My firstminute | Jeff Immelt, General Electrics & NEA

What is it like being the CEO of a company with 300,000 employees? 🏢📊

We asked former CEO and Chairman of General Electric, Jeff Immelt in June 2020. 

Jeff Immelt is the former Chairman and CEO of General Electric, which he stepped down from in 2017 after 16 years. Jeff was the 9th Chairman of GE, and has been named one of the ""World's Best CEOs"" three times by Barron's, and GE has been named ""America's Most Admired Company"" by Fortune magazine and one of ""The World's Most Respected Companies"" in polls by Barron's and Financial Times. 

He now serves as a Venture Partner with our friends at NEA, sitting on the boards of several healthcare companies. 

Spencer spoke with Jeff about the earliest days of his career, his leadership lessons from running a company of General Electric's magnitude, and his views on healthcare, the pandemic and US/China relations. Spencer also explored the challenges that Jeff faced as a leader, and how he now supports the next generation of entrepreneurs, operators and investors.

Transcript

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First minute capital is a $100 million seed stage fund sector agnostic

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and proudly backed by a number of top

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technology founders, including 30 unicorn founders.

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The My First Minute series is about learning from prior

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generations of successful entrepreneurs and sharing their insights and lessons

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with the next generation of tech founders.

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The series has two focuses.

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One, How They Got Started in their careers

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that first minute, if you will.

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And two, how they see the world today

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and what they are most excited about.

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My name is Spencer Krone.

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I'm a co-founder and general partner at First Minute Capital.

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And today I'm speaking with Jeff Immelt.

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I'm not going to do your full bio intro because it might be most

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of the 45 minutes, but I do.

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I think everyone knows that you stepped down in 2017

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after 16 years as CEO and chatty with a nice charity.

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You joined the firm in 82.

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So 35 years into the company and in your chat taskforce

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Presidential Task Force for Obama

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and Trump, you're a member of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

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You now sit on, I think, Robin Hood as well as the time

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you the 100 most influential people and 29 of the world.

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You have a storied career and there are so many things I want to ask you about.

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But I also want to make sure that we get lots of time for questions

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because we have a really amazing audience for you.

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So perhaps.

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Well, I mean, the thing that feels most natural to kick off with Jeff

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is, is, is how is the US feeling at the moment?

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We're all reading obviously about it with great concern.

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How how is the atmosphere?

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Oh, gosh, I think it's as tougher time as I can remember.

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You know, I'm old enough to remember the 1960s

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and the kind of turmoil that that you could face then.

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But I think the you have three things going on at the same time.

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Any one of which would be

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very difficult to deal with.

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But you've got the global pandemic,

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which has had a big impact, particularly in cities like New York City.

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You've got another episode of

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bad race relations and just discrepancy and dynamic

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socioeconomic dynamics, and you've got 40 million people that are unemployed.

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So when you think

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about it, Spencer, in our context, if you had any one of those things,

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it would be a terrible

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time, you know, to have all three at the same time.

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You know, in some ways they're co-mingled, but in some ways

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they have a root that fits in of itself.

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I think it's a real challenge for citizens, for business, for government.

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And it's a it's as challenging a time as I can remember.

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We're definitely going to come back on

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your thoughts of how we ease from lockdown, for sure.

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Perhaps just on on on what's the last few days?

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Do you see the administration having handled it well?

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Like, what's your gut instinct on how the next few days pan out?

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You know, I think that, you know, I don't want to

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I don't want to veer into politics to heighten in the discussion.

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But I just think that you've got to connect and be empathetic with people.

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And if that's the way you form a common ground, whether in business or government.

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And I think that's incredibly important for leadership.

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Right now and a critical time as empathy.

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I think it's important that everybody has a chance

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to voice their rage right now.

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And that's very much a part of the American system and the American scene

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as the ability to voice

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your democratic

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rage about things that you don't like,

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but the complexity of helping African-Americans

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or race relations or policing or education,

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these are going to be years and decades and fixing

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and my fear is sometimes people view that, okay, I'm incensed.

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So I wrote a blog and I'm done with it, right?

