Ginni Rometty: IBM CEO on Leadership, Power, and Adversity | Lex Fridman Podcast #362
- I've had to do plenty
of unpopular things. I think anytime you have to run a company that endures a century and
has to endure another century, you will do unpopular things. You have no choice. And I often felt I had to sacrifice things for the long term. And whether that would've been really difficult things like, you know, job changes, or reductions, or whether it would be things like, hey, we're gonna change the
way we do our semiconductors. And a whole different philosophy. You have no choice. I mean- and in times of crisis as well, you gotta be, I always said
it's not a popularity contest. - The following is a
conversation with Ginni Rometty, who was a longtime CEO,
President and Chairman of IBM. And for many years she
was widely considered to be one of the most
powerful women in the world. She's the author of a new
book on power, leadership, and her life story called 'Good Power' coming out on March 7th. She is an incredible
leader and human being, both fearless and compassionate. It was a huge honor and
pleasure for me to sit down and have this chat with her. This is Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please
check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends,
here's Ginni Rometty. You worked at IBM for over 40 years, starting as a systems engineer, and you ran the company
as Chairman, President, CEO from 2011 to 2020. IBM is one of the largest tech
companies in the world with, maybe you can correct me on this, with about 280,000 employees. What are the biggest
challenges running the company of that size? Let's start with the, sort
of, big overview question. - The biggest challenges I
think are not in running 'em, it's in changing them. And that idea to know
what you should change and what you should not change. Actually people don't
always ask that question, what should endure, even
if it has to be modernized, but what should endure? And then I found the
hardest part was changing how work got done in such a big company. - What was the parts that
you thought should endure, the core of the company
that was beautiful, and powerful and could
persist through time, that it should persist through time? - I'd be interested, do you have a perception of
what you think it would be? - Do I have a perception? Well, I'm a romantic for history
of long running companies, so there's kind of a
tradition as a AI person. To me, IBM has some epic sort
of research accomplishments. Where you show off, you
know, ID blue and Watson, just impressive big moonshot challenges, and accomplishing those. But that's I think, I guess, probably a small part what IBM is. That's mostly like the
sexy public facing part. - Yeah, no, well certainly the
research part itself, right, is over 3000. So it's not that small. That's
a pretty big research part. - Yes, yes. - But the part that should
endure ends up being, you know, company that does things that
are essential to the world. Meaning, you know, think back, you said you're romantic. It was the thirties, the
social security system. It was putting the man on the moon. It was, you know, to
this day banks don't run, railroads don't run. That is at its core, it's
doing mission critical work. And so that part I think is at its core, it's a business to business company. And at its core it's about doing things that are really important to the world, becoming, running and being better. - Running the infrastructure of the world. So doing it at scale, doing reliably. - Yes. Secure in this world,
that's like everything. And in fact when I started, I almost felt people were
looking for what that was. And together we sort of in
a word was to be essential. And the reason I loved that word was, I can't call myself essential, you have to determine I am, right? So it was to be essential, even though some of what we
did is exactly what you said is below the surface. So many people- 'cause people say to me, well what does IBM do now, right? And over the years it's changed so much. And today it's really a
software and consulting company. Consulting is a third of it. And the software is all
hybrid cloud and AI. That would not have been
true as you well know, back even two decades ago, right. So it changes. But I think its core,
it's that be essential. You said moonshot, can't all be moonshots 'cause moonshots don't always work, but mission critical work. - So given the size though,
when you started running it, did you feel the sort of thing
that people usually associate with size, which is bureaucracy and maybe the aspect of,
I'd say hinder progress or hinder pivoting. Did you feel that? - You would. For lots of reasons. I think when you're a big company, sometimes people think of
processes the client themselves or, you know, I always say to people, your process is not your customer. There is a real customer
here that you exist for. And that's really easy to
fall into because they're, you know, people are a
master to this process and that's not right. And when you're big, the other thing in- boy, there's a premium
on it, is speed, right? That in our industry you gotta be fast. And go back, like when I
took over and it was 2012, you know, we had a lot
of catching up to do and a lot of things to do
and it was moving so fast. And as you well know, all those trends were happening at once, which made 'em go even faster. And so pretty unprecedented
actually for that many trends to be at one time. And I used to say to people, go faster, go faster, go faster. And honestly, I've tired 'em out. I mean, it kind of dawned on
me that when you're that big, that's a really valuable lesson. And it taught me like the how's, perhaps more important than the what. Because if I didn't do something to change how work was done, like
change those processes or, you know, give 'em new
tools, help 'em with skills, they couldn't, they'll just
like do the same thing faster. If someone tells you, you
know, you've got hiking boots and they're like, no go run a marathon. You're like, I can't do it in those boots. But, so you've gotta do something. And at first I think the
ways for big companies, I have fun call 'em like blunt clubs, you do what everyone
does, you reduce layers. 'Cause if you reduce
layers, decisions go faster. There's just, it's math. If there's less decision
points, things go faster. You do the blunt club thing. And then after that though, it did lead me down a long journey of, they sound like buzzwords, but if you really do 'em
at scale they're hard around things like agile. And because you've really
gotta change the way work gets done. And we ended up training, God, hundreds of thousands
of people on that stuff. - On how to do agile correctly? - On how to do it correctly. That's right. Versus- 'cause everybody talks about it. But the idea that you would really have small multi-disciplinary teams, work from the outside in, set those sort of interim steps, you know, take the feedback, pivot, and then do it on not just products, do it on lots of things. It's a hard to do at scale. People always say, oh I got this agile group
over here of 40 people, but not when you're a couple
hundred thousand people. You gotta get a lot of
people to work that way. - The blunt club thing
you're talking about. So flatten the organization
as much as possible? - Yeah, yeah. I probably reduce the layers
of management by half. And so that has lots of benefits, right? Time to a decision,
more autonomy to people, and then the idea of like faster clarity of where you're going, 'cause you're not just filtered through so many different layers. And I think it's the kind
of thing a lot of companies, if you're big, have to
just keep going through. It's kinda like grass grows, you know, it just comes back and
you gotta go back down and work on it. So it's a natural thing. But I hear so many
people talk about it Lex, this idea of like, okay,
well who makes a decision? You've often heard nobody can say yes and everybody can say no. And that's actually what
you're trying to get out of a system like that. - So, I mean, your book in general, the way you lead is very
much about we and us, you know, the the power of 'we'. But is there times when
a leader has to step in and be almost autocratic, take control and make
hard unpopular decisions? - Oh, I am sure you
know the answer to that and it is of course yes. - It's just fun to hear you say. - It's fun to say it. Yeah. You know, 'cause I actually, A, there's a leader for a time, but then there's a leader
for a situation, right? And so I've had to do
plenty of unpopular things. I think anytime you have to run a company that endures a century and
has to endure another century, you will do unpopular
things, you have no choice. And I often felt I had to sacrifice things for the long term. And whether that would've been, really difficult things like, job changes, or reductions, or whether it would be things like, hey, you know, we're
gonna gonna change the way we do our semiconductors and
a whole different philosophy. You have no choice. I mean, and in times of
crisis as well, you gotta be, I always said it's not
a popularity contest. So that's, none of these
jobs are popularity contest. I don't care if your
company's got one person or half a million, they're
not popularity contest. - But psychologically is it
difficult to sort of step in as a new CEO and to- 'cause you're fighting against tradition, against all these people
that act like experts of their thing, and they
are experts of their thing, to step in and say we
have to do it differently. - When you gotta change a company, it's really tempting to say, throw everything else out back to that what must endure, right? But, I know when I took over to start, I knew how much had to change. More I got into it, I could see, wow, a lot
more had to change, right? 'Cause we needed a platform, we'd always done our best
when we had a platform, a technology platform. You will go back in time and you'll think of the mainframe systems, you'll think of the PC, you'll think of perhaps
Middleware, you know, you could even call service as a platform. We needed the next
platform here to be there. Skills, when I took over, we inventoried who had
modern skills for the future, it was two out of 10
people, for the future. Not that they didn't have
relevant skills today, but for the future, two out of 10. Yikes! That's a big problem, right? The speed at which
things were getting done so you got so much to do and you say, is that a scary thing? Yes. Do you have to sometimes dictate? Yes. But I did find, and it is worth it. I know, every big company I know, my good friend that runs General Motors as she's had to change, go back to what is them them, you know? And when you do that,
that back to be essential, we kind of started with,
hey, it's be essential. Then the next thing I did
with the team was say, okay, now this means new era of computing, new buyers are out there and,
eh, we better have new skills. Okay, now the next thing,
how do you operationalize it? And it just takes some time, but you can engineer that and
get people to build belief. - And for the skills that means hiring and that means training? - Yes. Oh boy, that's a long- skills is a really long
topic in and of itself, I try to put my view in it. I learned a lot and I changed
my view on this a lot. I'll go back at my very
beginning, say 40 years ago, I would've said at that point, okay, I was always in a hurry, I was interviewing to hire people. I don't know how you hire people. 40 years ago I'd be like, okay, I gotta fit in these interviews. I gotta hire someone
to get this done. Okay. Then time would go on, I'm
like, well that's not very good. In fact, someone was said to me, hey, hire the best people to work for you and your job gets a lot easier. Okay, I should spend
more time on this topic. I'll spent more time on it. Then it was like, okay,
hire experts, okay? Okay, hired a lot of experts over my life, and then I was really like an epiphany and it really happened over
my tenure running the company and having to change skills. If someone's an expert at something and has just done that for 30 years, the odds of them really
wanting to change a lot are pretty low. And when you're in a
really dynamic industry, that's a problem. And so, okay, that was like kind of my
first revelation on this. And then when I looked at hiring, I can remember when I started my job and we needed cyber people. And I go out there and I look, unemployment in the US was
almost 10%, can't find them. Okay, it's 10% and I
can't find the people. Okay, what's the issue? Okay, they're not
teaching the right things. That led me down a path
and it was serendipity that I happened to do a review of corporate social responsibility. We had this one little fledgling school in a low income area and, high school with a community college, we gave them internships,
direction on curriculum. Lo and behold, we could hire these kids. I said, hmm, this is not CSR, like I just found a new talent pool. Which takes me to now what I'm
doing in my post, you know, post-retirement. I'm like this idea that don't hire just for a college degree. We had 99% of our hires
were college and PhDs, and I'm all for it. So you're very- don't, don't... - I'm deeply offended. - No, you should not be. And I'm vice chair at Northwestern, one of the vice chair. But I said, I just really like, aptitude does not equal access. These people didn't have
access but they had aptitude. It changed my whole view to skills first. And so now for hiring, that's kind of a long story to tell you, the number one thing I would hire for now is somebody's willingness to learn. You know, and you can test,
you can try different ways, but their curiosity and
willingness to learn, hands down I will take that trait over anything else they have. - So the interview process,
the questions you asked. - [Ginni] Everything changed. - The kind of things
