especially early on, because you got to pay your dues in most professions. You’ll go as a senior at UCLA, talking about all these really fun, interesting issues and constitutional questions, and then your first day at the job, you’re filling in some spreadsheet, and it’s like, “Well, why did I even go to college for this?”

But most of us have to face that – you pay your dues in the beginning. But trying to remember as you grow older, and then if you have a family, your demands there will continue to grow over time, but trying to keep the idealism of the way you felt as an undergrad – I think it’s really important. You have to deal with the practicalities, but keeping that idealism and doing the things that you want to do.

When I was at UCLA, I loved politics, I loved learning about it and I always thought, “I want to write books.” That’s something I want to do. Early on as an attorney, I was just too busy. There was no way my first few years I was going to be able to do that. I just had my head down and I was focused, but I never let go of that idealism. And then when things – I got older, and my kids got older, and my wife and I were able to handle things easier – I made sure I kept the desire with me, and then I returned to it when I could. I think that’s really important. You’re gonna be bombarded with practical life after graduation, but just don’t forget the things you want to do when you’re young and you’re in college.

JD: Absolutely. And for people my age, I feel like there’s so much upside because things only get easier. Back in your day, being able to have access to a radio show, and being able to publish books and do your traditional education was probably pretty difficult. Now you’re in a position where you can chase all these dreams, write books, practice law, be a writer for news articles and publications. It’s just such a blessing in the 21st century – you can do all these things, whereas you could only do one of them for a very long time.

WC: Totally, it’s a really good point. I remember at UCLA studying – as a communications major, I would study the evolution of the media. Fifty years ago, 100 years ago, there was just a set number of newspapers. There was obviously no internet. There were a few radio stations blasting throughout the country, mostly national.

And now, anyone who wants to can go do all sorts of different things. Your absolute floor, depending on who you are – maybe you’re not able to dedicate tons of time with it, or your voice doesn’t resonate with lots of people – you can still have your own podcast. You can still have your own blog, and it’s really easy. Go to Substack and sign up, and all of a sudden you can start expressing yourself.

It’s really wonderful that ecosystem is growing. It creates problems for society in certain ways because it’s hard to find two people looking at the same set of facts, let alone everybody looking at the same set of facts. But it has a lot of positives to it. For people that want to be creative and want to express themselves, it’s wonderful.

JD: We’re talking about a lot of different things, and we talked about some of the upsides of university, but also some of the downsides. What do you think are the current issues and current failures when it comes to educating our youth? You had a section in the book dedicated to our children, and so I was wondering, what would you like to be done at the university level when it comes to addressing some of the issues students face, like student debt?

WC: I think the universities in general do a pretty darn good job on the educating side. In terms of education, they do a good job. And if you’re a student that wants to go to a university, you have lots of opportunities. The big problem with the university level, and I talked about this in the book, is the debt. People graduate with tons of debt, and it prevents them from having a standard of living that they deserve. It prevents them from taking risks, which is very important. It’s very important that young people have the freedom to take risks, and that’s how you can build really exciting things. But if you have a $2,000 loan payment every month, you can’t do it. And it can take decades to pay these off.

JD: It’s a very demanding process – how do you do these things and get your return on investment in the school if you’re struggling to stay afloat the whole time?

WC: Very well put. There’s huge, huge problems, and then many, many smaller ones. And the whole thing is just really unfortunate.

JD: During your time at the college, did you ever have to come to these kind of compromises, these difficulties? What was your sort of workload like, and how did you try to manage it?

WC: It was okay for me. I wasn’t a real go-getter. I did well in my classes, and I just kind of was like, “Okay, I’m just gonna do well in my classes.” I didn’t take on a lot of extracurriculars. I worked a little bit, not a ton. My philosophy was just, I’m gonna get good grades, I’m gonna have fun. I went to Maloney’s a lot – it’s not Maloney’s anymore. I saw it yesterday.

JD: It’s Rocco’s, I think.

WC: Yeah, but it’ll always be Maloney’s. And I just had fun. In retrospect, I think that was probably a good approach because like I said at the beginning of our conversation, the things that you do in undergrad tend not to really matter down the road very much. So people that are concerned about this internship or that, and, “Did I get an A-minus or a B-plus?” – those sorts of things really don’t matter. Now, folks that are interested in doing those things and tackling more, I think that’s great, and I encourage it. But for me, I was more of just, “I’m going to get my courses done and have fun.”