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That's not going to be good enough to actually drive

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the kind of change we need to try.

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These are local, intricate, long term actions that need to be taking place.

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And that's you know, that's my hope, is that that's how real change takes place.

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So let's hope some of those long

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term measures accelerated, at least

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for now.

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But Jeff and I also forgot to admit

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and thank our friends at NPR for making this connection. So.

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Andrew Neil But we're going to, we're going to talk lots

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about tech and venture, perhaps, if I may start with, with that

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with a, my first minute of your of your own career

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and before that that 82 moment of joining you,

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you were at HBC and you started Procter Gamble, I think, where you were.

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Am I right in saying you and Steve Ballmer sat next to each other?

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Next to each other? Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Now what we see, what what were you like as colleagues?

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Well, we were the least likely to succeed,

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I would say we pretty much we were

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we were still parting too hard at first, serious workers.

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So I would say I would say Steve and I became great friends.

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We're friends today.

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We shared we worked on Duncan Hines cake mix together.

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And Steve went off to Stanford and a year later I went off to get my MBA.

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But we stayed in touch over the years and are great friends.

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Who would have been more surprised that the other want to be a CEO?

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I think it's a great question.

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I think it's almost an equal.

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It's almost I would say because

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we closed more than one bar together.

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There's no doubt about that.

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Well, it was it was it

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because your your father, I believe, worked at GE.

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You've done.

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That wasn't how you how you first got the link to the company but how how

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what was the transition from HBC to G and how did that

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how did you start your career?

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Yeah, look, I mean, I think it's a

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you know,

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I worked for a consulting firm the year, but between years of business school

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and I basically thought it was great, but I didn't want to go that part.

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I wanted to be an operator

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and I thought I could

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join a big company and learn for four or five years and then figure stuff out.

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And pretty soon five years turns into 20 years.

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And you know, some of it is performance and some of it's luck.

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And you just see how things evolve over time.

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And I always had good assignments and people that I liked and things like that.

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So that's I don't think, you know, it would be weird to join a company

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and say, I'm going to be CEO someday.

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So I never really thought about that.

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But, you know, I think I always wanted to be an operator.

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I always wanted to kind of have this hands on experience with things.

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And I certainly had a chance to to live that life was given.

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You are a math major at Dartmouth.

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Was was finance something you considered

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like what was what was the route almost taken if it wasn't GE?

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Oh, gosh.

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I mean, I think,

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you know, I think early in my career,

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you know, I was in sales in our plastics business

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and I had a chance to really see Canton entrepreneurs close up.

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And I think if I had done an off ramp at any point time

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during my career, it would have been to do something small and very specific

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and entrepreneurial, but just, you know, always had other options in other parts.

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I never really wanted to be a finance

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person or work on Wall Street or things like that.

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I think it's really, you know, products, product

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management, technology, globalization.

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Those were the things that kind of turned me on as I was building my career.

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Very helpful.

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And I think that

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that point on globalization is, again, something I would love to come back to.

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But the maybe what if you were,

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of course, CEO of GE's medical systems division now

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healthcare before becoming CEO of the whole company?

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The the it's well known that you stamped your own style

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and substance, too, after after succeeding Jack Welch.

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What were some of the hardest things

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to implement in day one where you had your vision for the company?

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What was what was some of that?

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Of course, the huge event that happened four days after you became

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CEO was was pretty, pretty relevant.

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But in terms of in terms

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of changing the company in ways that you thought was necessary

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and more focused and more global, what was some of the hardest things?

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Yeah, look, I think it's a

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instinctively and with my healthcare background, you know,

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I wanted the company to be more

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technical, more global and closer to the customer.

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Right.

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I was pretty sure that process tools like

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Six Sigma were good

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enough themselves, but they weren't going to make us a more innovative company.

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Right?

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They were going to they weren't really going to help us grow.

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So I needed to pivot away from that.

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And then again, I think when you follow somebody famous, you know,

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you have to drive change while pretending

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that nothing was ever wrong and that's that's always the most challenging thing

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both inside and outside the company is,

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you know, you're always as a leader, you're always have

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a saying cosine wave of perception

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and reality, right in your job as a leader.