you talk to them about is try to get at how curious
they're about the work. - You can do testing. I mean, we triangulated
run it lots of ways. And now look, at the heart of it, what it would do is change. You don't think of buying skills, you think of building skills. And when you think that
way with so many people, and I think this country, many developed countries
being disenfranchised, you gotta bring 'em back
into the workforce somehow. And they gotta get some
kind of contemporary skills. And if you took that approach, you can bring 'em back into the workforce. - Yeah, I think some interesting
combination of humility and passion. 'Cause like you said, experts
sometimes lack humility if they call themselves an
expert for a few too many years. So you have to have that beginner's mind and a passion to be able to aggressively, constantly be a beginner at everything and learn, and learn, and learn. - You know, I saw it firsthand
when we were beginning this path down the Cloud
and AI, and we said, and people would say, oh,
IBM, it's existential, they gotta change and all these things. And I did hire a lot
of people from outside, very willing to learn new things, come on in, come on in. And I sometimes say shiny objects, trained and shiny objects, come on in. But I saw something, it
was another one of these- You're not a shiny object,
I'm not saying that. But I learned something. Okay, some of them did fantastic. And others, they're like, well let me school you on everything. But they didn't realize like, we did really mission critical
work and they'd break a bank. I mean, they would not understand the certain kind of security,
and the auditability, and everything they had to go on. And then I watched IBM people say, oh, I actually could learn, some were like, yeah, okay,
I don't know how to do, that's a really good thing I could learn. And in the end, there was not
like one group as a winner and one was a loser, the winners were the people
who were willing to learn from each other. I mean, to me it was very
stark example of that point, and I saw it firsthand. So that's why I'm so
committed to this idea about skills first and that's
how people should be hired, promoted, paid, you name it. - Yeah, the AI in general, it seems like nobody
really understands now what the future will look like. We're all trying to figure it out. So like what, you know, IBM will look like in 50 years in relation to the software
business to AI is unknown, what Google will look like, what all these companies
we're trying to figure it out, and that means constantly
learning, taking risks, all of those things. And nobody's really skilled in AI. It's like, because you have to keep... - You're absolutely right. That's right. Couldn't
agree more with you on that. - You wrote in the book. So speaking of hiring, "My drive for perfection
often meant I only focused on what needed to change without
acknowledging the positive. This could keep people
from trusting themselves. It could take me a while to learn that just because I
could point something out didn't mean I should. I still spotted errors, but I became more deliberate
about what I mentioned and sent back to get fixed. I also tried to curtail
my tendency to micromanage and let people execute. I had to stop assuming my
way was the best or only way. I was learning the giving
other people control builds their confidence and that constantly trying to control people destroys it." So what's the right balance
between showing the way and helping people find the way? - That is a good question. Because, like a really
flip answer would be, as it gets bigger, you
have no choice but to just, you know, you can't do it,
you have to tell or show. I mean, you've gotta let
people find their way, 'cause it's so big you can't, right? That's an obvious answer. Scope of work, bigger it gets, okay, I've gotta let more stuff go. But I have always believed that a leader's job is to do as well. And I think there's like a few areas that are really important
that you always do, now it doesn't meaning you're showing. So, like when it has to do with values and value-based decisions, like, I think it's really important to constantly show people
that you walk your talk on that kind of thing is super important. And I actually think it's a
struggle young companies have because those values aren't deeply rooted, and when the storm comes
it's easy to uproot. And so I always felt like when
it was that time I showed it, I got taught that so young at IBM and even General Motors that, in fact I do write about that in the book. First time I was a manager, I had a gentleman telling dirty jokes, and not to me but to other people, and it really offended
people, some of the women. This is the very early eighties. And they came, said something,
I talked to my boss, I'm a first time manager, and he was unequivocal
with what I should do. He said, and this was a top performer, it stops immediately or you fire him. So there are a few areas like that that I actually think you have to always continue to role model and show, right? That to me isn't the kind that, like, when you let go of stuff, right? So... - The values and
relationships with clients. - Yeah, whatever you're in service of. And the other thing was, I really felt it was really important to role model learning, right? So, you know, I can remember when we started down the journey, and we went on to this thing
called the Think Academy. IBM's longtime motto had been think. And we said, okay, I'm
gonna make the first Friday of every month compulsory education. And okay, I mean
everybody, like everybody, I don't care what your job is, okay? When the whole company has to transform, everybody's gotta kinda
have some skin in this game and understand it. I taught the first hour of
every month for four years. Now...
- [Lex] Nice. - Okay, I had to learn something. So...
(both laughing) But it made me learn, but I'm like, okay, if I can teach this
who can do it, right? I mean, you know, kind of thing. - So it was a compulsory
Thursday night education for you? - Oh, I'm a little bit
better preparer than that, but yes, you're so right, yes. - [Lex] So you prepare?
- Yeah. - [Lex] So like personality's wise... - That's another habit.
- You like to prepare? - Yeah, but there's roots
in that go back deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply. And I think it's an interesting reason. So why- you're prepare my friend. Yes you are. You prepare
for your interviews. - Sure. - The rest you wing? - [Lex] Yeah, I wing.
- But that's okay. I mean, you don't have
to prepare everything. I don't prepare everything either. - No, but I unfortunately wing stuff, I save it to last minute. I push everything, I'm always almost late, and I don't know why that is. I mean, there's some
deep psychological thing we should probably investigate, but it's probably the anxiety
brings out the performance. - That can be, that's very
true with some people. - I mean, so I'm a programmer
and engineer at heart, and so programmers famously overestimate or underestimate, sorry, how long something's going to take. And so I just, everything
I always underestimate and it's almost as if I want
to feel this chaos of anxiety of a deadline or something like this. Otherwise I would be
lazy sitting on a beach with a pina colada and relaxing. I don't know. So that we
have to know ourselves. But for you, you like to prepare. - Yeah, it came from a
few different places. I mean, one would've been, as a kid I think I was not a memorizer and my brother is brilliant,
he read it once, boom, done. And so I always wanted to understand, like, how something happened. Didn't matter what it was I was doing, whether it was algebra theorems, I always wanted, don't gimme the answer, don't gimme the answer. You know, I wanna figure it out and figure out, so I
could reproduce it again and didn't have to memorize. So it started with that. And then over time, okay, so I was in university in the seventies. When I was in engineering
school, I was the only woman. You know, I meet people still
to this day and they're like, oh, I remember you. I'm like, yeah, sorry,
I don't remember you, there were 30 of you one of me. And I think you already
get that feeling of, okay, I better really study hard 'cause whatever I say is gonna
be remembered in this class, good or bad. And it started there. So in some ways I did it for two reasons, early on, I think it was
a shield for confidence. The more I studied, the more prepared I
was, the more confident. That's probably still true to this day. The the second reason I
did it evolved over time and became different to prepare. If I was really prepared,
then when we're in the moment I can really listen to you. See 'cause I don't have
to be doing all this stuff on the fly in my head, and I could actually take things I know and maybe help the situation. So it really became a way
that I could be present in the moment. And I think that's
something a lot of people that in the moment, I
learned it from my husband. He doesn't prepare by the
way at all, so that's not it. But I...
- So how did you learn? - [Ginni] But I watched the in the moment. - The negative example. - No, no, no. And I'm not gonna change that, as he says. He's a type Z I'm an A. Okay, so...
- [Lex] Love works. Yeah. - And I have been married 43
years and that seems to work. But that idea that you could
be in the moment with people is a really important thing. - Yeah, so the preparation
gives you the freedom to really be present. So just to linger on the,
you mentioned your brother and it seems like in the
book that you really had to work hard when you study to sort of, given that you weren't
good at memorization, you really, truly, deeply
wanted to understand the stuff and you put in the hard work. And that seems to persist
throughout your career. So, you know, hard work
is often associated with, sort of has negative associations, but maybe with burnout,
with dissatisfaction. Is there some aspect of hard
work at the core of who you are that led to happiness for you? Did you enjoy it? - I enjoyed it. So I'll be the first, and I'm really careful
to say that to people because I don't think
everyone should associate to do what you did. You have to, there's only
one route there, right? And that's just not true. And I do it 'cause I like it. In fact I'm careful, and as time goes on,
you have to be careful as more and more people watch you. Whether you like it,
you're a role model or not. You are a role model for people, whether you know it, like
it, want it, does not matter. I learned that the hard way
and I would've to say people, hey, just 'cause I do this does not mean, I do it for these reasons, right? It would be really explicit. And I'd come to believe, usually when people say the
word power, I don't know, do you have a positive or negative notion when I say the word power? - Probably negative one. Yeah. - For some stereotype or some view that it's
somebody's abused it in some way. You can read the newspaper,
somebody's doing something, personal people like, I'll
ask people, do you want power? And they're like, oh
no, I'd rather do good. And I think the irony is,
you need power to do good. And so that sort of led me down to, it as I thought about my own life, right, 'cause it starts in a,
like many of us, you know, you don't have a lot,
but you don't know that 'cause you're like everybody
else around you at that time. And on one end tragedy, right, my father leaves my mother, homeless, no money, no
food, nothing, four kids. She's never worked a day in
her life outside of a home. And the irony that I hear, I
would end up as the ninth CEO of one of America's iconic companies. And now I co-chair this group OneTen, and that journey, I said, the biggest thing I learned
was you could do really hard meaningful things in a positive way. So now you ask me about
why do I work so hard. I ended up writing the book in
three pieces for this reason. When you really think
of your life in power, I thought it kind of felt
like a pebble in water. Like, there's a ring about
you really care about yourself and like the power of
yourself, power of me, there's a time it transcends
to that you are working within four others and in
another moment when it becomes like about society. So my hard work, I'd ask you, one day sit really hard and think about, when you close your eyes who do you see from
your early life, right? And what did you learn? And maybe it's not that hard for you. I mean it was- it's funny the things then, if I really looked at it, it's
no surprise what I do today. And that hard work part, my great grandma, as you and I were comparing
notes on Russia, right? And never spoke English, spoke Russian, came here to this country, was a cleaning person at the
Wrigley building in Chicago. Yet if she hadn't saved
every dime she made, my mother wouldn't have a home and wouldn't have had had car, right? What did I learn from that? Hard work. In fact, actually, when I went to college, she's like, you know you
really should be on a farm. You're so big and strong, you know,? That was her view. And then my grandmother,
another tragic life. What did she do though? And think how long, that's
in the forties, the fifties, she made lampshades. And she taught me how to sew, right? So I could sew clothes when
we couldn't afford 'em. But my memory of my grandma
is working seven days a week, sewing lampshades, and
then here comes my mom and her situation, who
climbs her way out of it. So I associate that with, well strong women by the
way, all strong women. And I associate hard work
with how you are sure you can always take care of yourself. And so I think that the
roots go way back there and they were always
teaching something, right? My great-grandma was
teaching me how to cook, how to work a farm, even though I didn't need to be on a farm. My grandma taught me, you