JD: And like you said, it’s not a bad approach at all. I mean, you practice law now, do pretty well for yourself.

WC: What I wouldn’t have wanted to do is have to work all the time and go to class and then work. I know a lot of people do feel pressured to do that, and that’s too bad. I’m glad you’re finding fulfillment, because that’s what you want. Enjoy what you’re doing, learn a ton, build yourself, be fulfilled. Those are the things to focus on, not some resume footnote.

JD: Earlier you were talking about pursuing incentive – all kinds of incentives, academic, financial, any kind of personal success, enjoying yourself as a person. I was wondering if you could maybe expand on that, and at least maybe for the UCLA community, what are some exciting things that we could think about going forward?

WC: I think just basic civics. If you look at some of the polls, it’s really disturbing. Huge percentages of Americans don’t know really rudimentary things about the First Amendment, the different branches of government, how government works and we’re a democracy, so the people knowing the basics, following along is really important. You’re never going to have everybody be a Politico – it’s just not going to happen. But I think starting with our education system, which, as I mentioned, is really uneven at the younger levels, just paying more attention, valuing civics more.

I think we’re really taking things for granted. The system’s worked really well, historically speaking, for a long time. And I think we’re taking that for granted more than we should, and over time, it’s eventually going to catch up to us. So I think just basic civics – you don’t have to be super woke, you don’t have to be reading The Federalist Papers, but having a basic understanding of which government actors do what and how the system works is really important. I think we need to emphasize that more as a society.

JD: How does one kind of go back to this state of responsibility, especially in an era where it feels like so many things are sort of all over the place, out of our control?

WC: It’s hard. A lot of families – both parents need to work in order to get by, for example, and our society is structured more so than other countries where being busy, being productive is necessary just to keep things moving. And so most people, when they get home after a long day, they’ve had their commute, they’ve worked their eight hours – they want to just turn on the TV and laugh or crack a cold one and laugh for an hour before bed. That’s really understandable. So some of the problem is structural as well.

JD: Going on into the immediate future, what would you like to see out of the student body?

WC: Stay informed. Find time to stay informed. Read a diversity of views. Don’t just jump on some side or the other. Remember your own biases when you’re thinking things through, and try to participate and support candidates who are looking for the common good. There’s so much in our political system that both sides fight over but there are solutions that help everybody. Every American’s interests are aligned in huge ways, and finding people that want to compromise, want to find solutions, want to be productive, rational, accurate, empirically focused – that’s what the country needs.

JD: Absolutely. And I think we’re kind of seeing that in the student body. I’ve seen a lot of cooperation here, a lot of just amazing people putting their best foot forward no matter what they do in the classroom. Working here at the Daily Bruin, I was introduced to so many phenomenal people, and I think people at least my age in the Bruin community are starting to get that message. I think it’ll come through, and with conversations like these, I think it’ll make it all the more manifest.

WC: I’m very happy to hear that. Working with you and having this conversation is making me feel better too. I think you embody what we want with our students, and to hear your positive sense of how things are going is great because this country is going to be yours before you know it. The people that are in college now are going to be running the show before you know it. That’s really good to hear.

JD: Thank you very much. All right, everyone, that’s it for us. This has been Daily Bruin podcasts. I am Jace Dominguez. This is William Cooper. Will, if people want to find you, where can they find you?

WC: Thanks, Jace. This has been awesome. Really appreciate your time. My website is Will-cooper.com, W-I-L-L-hyphen-C-O-O-P-E-R and then my book, if you just Google it, it’ll pop up wherever you buy your books, “How America Works and Why It Doesn’t.”

JD: Yes, available in print, on Amazon or on audiobook, that’s where I got it. It’s a wonderful book. It’s a very concise read. And I would recommend, if anything, that you would read this book and take in what Will has to say. Will, it’s been a pleasure.

WC: It’s been great. Thank you.

JD: Thank you for tuning in to this edition of Bruin to Bruin. If you’ve enjoyed this episode and you’d like to see more, you can follow us over on Instagram at Daily Bruin podcasts, as well as our Spotify and Apple podcast channels. Once again, that is Daily Bruin podcasts. I’ve been Jace Dominguez, it’s been a pleasure and I hope you take care. Thank you.