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And they're never in check. Right.

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And and when

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perception is above

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reality, that's really right.

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And when you know realities below perception, that's a little bit easier.

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And that's why you see so many CEOs and so many leaders when they come in,

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the first thing they do is kind of like trash the past and they try to reset.

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They want to reset perception below reality.

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And I've always been somewhat skeptical of those kind of pronouncements.

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And when you follow somebody famous, you really

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you don't have that option that goes with it.

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So I think that's just something for all leaders to keep in mind.

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Were you ever conscious of

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making your mark in a way that was almost overly

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emphasizing the change of leadership and departure from the well?

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Not really.

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Just because of what you said, I think if you think about the last 20 years, right.

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So I basically from 1980 to 2000,

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these were pretty stable times.

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I mean, the world was at peace.

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The US had a dominant position of the world.

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You could just go through that time from 2000 to 2020,

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you've had the rise of China, the rise of technology,

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the rise of of the global financial crisis.

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You know, I could go down the list.

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So so I think we went from a time period of real stability

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to a time period of extraordinary volatility.

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So you didn't really have to stamp one way or the other.

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The world, the environment was just going to take care of whatever you were doing

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or, you know, whatever you needed to be or the things you needed to do.

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And I, I

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those some of those macro trends, again, particularly the one I'm most fascinating

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to hear your thoughts on as well as is health care,

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given your deep, deep expertize.

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But just one perhaps practical sort of insight into what it was like being CEOs

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of lots of entrepreneurs and CEOs on the line with thousands of employees.

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But I think it's quite hard to picture what running

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a company of 300,000 people was like.

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What was

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the core of the day job for you?

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What?

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How does it work when you're CEO of a company of that size?

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Yeah, look, I mean, I think the

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the rough estimate of how I would, you know, kind of roughly spend time

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was about 30% on people, 30% on growth,

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30% on problems, 10% on governance. Right.

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So 30, 30, 30, 10.

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That's the rough idea.

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I had an infinite amount of work to do,

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so I never went home at night because my work was done.

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I went home because I was tired.

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I wanted to see my family or something like that.

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But the work is nonstop, infinite

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and you know, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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Right.

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So I think I think for the people, a lot of the founders right now

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that that are kind of, you know, dealing with the pandemic and stuff like that.

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I think really you need to kind of find ways to take control over

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your personal life, get plenty of rest, don't drink too much, things like that.

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You need to find ways to get peace and find a way to think so.

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You're not fighting fires all the time.

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And I think you just need to settle in for the fact that this pandemic,

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we may only be

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10% through what's going to happen.

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So you just need to pace yourself as you go through it.

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And that's some of the things that would transition from where you are,

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you know, a 300,000 person company to where you are at a 300 person company.

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The last thing I'd say is you really don't manage 300,000 people.

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You manage 50 and you need to find ways, whether

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you're a big company or a small company, you need to have people you trust

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who are really there to kind of provide the right kind of framework

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and thoughts when you can't be all things to all people.

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Of course.

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And the pacing point, I think, is such an important one, particularly

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in this time of people working from home, and that separation is harder and harder.

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You know, Spencer, from the day

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Lehman Brothers went

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bankrupt until the bullets stopped flying,

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that was 15 months

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of just pure fright intensity.

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And then the waves from that last of the decade.

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Right.

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So that's what I try to tell the founders I work with now, which is pace yourself.

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I don't don't don't lose too many ideas early on.

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And the conversation we were having, which is,

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you know, now I sit on points with investors.

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I might be the only operator right now

00:14:30:09 - 00:14:33:03
and the CEO and founder kind of sits in the middle.

00:14:33:06 - 00:14:33:24
Right.

00:14:33:24 - 00:14:36:26
And the investors all say, look, cut, wants cut.

00:14:36:26 - 00:14:40:02
Now cut the get it behind you and then go on.

00:14:41:02 - 00:14:43:09
That's not the way the world works, right?

00:14:43:09 - 00:14:44:27
What the operator says is,

00:14:44:27 - 00:14:48:13
okay, I'm going to keep taking cards till I get a hand I like.