know, here's how to sew, here's how to run a business. And then my mother would teach us that, look with just a little bit of education, look at the difference
it could make, right? So anyways, that's a long answer to, I think that hard work thing
is really deeply rooted from that background. - And it gives you a
way out from hard times. - Yeah. You know, I think I've seen
you on other podcasts say, I thought I did, do you want a plan B? Didn't you say, no you
would not like a plan B? - [Lex] Yeah. - 'Cause you're like, I would prefer my backup
against, am I remembering? - A story like that. You seem to like at least
certain moments in your life seem to do well in desperate times. - True enough, true enough, that's true. I learned that very well. But I also think that maybe this isn't
the same kind of plan B. I think of it as like I was taught, like, always be able to
take care of yourself, don't have to rely on someone else. And I think that to me, so that's my plan B I
can take care of myself. And it's even after what I
lived through with my father, I thought, well this set a bar for bad, after this nothing's bad. And it's a very freeing thought. - The being able to take
care of yourself, is that, you mean practically or do
you mean just a self-belief that I'll figure it out. - I'll figure it out and
practically both, right. - So you wrote, "I vividly remember the last
two weeks of my freshman year when I only had 25 cents left. I put the quarter in a
clear plastic box on my desk and just stared at it. This is it, I thought no more money." So do you think there's some aspect of that financial
stress, even desperation, just being hungry, does that
play a role in that drive that led to your success to be the CEO of one of the great companies ever? - It's a really interesting question because I was just talking
to another colleague who's CEO of another great
American company this weekend. And he mentioned to me about
all this adversity and he said, or I said to him, I said, do you think part of your success is 'cause you had bad stuff happen? And he said yes, you know? And so, I guess I'd be
lying if I didn't say, I don't think you have to have tragedy, but it does teach you, like, one really important thing is that there is always a way forward, always, and it's in your control. - And I think there's probably
wisdom for mentorship there or whether you're a parent or a mentor, that easy times don't result in growth. - Yeah, I've heard a lot of
my friends and they worry, they some gee my kids
have never had bad times. And so what happens here? So I don't know, is it required and why you end up, mm, not required, but it sure doesn't hurt. - You had this good line
about a advice you were given that growth and comfort never coexist. Growth and comfort never coexist, and you have to get used to that thought. - If someone said that they think of me like one of the more profound
little lessons I had.. - [Lex] It's pretty profound. - It's from my husband,
and which is even more, you know, funny. - I'm glad you're able to- you could just steal it. I mean you don't have to give him credit. - Oh I have shamelessly,
as he'll tell you. Okay, so the story behind growth
and comfort never coexist. But honestly I think it's
been a really freeing thought for me and it's helped me
immensely since mid-career. And as I write about it in
the book, I'm mid-career, and I've been running a
pretty big business actually. And the fellow I work for
is gonna get a new job, he's gonna get promoted,
he calls me and he says, hey, you're gonna get my job. I really want you to have it. And I said to him, no way! I said, I'm not ready for that job. I got a lot more things I gotta learn, that is like a huge job. Around the world, every
product line, development, you name it, every
function, I can't do it. He looked at me, he says, well I think you should
go to the interview. I went to the interview the
next day, blah blah blah. Guy says to me, looks at me and he says, I wanna offer you that job. And I said, I would
like to think about it. I said, I wanna go home and
talk to my husband about it. He kind of looked at me, okay. I went home, my husband is
sitting there and he says to me, I went on and on about
the story, et cetera. And he says, do you think a man would've
answered it that way? And I said, hmm. He says, I know you, he's like, six months
you're gonna be bored, and you all you can think
of is what you don't know. And he said, and I know
these other people, you have way more skill than them and they think they could do it. And he's like, why? And for me it internalizes feeling that, I am gonna say something
it's a bit stereotype, that it resonates with many, many women. And I'll ask you if it does after, is that either of them was most
harsh critic of themselves. And so this idea that I won't grow unless I can feel uncomfortable, doesn't mean I always have
to show it, by the way. So that's why I meant growth
and comfort can never coexist. So I was like, he's exactly right. Now the end of that story is
I went in and I took the job, when I went back to the man
who was really my mentor looking out for me, and he looked at me and he said, don't ever do that again. And I said, I understand. Because it was okay to be uncomfortable, I didn't have to use that. I mean, now I would take
stock of the things I can do, right, and really think, or I look for times to be uncomfortable. Because I know if I am nervous, like I don't know if
you're nervous to meet me, we never met in real. - A hundred percent. I'm still terrified. - No you're not. But then you means you're
learning something, right? - [Lex] Holding it together. - So, that to me matters. - I think it's interesting the, maybe you could speak to that, the sort of the self-critical
thing inside your brain. 'Cause I think sometimes it's talked about that women have that, but I have that definitely. And I think that's not
just solely property of women at workplace. But I also wanna sort
of push back on the idea that that's a bad thing
that you should silence. 'Cause I think that anxiety
that leads to growth also, that's like this discomfort. So there's this weird
balance you have to have between that self-critical
engine and confidence. - Yeah, I think that's a good point. - You have to kind of dance, 'cause if you're super confident people will value you
higher, that's important. But if you're way too confident, maybe in the short term you'll gain, but in the long term you won't grow. - Very good point. So I can't
really disagree with that. And to me, even when I took on jobs, I always felt people say, well is it, you know, what point are
you confident enough? And I came to sort of believe,
again a theme of my beliefs that if I was willing
to ask lots of questions and understood enough,
that's all I needed to know. - Let me ask you about
your husband a little bit. (both laughing) So you're write in the book, you're write in the book. It's just jumping around, like I said, I'm a bit of a romantic. So how did you meet your husband? - So I met my husband
when I was 19 years old. So I was a young kid. And I met him when I had a
General Motor scholarship. So I was at Northwestern University through my first two
years, had a lot of loans, financial aid, and a professor said, hey, you should sign
up for this interview. They're looking to bring
forward diverse candidates through their management track. Now these programs don't
exist anymore like that. They will pay your tuition,
your room and board, your expenses, Northwestern,
other Ivy League school, these very expensive schools. And I think you'd be a good fit. I am eternally thankful for that advice. I went, I interviewed, I
actually got the scholarship. I mean, without it I'd graduated with hundreds of thousands
of dollars of debt. So part of that was in the
summer, I had to work in Detroit. I lived in little room by a cement plant, not theirs, but I mean
that's all I could afford. - [Lex] Very romantic. - Very, very romantic. And the person who owned the house said, you know, "Hey, I'm having
a party, you're not invited. I'm going to fix you up
with someone tonight." And that turned out to be my husband. And so it was a blind date
is how we very first met. - And then it was over. The story was written.
- [Ginni] Yep. - Let's, if it's okay, just zoom out to, you mentioned power and
good power a few times. So if we can just even talk about it. Your book is called 'Good Power: Leading Positive Change in
Our Lives, Work and World." What is good power? What's
the essence of good power? - So the essence of it would
be doing something hard or meaningful, but in a positive way. I would also tell you, I
hope one day I'm remembered for how I did things,
not just for what I did. I think that could
almost be more important. And I think it's a choice we can all make. So the essence to me of good
power, if I had a contrast, good to bad let's say, would be that first
off you have to embrace and navigate tension. This is the world we live in. And by embracing tension,
not running from it, you would bridge divides that unites people not divides them. It's a hard thing to do but you can do it. You do it with respect, which
is the opposite of fear. A lot of people think way
to get things done is fear. And then the third thing
would be you gotta celebrate some progress versus perfection. Because I also think that's what stops a lot of things from happening, because, you know, if you go
for whatever your definition of perfect is, it's either
polarization or paralyzation. I mean, something happens in there. Versus no, no, no, don't
worry about getting to that actual exact endpoint. If I keep taking a step
forward of progress, really tough stuff can get done. And so my view of that is like, honestly, I hope it can, you know, I said it's like a memoir with purpose, I'm only doing, it was a
really hard thing for me to do 'cause I don't actually
talk about all these things and I had to, nobody
cares about your, like, scientific description of this. They want the stories in
your life to bring it alive. So it's a memoir with purpose
and in the writing of it, it became the power of me, the power of 'we', and the power of us. The idea that you build a
foundation when you're young, mostly from my work
life, the power of 'we', which says I kind of in retrospect
could see five principles on how to really drive change that would be done in a good way. And then eventually you could scale that the power really of us, which is what I'm doing
about finding better jobs for more people now that I co this, co-chair an organization called OneTen. So that essence of navigate tensions, do it respectfully, celebrate progress. And indulge me one more minute. These sort of, again, it's retrospect that- I didn't
know this in the moment. I had to learn it, I learned it, I am blessed by a lot of
the people I worked with and around. But some of the principles, like the first one says, if you're gonna do
something, change something, do something, you gotta be
in service of something. Being in service of is really different than serving, super different. And like I just had my knee replaced, and I interviewed all these doctors. You can tell the difference that the guy was gonna do a surgery, hey, my surgery's fine, I really don't care whether you can walk and do the stuff you wanted to do again, 'cause my surgery's fine,
your hardware's good. I actually had some trouble and
I had a doctor who was like, you know, this doesn't sound right. I'm coming to you. Like, the surgery was fine, it was me that was reacting wrong to it and he didn't care until
I could walk again, okay? There's a big difference
in those two things, and it's true in any business you have, a waiter serves you food,
okay, he serves his food, he did his job, or did he
care he had a good time? So that thought to be in
service of it took me a while to get that, like, to try to
write it, to get that across, 'cause I think it's like so fundamental. If people were really
in service of something, you gotta believe that
if I fulfill your needs, at the end of the day
mine will be fulfilled. And that is that essence
that makes it so different. And then the second part, second principle is about building belief, which is, I gotta hope
you'll voluntarily believe in a new future or in
some alternate reality, and you will use your discretionary energy versus me ordering you. You'll get so much more
done, than the third change and endure, we kind of
talked about that earlier. Focus more on the how and the skills, and then the part on good
tech and being resilient. So anyways, I just felt
that like Goodtech, everybody's a tech company, I
don't care what you do today. And there's some fundamental
things you gotta do. In fact pick up today's
any newspaper, right? Chat GPT, you're an AI guy, all right? I believe one of the
tenants of good tech is it's like responsibility
for the long term. It says, so if you're
gonna invent something, you better look at its
upside and it's downside. Like we did quantum computing, great, lot of great stuff, right? Materials development, risk
management calculations, endless list one day. On the other side it can break encryption, that's a bad thing. So we work equally hard
on all the algorithms that would sustain quantum. I think with Chat, okay, great, there's equal and there
are people working on it, but like, okay, the things that say, hey, I can tell this was
written with that, right? Because the implications
on how people learn, right? This is not a great thing if all it does is do your homework, that is not the idea of homework, as someone who liked to study so hard. But anyways, you get my point, it's just the upside and the downside. - And that there could be
a much larger implications that are much more difficult to predict than it's our responsibility... - [Ginni] Absolutely. - To really work hard to figure that out. - Yeah, I was talking AI ethics
a decade ago and I'm like, why won't anybody listen to us, you know? And that's another one
of those values things that you realize, hey, if I'm gonna bring
technology in the world, I better bring it safely, right? And that to me comes with, when you're an older
company that's been around, you realize that society
gave you a license to operate and it can take it away. And we see that happen to companies, and therefore you're like, okay, like why I feel so strong about skills. Hey, if I'm gonna bring in it's gonna create all these new jobs, job dislocation, then I should help, I'm trying to help people get new skills. Anyways, that's a long
answer to what good tech, but the idea that there's
kind of in retrospect a set of principles you could look at and maybe learn something
from my sort of rocky road through there. - But it started with the power of 'we'. And there's that big leap
I think that propagates to the things you're saying, which is the leap from
focusing on yourself to the focusing on others. So that having that empathy, you've said, "At some point in our lives and careers, our attention turns from
ourselves to others. We still have our own goals, but we recognize that
our actions affect many, that it is impossible to achieve anything truly meaningful alone." So it's to you, I think
maybe you can correct me, but ultimate good power
is about collaboration and maybe in, you know, in a large conference like
delegation on great teams. - The ultimate good power
is actually doing something for society. That would be my ultimate
definition of good power. - [Lex] So it's about
the results of the thing. - Yeah, but how it's done, right, the how it's done. And so, you know, when you said a leap, do you think people
make a leap when they go from thinking about themselves to others? Do you think it's a leap or
do you think it kind of just is a sort of slow point? - I think the leap is in
deciding that this is, it's like deciding that
you will care about others. That this is, it's like a
leap of going to the gym for the first time. It's yes, it takes a
long time to develop that and to actually care, but the decision that I'm
going to actually care about other human beings, yeah. I think, or at least like, yeah, it just feels like a deliberate
action you take of empathy. - Yeah, 'cause sometimes I
think it happens a little, it's maybe not as deliberate. Yeah, it is a little bit more gradual because it might happen
because you realize that, geez, I can't get this done alone, so I gotta have other people with me. Well, how do I get them
to help me do something? So I think it does happen a
little bit more gradually, and as you get more confident, you start to not think so
much that it's about you, and you start to think
about this other thing you're trying to accomplish. And so that's why I felt it
was a little more gradual. I also felt like, I can
remember so well, you know, this idea that, again,
now we're in the eighties, nineties, I'm a woman, I'm in technology, and I was down in
Australia at a conference and I gave this great speech, again me, power of me, you know, I'm thinking I give this great
speech, financial services, this man walks up to me
after I think he's gonna, like, ask me some great question. And he said to me, I wish my
daughter could have been here. And in that moment, and at that point, up to that night, I had
always been about, look, please don't notice I'm a
woman, do not notice that. I am, I just wanna be
recognized for my work. Crossing over from me
to we, like it or not, I was a role model for
some number of people, and maybe I didn't wanna be,
but that didn't really matter. So I could either accept
that and embrace it or not. I think it's a good
example of that transition. I did have a little
epiphany with that happening and then I'm like, okay. 'Cause I would always be like, no, I won't go to women's
conference, I won't talk here, I won't, you know, no, no, no. But then I sort of
realized, wait a second, you know that old saying you
cannot be what you cannot see. And I said to myself,
well, oh wait a second. Okay, I am in these positions, I have a responsibility
too and it's to others. And that's what I meant, I felt like it can be
somewhat gradual that you come and you may have these like
pivotal moments that you see it, but then you feel it and you sort of move over that transom into the power of 'we.' - You're one of the most
powerful tech leaders ever. And as you mentioned the word power, you know the old saying goes, power corrupts and absolute
power corrupts absolutely. Was there an aspect of power that was, that you had to resist its ability to corrupt your mind to sort
of delude you into thinking you're smarter than you are? That kind of- all the ways that... - That's very dangerous. I agree with- I mean, I think you gotta be careful who you surround yourself with. That's how I would answer
that question, right? And people who will hold
the mirror up to you can be done in a very
positive way, by the way, doesn't mean, you know? But that word 'sick of fans',
you cannot have that, right? I mean it's like, I always
say to someone like, hey, listen to me, tell me what would make me
better or do something or- I have a husband that'll do that for me quite easily by the way. He'll always tell me. - [Lex] So he's the one that
kinda give you some quick... - I have been surrounded
myself with a number of people that will do that. And I think you have to have that. I had a woman that worked
with me for a very long time, and at one time we were competitors, and then at some point
she started to work for me and stayed with me for quite way. And she was one of the few
people that would tell me the truth in, you know, sometimes
I'm like, enough already. And she'd be like, do not
roll your eyes at this. And you absolutely have got to have that. And I think it also comes, it'll go back to my complete
commitment to inclusion and diversity. 'Cause you gotta have
that variety around you. You'll get a better product and a better answer at the end of the day. And so to resist that allure, I think it's around about who
you surround yourself with. Current politics would say that too. - So you write about, and in general you value diversity a lot. So can you speak to almost
like philosophically, what does diversity mean to you? - Diversity to me means, I'm
gonna get a better product, a better answer. I value different views. And so it's inclusion. So I always say inclusion,
diversity's a number, inclusion's a choice. And you can make that
choice every single day. - That's a good line. - I really believe, and I've witnessed it, that I've had, when my teams are diverse, I get a better answer. My friends are diverse,
I have a better life. I mean all these kinds of things. And so I also believe it's
like no silver thread, there's no easy way. You have to authentically believe it. I mean, do you authentically believe that diversity's a good thing? - Yeah, but I believe that
diversity, like broadly... - [Ginni] A thought, I
very broadly define it. - Yeah, so like there's, you know, sometimes the way diversity is looked at with the way diversity is used today is like surface level characteristics, which are also important, but they're usually
reflective of something else, which is a diversity of
background, a diversity of thought, a diversity of struggle. Some people that who grew
up middle class versus poor, different countries, different
motivations, all of that. Yeah, it's beautiful when different people from very different walks
of life get together. Yeah, it's beautiful to see. Well, like sometimes it's
very difficult to get at that on a sheet of paper of the characteristics
that defines the diversity. - I know. So it is, it's just like, oh, I can't hire exactly
for or if I'm trying to, but I do know one thing
that when people say, well I can't find these kind
of people I'm looking for, I'm like, you're just not
looking in the right places. - Right you have to open up. - You gotta really open
up new pools, right? - Yeah. You have to think like everybody, you don't have to have a PhD, just like you said, yeah. - I'm sorry to say it, you know. I know, I know it's very valuable, but you have trust me. - Well it could- just like you said, it could even be a negative. So you mentioned like for Good Power, you were a CEO for a long
time of a public company. Were there times when there
was pressure to sacrifice what is good for the world, for the bottom line in order to do... - Yeah there were probably, there were a lot of times for that. I mean, I think every
company faces that today, and that always felt like
there's so much discussion about stakeholder capitalism, right? Do you just serve a shareholder?
Do you have multiple? I have always found, and I've been very vocal
about that topic that- and I participated the
business round table, wrote up a new purpose statement that had multiple stakeholders. I think it's common sense. Like if you're gonna
be a hundred years old, you only get there because
you actually do at some time balance all these different stakeholders in what it is that you do. And short-term, long-term,
all these trade-offs. And I always say people
who write about it, they write about it black and white, but I have to live in a gray world. Nothing I've ever done has been in a black and white world, hardly. Maybe things of values
that I had to answer, but most of it is gray. And so I think back lots
of different decisions. I think back, as you would well remember, you're a student of history. IBM was one of the really the originators of the semiconductor industry, and certainly of commercializing
the semiconductor industry. Great R&D and manufacturing, but it is a game of volume. And so when I came on, we were still manufacturing R&D and manufacturing our own chips. We were losing a lot of money. Yet here we had to fight
a war on Cloud and AI. And so, okay, now shareholders would say, fine, shut it down. Okay, those chips also powered some of the most important
systems that power the banks of today. If I just shut it down,
well, what would that do? And so, okay, the answer
wasn't just stop it, the answer wasn't just
keep putting money into it, the answer wasn't- we had to kind of sit
in an uncomfortable spot till we found a way. I mean, it's gonna sound so basic, but you as an engineer understand it. We had to separate it, it
was a very integrated process of research development and manufacturing. And you'd be perfecting
things in manufacturing, and these were very
high performance chips. We had to be able to separate those. We eventually found a way to do that so that we could take the
manufacturing elsewhere and we would maintain the R&D. I think it's a great example
of the question you just asked. Because, people would've applauded, others would've been, this was horrible. Or we'd had a financial roadmap
that had been put in place that said, I'll make this
amount of EPS by this date. There came a time we couldn't honor it because we had to invest. And there's a million of these decisions, I think most people that
run firms, any size firm, they're just one right
after another like that. And you're always making
that short and long tension of what am I giving up? - Well, what is that partnership
like with the clients? 'Cause you work with gigantic businesses. And what's it like, sort of, really forming a great
relationship with them, understanding what their
needs are being in service of their needs. - In service of, yeah. Very simple. Honor your promises. And that happens over time. I mean, in service of, you know, which is often why you
could work with competitors. Because if you are
really in service of you and you need something, it
takes two of us to do it, that becomes easier to do, because I really, we both
care, you get what you needed. And so I can remember
during one of the times I was on a European trip,
and at the time lot of- and this is still true about
views about technology, and national technology giants, and global ones, and
the pros and the cons. And countries want their
own national champions, quite obvious, I mean,
if I'm France or Germany. And there was a lot of discussion
about security and data, and who was getting access to what. And I can remember being in one of the, I was with Chancellor Merkel,
had met her many times. Very well prepared, very
well prepared every time, you would know. And I started to explain
all these things about why, how, you know, how
we don't share data, who it belongs to, our
systems never had back doors. And she sort of stopped me, like, you're one of the
good guys, like, stop. Now, that wasn't about me personally. She's talking about a company that's acted consistent with
values for decades, right? So to me, how you work with
those big kind of clients is you honor your promises. You say what you do and
you do what you say. And you act with values
over a long period of time. And that to me, people say about value, it is not a fluffy thing,
it is not a fluffy thing. It is a- I mean, if I was starting a company now, I'd spend a lot of time on that. You know, why we do what we do and why some things are tolerable and something- you know, what's your
fundamental beliefs are? And, and many people sort of
zoom past that stage, right? It's okay for a while until... - And never sacrifice that. - You would never sacrifice
that. I don't think you can. - So there was a lot of pressure
when you took over as CEO, and there was 22 consecutive quarters of revenue decline between
2012 and the summer of 2017. So it was a stressful time, maybe not, maybe you can correct me on that. So, as a CEO, what was it
like going through that time? Were the decisions, the tensions in terms of
investing versus making a profit? - I always felt that, that
sense of urgency was so high. And even if I was calm on the outside. Because you have one of the