00:14:48:13 - 00:14:50:08
I want to see what my options are.

00:14:50:08 - 00:14:53:03
And I don't want to peel off too many options before I have to.

00:14:53:23 - 00:14:56:01
And that's the difference between an investor and not putting up

00:14:56:07 - 00:14:58:07
somewhere in the middle. The truth is.

00:14:58:07 - 00:15:01:14
But I think right now founders, particularly founders

00:15:01:14 - 00:15:04:23
with lots of investors on their board, need to find the right path

00:15:04:23 - 00:15:07:29
so that they can review options as they come their way.

00:15:08:25 - 00:15:10:02
That's fascinating.

00:15:10:02 - 00:15:13:29
And we've had five distinguished speakers talk exactly about that first,

00:15:14:15 - 00:15:18:07
and they were indeed technology investors rather than operators.

00:15:18:07 - 00:15:22:15
But it, as you say, that balance is is that the way to think.

00:15:23:00 - 00:15:25:02
For crisis guys was 20 months.

00:15:25:02 - 00:15:29:13
Okay and if you if you took all of your issues the week

00:15:29:13 - 00:15:32:15
after Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, you were out of gas

00:15:33:03 - 00:15:37:12
the time when you really had to navigate the waters getting really cranky.

00:15:37:16 - 00:15:39:15
So keep that in mind.

00:15:39:15 - 00:15:42:19
And with the this crisis and

00:15:42:19 - 00:15:46:20
and 911 with the event we obviously we alluded to earlier

00:15:46:20 - 00:15:50:20
and with the crisis that you that you weathered as CEO.

00:15:50:27 - 00:15:51:27
What what

00:15:51:27 - 00:15:56:05
when you look at where we are today, you mentioned alluded to at the beginning,

00:15:56:05 - 00:16:00:10
but what worries you most about the crisis that we're in now?

00:16:02:07 - 00:16:05:02
Oh, I think business model destruction.

00:16:05:06 - 00:16:07:11
You know what I worry about now?

00:16:07:11 - 00:16:10:16
Spent so you know I kind of think about look every company

00:16:11:11 - 00:16:13:12
is in the health care business

00:16:13:17 - 00:16:17:07
so so whether you believe it or not doesn't matter what you are.

00:16:17:07 - 00:16:19:24
You're now in the employee safety and health care business.

00:16:21:00 - 00:16:24:02
There's going to be a real merger between digital

00:16:24:02 - 00:16:29:05
and in the fiscal world, which is which is critical.

00:16:29:25 - 00:16:32:06
But I worry deeply about,

00:16:32:25 - 00:16:35:05
you know, huge business model

00:16:35:22 - 00:16:39:05
destruction of, you know, what's a retailer going to look like?

00:16:39:05 - 00:16:40:12
What's an airline going to look like?

00:16:40:12 - 00:16:42:07
What's a hotel going to look like? Right.

00:16:42:07 - 00:16:45:16
So I think there's going to just be this reordering

00:16:45:16 - 00:16:48:01
of the physical and the virtual world, the digital world.

00:16:48:19 - 00:16:52:01
And so if you're on the right side of that trade, that's great.

00:16:52:25 - 00:16:56:05
And if you're on the wrong side of that trade, it's really tough, really tough.

00:16:56:05 - 00:16:57:13
And so I think that's

00:16:57:13 - 00:17:01:09
that's something as I sit here now, which is, you know, something to

00:17:02:19 - 00:17:03:04
think about.

00:17:03:04 - 00:17:07:04
Look, if you were sitting there in 2009, if you were depositing looking back,

00:17:08:16 - 00:17:11:13
you might not have liked government regulation,

00:17:12:00 - 00:17:15:04
but there was a port for you to sail into right there.

00:17:15:08 - 00:17:17:22
There was a there was a port for you to sail into.

00:17:18:05 - 00:17:22:13
If you're sitting running an airline in 2002, after 911,

00:17:23:07 - 00:17:26:19
you weren't so sure kind of what the what the nature of the industry

00:17:26:19 - 00:17:28:21
was going to be, security and things like that.