world's largest pensions. So, so many people depend on you. You have a huge workforce,
they're depending on you. You have clients whose
businesses don't run if you don't perform, et cetera. And shareholders of course, right? And so, but I also am really clear, this was perhaps the largest
reinvention IBM ever had to undertake, at a board
that understood that. In fact, some of the headlines were like, this is existential, right? I mean, nobody gives you
a right to exist forever. And there aren't many texts. You're the student of it, they
are gone, they are all gone. And so if we didn't reinvent ourselves, we were gonna be extinct. And so now, but you're big
and it's like changing, what's that old saying? Can I change the wheels
while the train's running or something like that? Or the engines while the plane's flying. - [Lex] Yeah, exactly. - And that's what you have
to do, and that took time. And so, you know, Lex, do I
wish it would've been faster? Absolutely. But the team worked so
hard, and in that timeframe 50% of the portfolio was changed. It's a very large company. And, if you would, I also divested $10 billion of businesses. So if you would look at that growth rate without divestitures and currency, which now today everyone
talks about currency, back then we were the
only international guy, net of divestitures and
currency, the growth was flat. Is flat great? No. But flat for a big transformation? I was really proud of the
team for what they did. That is actually pretty miraculous to have made it through that. I had my little nephew one
day and he would see on TV, occasionally when there would
be criticism and he'd say, you know, auntie does that make
you mad when they talk mean? And I just looked at him and I said, you know, he says, how do you feel? I said, look, I'm doing
what has to be done. And I happened to be the one there. And if you have great
conviction, and I did, a great conviction, I knew
it was the right thing, I knew it would be needed for
IBM to live at second century. And my successor, they have
picked up, gone forward. I mean, you go back, we did
the acquisition of Red Hat. I mean, we had to find
our way on Cloud, right? We were late to it. So we had to find our way, and eventually that
led us to hybrid cloud. We had did a lot of work
with Red Hat back in 2017. Oh, we'd always done a
lot of work with them. We actually were one
of the first investors when they were first formed. But that was 2018, you know, it took quite a hit for even, oh, it was the largest to then
software acquisition ever. But it is the foundation, right? Of what is our hybrid cloud play today and doing very, very well. So, but I had to take a short
term hit for that, right? Short-term hit for a very
large $34 billion acquisition. But it was, for all of us it
was the right thing to do. So I think when you
get really centered on, you know it's the right thing to do, you just keep going, right? - So the team had the vision, they had the belief and everything else, the criticism doesn't matter. - We didn't always have exactly the right, you know, this wasn't a straight arrow. But stay down, you know
you're right, keep going. Okay, made a mistake, you know, there's no bad mistake as long as you learn from it, right, and keep moving. So yes, did it, take longer. But we are the largest that was there. - Could you maybe just on a small tangent, educate me a little bit. So Red Hat originally is Linux
open source distribution. Linux, but it's also consulting Well, it's... - A little bit of consulting, but it's mostly software distri- It is mostly Linux. It was mostly software, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. - So, but today IBM is very much, there's, you know, most
IT services in the world is done by IBM. There's so many varied. So basically if you have
issues, problems to solve in business in the software space, IBM can help? - Yes. And so in in that, my last
year, our services business, we broke it into two pieces. And one piece was spun off
into a company called Kyndryl, which is managed outsourcing. Keeping things running, and they're off creating
their own company. What IBM then retained is
really the part I built with PWCC, the big consulting arm. And so today the IBM of
today in 2023 is, you know, at least ending 2022 was 30% consulting, and the other 70% would
be what would you consider software cloud AI. So hybrid cloud and AI is the other- and some hardware, obviously,
still the mainframe is modernized, alive, and kicking, and still running some of
the most important things of every bank you can think
of practically in the world. And so that is the IBM of today versus perhaps, you know,
and Red Hat is a big piece and an important part of
that software portfolio. And they had some services
with them for implementation, but it wasn't a very large part. And it's grown by leaps and bounds. You know, 'cause originally
the belief was everything was gonna go to the public cloud. And at least many people thought that way. We didn't, and in fact, I mean we tried, we cured a public cloud company,
we really tried to work it. But what we found was a lot
of the mission critical work, it was tuned for consumer world, it wasn't tuned for the enterprise. So then time is elapsing here though, and you gotta be at scale. And we didn't have any application- remember we're not an application company. So it wasn't like we had an office, we didn't have anything
that like pulled things out to the cloud. And so as we looked for what our best, what we really back to who you are, we really know mission critical work. We know where it lives today, and we know how to make
it live on the Cloud, which led us down hybrid cloud. You know, that belief that the
real world would turn into, there'll be things on traditional
that'll you'll never move 'cause it doesn't make sense. There'll be private clouds for- they'll have all the benefit of the cloud but they just don't have, you know, infinite expansion. And then they'll be public clouds, and you're gonna have to
connect them and be secure. And that's what took us
down the path with Red Hat, that belief. - The structure of that
is fundamentally different than something that's consumer facing. So the lesson you learn
there is you can't just reuse something that's optimized for consumers. - Yeah, very interesting point. It doesn't mean consumer
companies can't move up into the enterprise 'cause
obviously they have, right? But I think it's very
hard to take something from the enterprise and come on down. And 'cause it gotta be simple, consumable, all the things we talked about already. - Plus you have to have the
relationships with enterprise, they have to build to that.
- Yeah, very different. Yeah. I mean, you know our history, right? At one time we had the PC business and the short answer to why
would we would not do that is it's a consumer facing business, we were good at the enterprise. And that consumer business,
a highly competitive, gotta be low cost, all the things that are not
the same muscles necessarily of being in an innovation
driven, you know, technology business. - Yeah, but what is now Lenovo, I guess, that's what's...
- [Ginni] That's right Lenovo acquired it. - You were extremely good at that. So, but not as good as you're saying is that at an enterprise. Or it was... - Lenovo's very good
at their PC world. Yes. And they can sell into
the enterprise, right? But you as a consumer
can go buy a Lenovo too. So look in China, right?
Look in other places. So that's what I mean by a consumer, you know, an end device. And that was a big decision 'cause it would've been
one of the last things that had our logo on it that
sits in your hands, right? So when a new generation says,
well what does IBM do, right? - Was that a difficult decision? Do you remember? - This is a long time
ago now, it's like 2005. So, they're all difficult
because it's not only things, it's people. But it's back to knowing who you are is how I would sum that up as, right? And we were never great at
making a lot of money at that. And you can remember
originally was IBM PC, then the IBM clones. They weren't called IBM clones back then, as the field became
highly, highly competitive. And as things commoditized,
we often, as they commoditize, we would move them out, and move on to the next innovation level. - But because of that, it's not as public facing, even though that's one of
the recognized logos ever. - Yeah. Isn't it true? That is very true. That is
actually a very important point. And that is, you know, branding, as you say one of the most recognizable and a very highly ranked brand
strength around the world. And so that's a trade off. I mean I can't, you know, 'cause there was a time
you'd have something of IBM in your home, or a cash
register as an example. You'd walk into a store, actually they're still in
places, that went to Toshiba. - Can you speak to
consulting a little bit? What does that entail to
train up to hire a workforce that can be of service to all
kinds of different problems in the software space, in the tech space? What's entailed in that? - I mean, you have to value a different set of things, right? And so you've gotta always stay ahead. It's about hiring people
who are willing to learn. It is about, at the same time in my view, it's what really drives
you to be customer centric. - And maybe you can educate me. I think consulting is a kind of, you roll in and you try to solve problems that businesses have, like
with expertise, right? - [Ginni] Okay. - Is that the process of consulting. - Somewhat? Right? So that- okay. So fair enough. When you say the word consulting, it's a really broad spectrum. I mean, I think people
could be sitting here thinking it does any, it could be I just give
advice and I leave, to all the way to I run
your systems, right? And I think it's generally
people use the word to cover everything in that space. So we sort of fit in the spot, which is, we would come in
and live at that intersection of business and technology. So yeah, we could give
your recommendations, and then we'd implement
'em and see 'em through because we had the technology
to go to the implementation and see 'em through. And at the time back then,
that's what, you know, there'd been five of
those that had failed. The companies had bought
other consulting firms. And, so we were- Okay, that was the great thing about, I mean, the harrowing thing about it was, here, please go work on this. None of the others have
ever succeeded before. And yet on the other hand, the great promise was you could really, clients were dying at that
time when we were doing that, to get more value outta their technology and have it really change
the way the business worked. So I think of it as
how to improve business and apply technology and
see it all the way through. That's what we do today still. - Yeah, they see it all
the way through. Yes. So let me say, almost
like a personal question. So that was a big thing you were a part of that you led in 2002 that
you championed and helped, I should say, negotiate
the purchase of Monday the consulting arm of
PricewaterhouseCoopers for $3.5 billion. So what were some of
the challenges of that that you remember? Personal and business. - At that time Pw really had to divest. And so they were in parallel
going to IPO, right? So we sort of swept in
at that point and said, and we'd been thinking
about it a long time, and started to work on
that as an acquisition. So, you know, kind of balancing
which way would they go IPO or acquisition. And so the challenges are obvious and part of it's why they went
with us as an acquisition. Big difference to be a private
firm than a public firm, very big. I can remember one of the guys, you know, we asked somebody how
long you've been with IBM? And the person answered 143 quarters. Okay, that's a little enlightening about a business model, right? So we had the challenges of
being private versus public. You have the challenge of
when you acquire something like that, as I say, you
acquire hearts, not parts. They could leave. I mean, you could destroy
your value by them leaving, they can walk right out the door. I mean, yes you can put lots of restraints but still that you had there. And then we had to really
build a new business model that people and clients would, you know, see as valuable and be willing to pay for. And so we had to do something that lived at that intersection, and say that how this was
unique is what we were doing. So you had the people aspect, you had that they were
gonna be private or public, and they had always been
private their whole life. And then you had the business model. So, and the others, it all failed, that had tried to do this. So yeah, it was a tough thing to do. - What about the personal side of that? That was a big leap step up for you. You've been at IBM for a long time. - [Ginni] Yeah. - This is a big sort of leadership, like very impactful, large scale leadership decisions. What was that like? - So, you know, unlike in my career earlier where I said I was changing jobs, I said I
wasn't comfortable, et cetera. So now here fast forward
10 years, and I'm like, okay, honestly, how I felt inside, on one hand I did what I learned, like inventory what you know how to do. Like you have some good
strengths that could work here. The other part of me said, boy,
this is really high profile. And I felt, and I can remember
saying to someone like, this is gonna kill me or catapult, probably nothing in between. - And that wasn't terrifying to you. That was okay, you were okay with that? - I was okay with that
because I felt I knew enough, you know, like these things I had- And I'll tell you the one
thing I felt I knew the best, consultants of any worth their weight, they really do care that they
deliver for an end client. And I felt I understood
service to a client so well that what it meant to
really provide value. So I knew we would have like something at, I knew the PwC people more than anything, wanted to deliver value to those clients they had, next to then
developing their people. That those were like
the really two things. And that I also knew they
felt they could do better if they had more technology, and we did. So there really was a reason, you know, that I could really believe in. So I authentically believed
back to that point. And I also felt I had lo
built some of those skills to be able to do that. But, I wouldn't call it terrifying. but make no mistake,
Lex, it was very hard, and it turned out to be
extremely successful. By the time we ended it was worth 19- well the time I stepped, I ran it for oh goodness
gracious, quite a long time. I'm gonna say seven or eight, nine years. And we were $19.5 billion, it made 2.7 billion in profit. It was very consequential to IBM. But the fact that it was
consequential is also very, I mean, there was a time
as we moved through it, I can even remember it, we just weren't meeting the
goals as fast as we should. And some of it was clients
were like, oh, now you're IBM. So I mean, some things
I knew would happen, but they happened so much faster. It'd be things like clients would say, oh, IBM cares about a quarter, so let's negotiate every
quarter on these prices. And, you know, when they were private they didn't have these issues. Well that had an impact
on margins really fast. And so that ability... - [Lex] So you picked
up a lot of challenges. - You pick 'em up right
away and I thought, oh boy, I mean if I don't get this turned around, this is really a problem. And the team learned a lot of lessons. I mean, I learned people
I had to move out, that I learned that when
people don't believe they can do something, they probably won't do it. So, you know, we wanted
to run the business at a certain level, I really did have some great leaders, but they didn't really
believe it could do that. And I finally had to come to terms with, if you don't really believe in something, you really aren't gonna
probably make it happen at the end of the day. And so we would change that. We would have to actually
get some more help to help us on doing so. But then it turned, and
I can remember the day that we started really
getting the business to hum and start to- it was almost like, finally! And I gave the team this little plaque, this little kind of
corny paperweight thing. And I'm gonna believe, I remember if it was
Thomas Edison and he said, "Many of life's greatest
failures are people who gave up right before they were
going to be successful." And it's so true. I mean, there was also a
governor of Texas who's passed, but she had said, someone said, what's the secret of your success? And and she said it's passion and perseverance when everyone
else would've given up. And I feel that's what that taught me. That taught me like, no
matter how bad this gets, you are not giving up. Now you can't keep doing
the same thing like the, you know, doctor this hurts. Oh, then stop doing. You know, you can't keep
doing the same thing. We had to keep changing
till we found our right way to get the model to work right. And client work, we
never, never had an issue, and kept so many of the people. And now we are 25 years almost later, and a number of them run
parts of the IBM business still today. So, it's that old Maya Angelo saying, when you say, what do I remember? They'll say, you won't
remember the specifics of this, but you'll remember how you felt. And that's kind of how I
feel and I think they do too, the whole team does of that. Like, I'll get anniversary
notes still on that. You know, when you've been through something like that together with people. - So during the acquisition the way you knew that
people, it's the right team, are the ones that could believe that this consulting business can grow, can integrate with IBM and all of that? - Yeah, I was lucky. Look, I did things that helped that. I mean, I knew that people joining us would feel more comfortable
if they had people leading it that they recognized, et cetera. But again, I learned those that didn't then, I eventually had to take some action out. But PWCC had a lot of really
dedicated leaders to it. And I give them a lot of credit. - Well it's amazing to see a thing that kind of start at
that very stressful time and then it turns out to be a success. - [Ginni] Yeah. - That's just beautiful to see. So what about the acquisition itself? Is there something
interesting to say about the, like what you learned
about maybe negotiation, 'cause there's a lot
of money involved too. - To me it was a win-win. And we both actually cared
the customers got value. So there was this like third
thing that had a benefit, not them, not a- there was this third thing and that... - I like that you that
people would have the wisdom of what it takes to
have great negotiation. But yeah, so it's a
win-win is one of the ways you can have successful. - But it's like obvious
to even say that, right? I mean, if you can back to
being in service of something, we were both in service of clients. So in and then, you know, I always say, when you have a negotiation with someone, okay, both parties always kind
of walk away a little bit. Okay, that's good. If they both walk away going, God, I should have got
a little bit more, okay, but it's okay, but I should've got. Okay, they're both a little fussy. When one walks away and
thinks they did great and the other one did horrible, they usually is like born bad. I mean, because they
never worked that way. And I've always felt that
way with negotiations that you push too far down, you usually will be sorry
you did that, you know? - So don't push too far. I mean, that's ultimately
what collaboration and empathy means is you are interested in the long term success
of everybody together, versus like your short term success. - And then you get the
discretionary energy from 'em versus like, okay, you screwed
me here, I'm done, right? - So let's even rewind even back. - Oh no. Oh no. Do you feel like this is
a nostalgia interview? Oh no. - Let me just ask the romantic question. What did you love most about engineering? Computer science, electrical engineering. So in those early days, from your degree to to
the early marketing. - I love that logic part of it, right? And you do get a sense of
completion at some point when you reach certain
milestones that you know, like, yes, it worked, or yes it, you know? That finite answer to that. So that's what I loved about it. I loved the problem solving of it. - Computing. What led you down that path? Computing in general, what made you fall in
love with with computing, with engineering? - It's probably that back to that desire, wanting to know how things work, right? And so that's like a natural thing. You know, math, I loved
math for that reason. I always wanted to study
how did that, you know, how did it get that to work kind of thing. So it goes back in that time. But I did start, when I
started at Northwestern, I was already in the engineering school, but my first thought was to be a doctor, that that was far more noble. That I should be a medical doctor, until I could not pass human
reproduction as a course. And I thought the irony
that I could not, I'm like, I got all these colored pencils,
I gotta all these pictures, this is not working out for me. - [Lex] I'm gonna stick to math. - It was the only course in
my four year college education I had to take pass fail because
otherwise I risk, you know, pairing my great point average. - Engineering it is. But after about 10 years you
jumped from the technical role of systems engineer to a
management, a leadership role. Did you miss at that time
the sort of the technical direct contribution versus
being a leader, a manager? - That's an interesting point. Like I say, I've always
been sort of a doer leader, you know, so... - [Lex] So you never lost that? - I never really did. Even, you know, and I think this is like
really important for today, the best way people
learn is experientially, I think. That's being a generalization 'cause there people can learn
all different ways, right? So I've done things
like with my whole team, they all had to learn how
to build cloud applications and called it code off. And so, I don't care what your job is, write code, you know? And I remember when we were
trying to get the company to understand AI, we did something called a Cognitive Jam. Okay, there's a reason we
picked the word cognitive by the way, instead of AI,
today we used the word AI. It was really symbolic. It was to mean, this is to help you think, not replace your thinking. There was so much in
the zeitgeist about AI being a bad thing at that time. So that was why we picked
a mouthful of a word like cognitive. And it was like, no, no,
this is to help you actually. So, you know, do what you do better or do something you haven't yet learned. And we did something
called the Cognitive Jam. But the whole point was
everybody in the company could volunteer, get on a team. You either had to build something that improved to one of our products, or did something for a client, or did a social issue with AI. And again, this goes
back now, hmm, 10 years. And people did things from
bullying applications to, you know, railroad stuff
to whatever it was, but it got like a hundred
thousand people to understand you know, viscerally what is AI. So that's a long answer to my
belief around experiential. And so do you ever give
it up? I don't think so. 'Cause I actually think that's pretty good to get your hands dirty in something. You know, you can't do it, depending what you're doing
your effort to do that will be less, but... - So even a CEO, you tried to get your hands
to dirty a little bit. - I've played, I mean you still, I'm not saying I'm any
good at anymore, but. - [Lex] But to build up intuition. - Yeah, it's that really
understand, right? And not be afraid of.
- Yeah. Like we mentioned at the beginning, IBM research has helped catalyze some of the biggest
accomplishments in computing and artificial intelligence history. So Deep Blue, IBM Deep Blue versus Kasparov
chess match in 96 and 97. Just to ask, kind of like,
what your perception is, what your memory is of it, what is that moment? Like, this seminal moment? I believe probably one of the
greatest moments in AI history when the machine first beat a
human at a thing that humans. - You make a very interesting point 'cause it is like one of
the first demonstrations of using a game to like bring something to people's consciousness, right? And to this date, people use games, right, to demonstrate different things. But at the time, it's funny, I didn't necessarily
think of it so much as AI and I'll tell you why. I was, and I'm not a chess player, you might be a chess player,
so I'm not expert at it, but I think I understand properly of chess that chess has got a finite
number of moves it can be made. Therefore, if it's finite, really what's a demonstration
of a supercomputing, right? It's about the amount of time
and how fast it can crunch through to find the right move. So in some ways I thought of it as a almost a bigger
demonstration of that, but it is absolutely, as you said, it is was a motivator one
of the big milestones of AI because it put in your
consciousness that it's man in this other machine, right, doing something. - So you saw it as just a
challenging competition problem, and this is a way to demonstrate hardware and software computation at his best. - [Ginni] Yes, I did. - But the thing is, there is a romantic notion
that chess is the embodiment of human intellect. I mean intelligence, that you can't build a
machine that can beat a chess champion in chess
and the fact that did... - I was blessed by not being
a chess expert, so it wasn't.. - [Lex] So it's just a
computation problem, I like it. - Computation problem to me. - Well that's probably
required to not be paralyzed by the intensity of the task, so that this is just solvable. But it was a very, I think that was a powerful moment. So speaking just as an AI person, that reinvigorated the dream. - You were a little kid
back then though, right, at that in 95. You had to be like, were you- you remember it actually at the moment? - [Lex] Yeah, yeah.
- Do you? - Yeah, yeah. - What did you think
at the moment about it? - It was all inspiring because, especially sort of
growing up in the Soviet Union, you think especially of
Garry Kasparov and chess, like your intuition is
weak about those things. I didn't see it as computation. I thought of it as intelligence, because chess for a human being doesn't feel like computation. It feels like some complicated
relationship between memory, and patterns, and intuition,
and guts, and instinct, and all of those, like some... - [Ginni] If you watch someone play that's what you would conclude, right? - And so to see a machine
be able to beat a human, I mean you get a little bit
of that with Chat GPT now. It's like language was taught us humans, the thing that we kind of surely, the poetry of language is something only humans can really have. It's going to be very
difficult to replicate the magic of a natural language without deeply understanding language. But it seems like Chat GPT
can do some incredible things in language. And in natural language dialogue. So, but that was the first moment in AI through all the AI
winters from the sixties of the promise of the- it was, wow, this is possible for a simple set of algorithms to accomplish something that
we think of as intelligence. So that was truly inspiring
that maybe intelligence, maybe the human mind is just algorithms. That was the thought at the time. And of course now, the
funny thing what happens is the moment you accomplish
it, everyone says, oh, it's just brute force
algorithms, it's silly. And this continuous, every
single time you pass a benchmark, a threshold to win a game,
people say, oh well... - [Ginni] It's just this.
- It's just this, it's just this. And that, I think that's funny, and there's going to be a moment when we're going to have to
contend with AI systems that exhibit human-like
emotions and feelings. And you have to start to have
some difficult discussions about, well how do we treat those beings and what role do they have in society? What are the rules around that, you know? And this is really
exciting because that also puts a mirror to ourselves to see, okay, what's the right way to treat
each other as human beings? 'Cause it's a good test for that. - It is, 'cause I always say
it's a reflection of humanity. I mean it's taught by what man, you know, bad stuff in the past, you'll teach bad stuff for the future. And which is why I think, you know, like efforts to regulate
it are a fool's errand. You need to regulate uses not, you know, because it's not the technology itself is not inherently good or bad, but how it's used or taught can be good or bad for sure, right? And so that's to me will unveil
now a whole different way of having to look at technology. - What about another magical
leap with the early days of Watson with beating
the Jeopardy challenge? What was your experience like with Watson and what's your vision
for Watson in general? What was it? - And it was really inspired
by first chess, right, in Kasparov and then you
come forward in time. And, you know, I think what Watson did, 'cause you used a really important word. AI had kind of waxed and
waned in these winners, right? In and out, in and out. Popular-not, more money-less
money, you know, in and out, confidence- no confidence. And so I think that was
one of the first times it brought to the forefront
of people like, whoa, like it humanized it. Because here it is playing
against these two gentlemen. And as it did lose it first, you know, and then finally won
at the end of the day. But what it was doing is making you say, hey, natural language, it's actually understanding
natural language. It's one of the first demonstrations of natural language support, and bit of reasoning
over lots of data, right? And so that it could have
access to a lot of things come up with a conclusion on it. And to me that was a really big moment. And I do think it brought to
the conscious of the public and in good ways and bad, 'cause it probably set
expectations very high of like, whoa, what this could be. But, and I still do believe
that it has got the ability to change and help us
man make better decisions that so many decisions are
not optimal in this world. You know, even medical decisions, and it's right or wrong
what took us down a path of healthcare first with our AI. And we took many pivots, and I think there's a
really valuable lesson in what we learned. One is that I actually don't think the challenges are the technology. Yes, those are challenges, but the challenges are
the people challenges around this, right? So do people trust it? How will they use it? I mean I saw that straight
with doctors and like, meaning they're so busy in
the way they've been taught to do something. Do they really have time
to learn another way? I saw it was a mistake when
you put it on top of processes, it didn't change, kind of like paving a
cow path, didn't work. I mean it was all human
change management around it that were really its biggest challenges. And another valuable lesson
we picked back to usage, you think of IBM as moonshots, we picked really hard
problems to start with. I think you see a lot of technology now starts with really simple problems. And by that it probably
starts to build trust, because I start little, it's
like, oh, I'm not ready to, you know, outsource my diagnosis to you, but I'll get some information
here about a test question. So very different thinking. So a lot of things to learn. We were making a market at the time, and when you make a market, you know, choice of problem you work
on gets to be very important. When you're catching up,
well then it's a scale game. So very different thing. But Watson proved, I think, I mean I hope I'm not being too, I think Watson brought AI back
out of winner for the world. And that since then there's
just been, you know, one company after
another, and innovations, and people working on it. And I have no regrets
of anything that we did, we learned so much. I mean we probably
rebuilt it many times over and made it more modular. And today to IBM, a Watson is more about AI
inside of a lot of things, if you think of it that way, which is more like an ingredient versus it's a thing in and of itself. And I think that's how
it'll bring its real value. You know, more as an ingredient. And it's so badly needed, and even back then the
issue was so much data, like what do you ever do it? You can't get through it, you can't use it for anything. You know this, well, it's your profession. So we have to have it. So that's gonna propel it forward. - So it's part of the suite of tools that you use when you go to enterprise and you try to solve different problems. - Yeah, so AI for security,
AI and automated operations, AI in your robotics,
AI on your factory for, you know what I mean? It's all part of, and I think, and that's why even to
this day, thousands, I mean thousands and
thousands of clients of IBM still have the Watson components. That it's the AI being used. So it became a platform is
how I would say it, right? And an ingredient that went
inside and consultants, like you said, had to learn. They had to learn, don't
just put it on something, you gotta rethink how
that thing should work because with the AI, it could
work entirely differently. And so I also felt it could open up and still will open up
jobs to a lot of people, because more like an assistant, and it could help me be
qualified to do something. And we even years ago saw
this with the French banks, very unionized, but that
idea that you could, in this case the unions voted for it, because it felt people did a better job. And that's just part about
being really dedicated to help it help humanity not destroy it. - Speaking of which, a funny side note. So Kubrick's 2001 Space Odyssey, what do you think about, you know, the fact that HAL 9,000
was named after IBM? - I really don't think it was. I know there's- I really don't. - It could be more fake news. - It's more fake news. I have done, I've like researched this, tried to find any evidence
and people have talked to, you know, was it really one letter, it was one letter... - One letter off.
- [Ginni] Off, right? - But people that know H
is one letter off of I, A is one letter off of B, and
then L is one letter off of M. - I think that's a solution
found afterwards, you know? - [Lex] Yeah, that's hilarious. - But here's what I think it more was, I do think it's one of the
early demonstrations of evil AI. Like can be taught bad. - I could push back on that because it's presented
as evil in the movie because it hurts, the AI hurts people. But it's a really
interesting ethical question because the role of HAL
9,000 is to carry out a successful mission. And so the question that
is a human question, it's not an AI question, at what price you humans wage war. They pay very heavy costs for a vision, for a goal of a future that
creates a better world. And so this question certainly in space, doctors ask that question all the time, under limited resources
who allocate my time and money and efforts. - I agree. Like I said, I've spent a decade talking about this question
of AI ethics, right? And that it needs really considerable, not just attention, because otherwise it will
mirror everything we love and everything we don't love. And again that's the beauty
in the eye of beholder, right? Depending your culture
and everything else, with what you are doing
and what you're gonna do. How do you think about it? Do you think about the AI
you're going to develop as having guardrails dictated
by some of your beliefs or? - Yeah, for sure. So there's so many interesting
ways to do this the right way and I don't think anyone has an answer. I tend to believe that
transparency is really important. So I think some aspect of your
work should be open sourced, or at least have an open source competitor that creates a kind of forcing function for transparency of how you do things. So the other is, I tend to believe maybe
it's because of the podcast and I've just talked to a lot of people, you should know the people involved. - [Ginni] I agree a hundred percent. - As opposed to hide
behind a company wall. Sometimes there's a
pressure, you have a PR team, and you have to care for
investors and discussions, so on, let's protect, let's surely
not tweet, not let's- like, and you form this bubble where you have incredible
engineers doing fascinating work and also doing work that's difficult, complex human questions being answered. And we don't know about
any of them as a society. And so we can't really
have that conversation. Even though that conversation
would be great for hiring, it would be great for
revealing the complexities of what the company is facing. So when the company makes mistakes, you understand that it wasn't
malevolence or half acidness. and the decision making is
just a really hard problem. And so I think transparency
is just good for everybody. And I mean in general, just having a lot of
public conversations about, this is serious stuff, it's that AI will have
a transformative impact on our society and it might
do so very, very quickly through all kinds of
ways we're not expecting, which is social media
recommendation systems. They at scale have impact
on the way we think, on the way we consume news, our growth, like the kind of stuff we
consume to grow and learn and become better human beings,
all of that, that's all AI. And then obviously the
tools that run companies on which we depend, the
infrastructure in which we depend, we need to know all
about those AI decisions. And it's not as simple as, well, we don't want the AI to say these specific set of bad things. It's unfortunately, I don't
believe it's possible to... - [Ginni] It's not. - Prevent evil or bad things by creating a set of
cold mathematical rules. Unfortunately it's all
fuzzy and gray areas, it's all a giant mess. - It is. I mean, you think
about it like a knife. A knife can do good and a
knife knife can do bad, okay? You can't- it's very hard. - [Lex] You can't ban knives.
- You can't ban knives. And that this is, I think
back it was 520, I dunno, 15, 16, we did principles
of trust and transparency. Notice the word transparency. That belief that with AI
it should be explainable, you should know who taught it, you should know the data
that went into training it, you should know how it was written, if it's being used, you have
a right to know these things. And I think those are pretty to this day really powerful principles
to be followed, right? And part of it we ended up writing, 'cause here we were when we were working on particularly healthcare, like okay, you care who trained it and what? And that's sort of simp, you know, that comes to your
mind, you're like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense for
something important like that. But it just in general, people
won't trust the technologies. I don't think unless
they have transparency into those things. In the end they won't really trust it. - I think a lot of people
would like to know sort of, 'cause a lot of us, I certainly do suffer
from imposter syndrome, that self-critical brain. So, you know, taking that
big step into leadership, did you at times suffer
from imposter syndrome? Like, how did I get here?
Do I really belong here? Or were you able to summon the courage and sort of the confidence
to really step up? - Hmm. I think that's very natural for someone. Like, no matter, like
the bigger the job gets, you turn and you look to
the left and the right, and you see people
around you and you think, what am I doing here, right? But then you remember what you do and there's no one else doing it, and so you get that confidence. So I do hear a lot of people talk about imposter syndrome, right? And I kind of, actually this past year I've
spent some time helping people on that topic. And part of the stress,
you have to believe you, and you have a right to be
there like anyone else does if you've prepared for
that moment, you know? And so it's a bit more of a, I know it's hard to say
it like a confidence thing more than anything else. So yes, there are times I look around, but then I think, wow, I'm in a position to
make something change. So I can't say I have ever really dwelled on that feeling for long. - [Lex] Okay, so you
just focused on the work. I have an opportunity,
I'm gonna step up... - You know, it's good or bad, I just focus on the work, yeah. Good or bad. Yeah. - One important lesson
you've said you learned from your mom, is never
let anyone else define you. Only you define who you are. So what's the trajectory let's say, of your self-definition
journey of you discovering who you are from having that
very difficult upbringing? - You know, they say
pivotal moments happen and you don't realize it
when they're happening. So most of my- I feel like most of my self-discovery, it's been like something happens in a year or two or some number later, I look back on it and say, you know, I learned this from that. It's like not in the
moment always with me, that could just be how I am. So I feel like it's been, know yourself, it's a good thing, right? I've actually heard you say
that on different podcasts when you ask people questions,
you're like, well it depends, you know, like, know
yourself a bit, right? And... - It's hard to know who you are though. There's a lot of things like you said, like for me there's moods when
you're super self-critical, sometimes you're super confident, and there's many,
sometimes you're emotional, sometimes you're cool under pressure. Those are the same human being. - Yeah. And I think that's fine. (Lex laughing) Self-awareness that's different. - Was there societal expectations and norms regard regarding gender that you felt in your career? You've spoken to that a little bit, but was there some aspect
of that was constraining, empowering, or both? - You know, I chose to
never look at it, okay. Now, whether that is right or wrong, and again, I'm a product of the seventies. And seventies and the eighties where I think I was surrounded all the other women around me, viewed our way to get ahead
was just to work hard, work hard, work hard, and that was the way you
differentiated yourself. And that's obvious that did help. I mean, there's no doubt about it. You were always per, you know, you learned a lot of
things which qualified opened up another door,
opened up another door. I'm very mindful that I
have worked for companies that are very steeped in those
values of equal opportunity. And so nothing remarkable about that. And I mean, when I was a we kid, I'm taught, hire a diverse team. I get evaluated for it. I get evaluated if my team
is built up their skills. So this is when you're really formative, you're in a culture that that's
what it's valuing, right? So it becomes part of you. So, I say sometimes to (indistinct) did I ever feel I was
held back for that reason? Now were there plenty
of times when, you know, I write about a few of
the stories in the book, I'm laying cables at night
and the guys are at the bar. Now I didn't really wanna go
with him to the bar anyways, they'd be like, we'll be back
to get you, you know, bye. And I'm like, okay. I mean, I learned a lot, so it didn't. Now all that said, back to my earlier story
about being a role model. You know, it would be
foolish to not believe that there were times that that mattered. And I would say two things, even not that long ago. You know, a colleague called me and was talking about media and about women CEOs and said, do you notice that sometimes
when it's women's CEO they call the person by name, and when it's a man they
call the company out, not the person's name exactly
associated with the issue. And I said, yeah, well I think
you have to just understand much of what you do it will be magnified 'cause there are so few of you. And sometimes it will be, you know, really can be blown
outta proportion, right? And so that can happen, and you gotta learn in which way. Now all that said on gender, it is an interesting thing with
the book as I've talked to, you know, having a book, it
is one of my best friends. The first reaction is I can't wait for my daughter to read it. I'll say, well that's interesting. Do you think you could read it? - [Lex] That's fascinating. - It's an interesting reaction. And as here I am 40 years later, that's an interesting reaction, right? And I say no, the book, I really worked hard to
write it for everyone, I just happen to be a woman, right? But there's still that there. and never feel that they have- it doesn't even matter
whether there's a woman, could be a another diverse
group that feels it, it's okay to ask those questions and that's why actually
I'm okay talking about it, because there were times I felt it, right? There were times in my life
on my looks, or my weight, or my clothing, or
endless numbers of things that people would comment on that they would not have commented on if it was someone else. Now on the other hand, when there's so few of you and, you know, there's good and bad, I mean there's benefit to that too, right? If you do good work, you'll be recog- it's easier to be recognized. And so a pro and a con,
and I think I've just grown up believing, like
my advice to young women go into engineering, not 'cause
you're gonna be an engineer, it teaches you to solve problems. And anything you job you do
is gonna be solving problems. Things like that are what I take away from that in that journey. - It is interesting that, you know, I hear from women that
even on this podcast when I talk to incredible
women like yourself, it is inspiring to young
women to to hear it. I mean, you like to see, you
talk to somebody from Turkey and then Turkish people all get excited. - [Ginni] It's so true. - So you get like somebody
that looks like you, somebody that- and the
category could be tiny or it can be huge. And that's just the reality of the world. - It is a reality of the world. And the work I do now to put, this group called OneTen, put 1 million black employees
into the middle class without college degrees. Get 'em the right skills,
upwardly mobile jobs. So one of my last years
we had been working on, it just did regular
leadership session at IBM and had our black colleagues, we're talking about what did it feel like to be a black leader? And here these are extremely
accomplished people. And I can remember very well
one telling a story about, look, I felt if I failed or
succeeded, it's not just me, it came from a country in Africa. I feel like the whole
country is on my shoulder, my success or failure. That's a burden. I mean, like, I don't feel that burden. Not true as a woman's CEO I
did feel like it, you know, even the headlines when I was named said, her appointment will either, you know, her success or failure will be a statement for the whole gender kind of thing. And I didn't dwell on it, but I could see how people, like you said, it could be a small group, could be be whatever. And so that is a lot of pressure on people and they need role models. You are a role model for people. Look at what you're able to do. You do these podcasts, you understand your science very well. You're very well prepared. Your ability to translate
it to people, you know, that's not an insignificant thing. And you may think, oh, you know, is that about the power of me? Not really, right? And you obviously
believe you don't do this because you just like
sitting at a microphone. You do it because you think, okay, if I can get people to say things that are really valuable to other people, they're gonna learn something. I assume that is, I
mean, you never told me, my interpretation is that's
why you do this podcast. That you feel like in
service of other people, that you can bring them something unique by the way you do this. I should ask you why do you do it? That's my impression. - By the way, can I
just comment on the fact that you keep asking me
really hard questions, and I really appreciate
your (speaking faintly) I'm really honored by it. As a fan of podcast myself, what I hope is to talk to people like you and to show that you are a fascinating and beautiful human being outside of your actual accomplishments also. So sometimes people are
very focused on, you know, very specific things about, like you said, science, like what the actual work is, whether it's nuclear
fusion or it's Chat GPT. I just wanna show that it's because I see it at MIT and everywhere, it's just human beings trying their best, they're flawed. But just realizing that all of these very well accomplished
people are all the same. - Yeah, that's a very good- well said. - And then, so then regular people and the young people
that they're able to see, you know, I can do this too, I can have a very big impact. Yeah, exactly. It's like we're all kind of imposters. We're all like trying to figure out this. - [Ginni] To a certain degree. - So let me just ask you about family. You wrote that my family
still jokes that the reason I never had children on my own was because I had already raised my family. They're right. So this is talking to you upbringing. But in general, what was your, you know, leading a giant company, what was the right place
to find work-life balance for you to have time for family? Have time for away from
work and be successful. - So I had to learn that. And I might've said, you know, you're the only one that can determine your own work life balance. Companies are innate things, I mean, they will take
everything they can from you and it's not a bad thing. They just will as will bosses. I mean, you give it, we'll take it. And when people ask for,
you know, I need roof. I'm like, okay, I had to come with terms
with, the criminal was me. If I needed that balance, I
had to set those boundaries. And so when I comment about a family, because I am in extreme
awe of people with children who work. It is a extremely hard thing to do. I watch my siblings, I
love my nieces and nephews. And whew, you know, A the emotional, their pain is your pain
every minute of a day, and then you still have
a job on top of it. And so when my mom had
to go back to school and had to work, I was the one. And so when she couldn't
go to the teacher meeting, I went to the teacher meeting. And so in some ways,
and there's an age gap between my brother and I,
and my other two sisters. And so I'm still, they they
still call me mama bear even. I mean, I'm extremely
protective of all of them, and it is as if I had raised them. And my mom did a great job raising 'em, I didn't, but I was there. And so when it came time to have children, and my husband came from a
family where his father died and was raised by a single mother. Very similar endpoint, different
reasons why he ended up, you know, his father
did not abandoned them. And I don't want people
to believe to do my job, you can have no children. That is not right. I know other great women
CEOs, Marillyn Hewson, who ran Lockheed Martin,
extremely technical company. Mary Barra, who runs General Motors, Ellen Kullman who run DuPont, these are all my friends to this day. And they've been fantastic mothers and husbands good parents, right? And so I talk about it 'cause
it was a choice we made. And so, you know, we both felt, look, we'd reached a point
where for his reasons, what he had to do, I'd
already felt that way. And that we were comfortable
just being great aunts and uncles. And I'm a great aunt, you know. Well, I like to think
that for my little guys, they're older now, but lots of 'em. And there's no doubt
though the choices we made, Mark and I, that that made it easier for me to focus on work. I mean that's just math. You know, when you've got less people to have to take care of. And so I'm very considerate of that, and I think much of it informed many of the policies I put into because I had such great empathy for those who then still had these
other responsibilities. And I desperately wanted them
all to stay in the workforce. So I can remember and my siblings have been more successful than I by the way, I mean
to my mother's credit. And my one sister who, you
know, went to Northwestern, has an MBA, built some of the
most sophisticated systems. She spent her whole career at Accenture and just recently retired
as a chief executive of ALL Consulting. But at one point she took off time to spend with her family and
then went go back to work. She's talking to me and she's like, hmm, I don't know if I
should go back to work. You know, maybe life's path, you know, technology goes so fast,
it's been a few years. I'm sitting there like,
what are you talking about? I'm like, you know, look at her credentials
if far outstanding. I'm like, and I thought
to myself like, ding, one of those moments, if my own sister feels that
way with all her credentials, I'll bet I went back to work
the next day and I said, hey, pull for me all the people who've left for parental reasons and or whatever family
reasons and didn't come back. And it began a program of returnships. And I can't tell you
how many, men and women, was because they didn't
feel confident to come back. They thought technology passed them by. Okay, we said it's three months,
you could stay one month, three months, doesn't matter. Well a lot of people,
like one day they're like, you're right, not that much happened. I mean, well it happened, but I caught up, I actually know more
than I think, you know? So it was a long answer to
your question about I didn't, but I am so empathetic, and I am in awe of what
they are able to do. And it made me then I think
more empathetic to the policies and the like around that topic so you could keep great
people in the workforce. - So you mentioned you're
friends with Mary Barra, the CEO of GM. - [Ginni] I didn't mean
to name drop, so don't... - No, I love her. She's amazing. So I just wanted to, I'm just curious. - I'll tell Mary she
should do your podcast. - We'll make it happen. - She's a great leader. I always, I tell Mary
what I think of hers, I think she's one of the more
authentic leaders out there. Most authentic. - I mean it's just very
different companies, huge challenges. - I worked there first I remember, right? So I'm very, in some ways
I'm very beholden, right? You know, I'm very
appreciative of what they did. I mean Mary and I are circa the same, well I'm a bit older,
but circa that genre. - Do you exchange wisdom's? - Oh yeah. Yeah. When you do anything hard, it takes time and perseverance
like we talked about. And you can get that, where
do you get the fuel for it. You can either get it from your attitude or you can get it from your
network or your relationships. And I'm a firm believer relationships are from what you give, not what you get. Meaning you give, trust me,
they will come back at the time they need to come back to
you at these moments in life. If you focus on how can I bring Lex value, there'll be a day I need
Lex and he will be back. And so to those women, to me relationships are not transactional. And it's a proof that to this day, even though I'm no longer
still active as a CEO, these are still my friends, and they're- we are friends all of us. And I can remember some of
them when I first became a CEO calling me and saying, hey,
it's a little lonely here, so let me talk to you. And then when they became,
I did the same for them and then they remember, and they do it for the next generation. And so it's a very
supportive almost to a T any of the women you could
name who have been CEOs, I would say almost to a T
have all been very supportive. In fact, a number of us work on a little, another non-for-profit
right now called Journey, which some women who had started the Fortune's Most Powerful Women had started, which was, could we get more women, particularly diverse women, but women in general to more
quickly be into positions of leadership and power. And so many of the women you
named and more, you know, we all dedicate time mentoring
in kind of creating this little group of fellows
every year to do this. - Friendship and love is
core to this whole thing. Not just the success but just
to the whole human condition. Let me ask one last question. Advice for young people. You've had a difficult
upbringing, a difficult life, and you've become one of the
most successful human beings in history. What advice would you give to young people or just people in general
who are struggling a bit, trying to figure out how
they can have a career they can be proud of, or maybe
a life they can be proud of? - I feel like a life you can be proud of is just one if you leave
something a little bit better. It doesn't have to be big, you know, that's a life well lived, right? It was Churchill who said, we may- it was how you might
remember it better than I, you make a living by what you get and you live a life by what you give. Something to that effect. But my advice would probably,
when I'm asked this, I would tell them to ask more
questions and give answers. Just focus on being a sponge. And it's funny, I asked my husband the same
question the other day. I said, hey, what- we were talking to somebody
and people were asking this and he sort of paused
for a while and he said, I'd tell 'em patience. I said, what do you mean? And he said, I see so many young people, like they're in such a hurry to somewhere I don't know where. And that if they just had
patience and let life unfold, I think that may be a
surprise where they ended up. And actually I think that's
a really good answer, to be honest. - Along the way keep asking questions, keep that childlike curiosity. - I know it sounds so easy to say, it's just so you know. - Yeah, like you said, the obvious things, I think they tend to to
be the most profound. Ginni, you're an incredible human being, you're an inspiration is so many. Thank you for helping run and contribute to one
of the great companies that brings so much
good power to the world. And thank you for putting in the hard work of putting it all in the great book, so. And thank you for talking today. This was a huge honor,
thank you for doing it. - You did a lovely job. - Thanks for listening
to this conversation with Ginni Rometty. To support this podcast, please check out our
sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you some
words from Eleanor Roosevelt. "Do what you feel in
your heart to be right- for you'll be criticized either way." Thank you for listening and
hope to see you next time.