00:17:29:01 - 00:17:31:21
But you had this bow wave of global demand, China

00:17:31:21 - 00:17:34:23
and Brazil and Africa and things like that.

00:17:34:23 - 00:17:39:08
You know, now if you're, you know, deeply in the fiscal world, it's hard to see

00:17:39:27 - 00:17:43:05
when you pick your head up exactly where you're going to go next.

00:17:43:05 - 00:17:45:23
That's why I tell people, look at industries like

00:17:46:02 - 00:17:50:09
look at the automotive and look at watch the global automotive industry in 2021

00:17:52:00 - 00:17:53:18
if interest rates are zero.

00:17:53:18 - 00:17:55:23
So basically cars are almost free.

00:17:56:02 - 00:17:56:29
Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

00:17:56:29 - 00:18:00:06
If if that's not enough to keep car

00:18:00:06 - 00:18:03:17
demand flat, if it's still declining ten or 20%.

00:18:03:26 - 00:18:04:11
Mm hmm.

00:18:04:14 - 00:18:05:23
We've got a real problem, right?

00:18:05:23 - 00:18:08:21
It's not that everybody's in the car business, but it.

00:18:08:21 - 00:18:11:13
It it allows you to triangulate in terms of

00:18:11:26 - 00:18:15:26
how people really view, you know, kind of assets and things like that.

00:18:15:26 - 00:18:21:08
And with the business model disruption that you that you're concerned about,

00:18:21:09 - 00:18:23:15
you've obviously got a fascinating seat where you are now.

00:18:23:15 - 00:18:26:15
And yeah, how does that inform

00:18:26:15 - 00:18:30:13
what kind of companies you look at and you look for?

00:18:31:11 - 00:18:34:11
Look, I mean, I think the you know, in the health

00:18:34:11 - 00:18:37:10
care services business, right. You

00:18:39:09 - 00:18:43:26
there are this ongoing theme about, you know, how many people

00:18:43:26 - 00:18:46:18
are going to go to the hospital versus being treated at home.

00:18:47:08 - 00:18:49:10
That's going to be turbo charged.

00:18:49:10 - 00:18:49:28
Mm hmm.

00:18:49:28 - 00:18:53:03
And telehealth, which has been, you know, kind of a hobby,

00:18:53:03 - 00:18:56:05
I would say, for 25 years now takes off.

00:18:56:11 - 00:18:57:04
Right.

00:18:57:08 - 00:19:01:24
So you've got you know, how do I now merge service lines in a hospital

00:19:02:03 - 00:19:04:25
with some of the technology that's going to enable people to do

00:19:04:25 - 00:19:08:07
health care or the desire to do health care in different ways.

00:19:08:24 - 00:19:10:12
Those are going to be the kind of businesses

00:19:10:12 - 00:19:13:08
that are going to be tremendously opportunistic,

00:19:14:18 - 00:19:16:20
I think, on the on the enterprise side.

00:19:17:07 - 00:19:19:16
Resiliency now trumps productivity.

00:19:19:16 - 00:19:21:18
I mean, productivity has always been,

00:19:21:18 - 00:19:25:26
let's say, the lifeblood of most traditional investing resiliency.

00:19:25:26 - 00:19:27:01
Now, okay,

00:19:27:01 - 00:19:31:08
if I can only bring 100 people to work, they have to be as productive physically.

00:19:31:22 - 00:19:33:28
They have to be as productive as

00:19:34:13 - 00:19:37:21
that used to be with several hundred people in the same location.

00:19:37:21 - 00:19:40:00
What are the tools as is an RPA?

00:19:40:00 - 00:19:43:17
It's a different ways to communicate, you know, those kinds of things.

00:19:44:08 - 00:19:47:12
And then just the whole communication space, the whole kind of mobile

00:19:47:12 - 00:19:50:24
communication space, I don't see that ever going back

00:19:51:07 - 00:19:53:26
to the way it was before.

00:19:53:26 - 00:19:56:27
People are just learning how to do new things,

00:19:56:27 - 00:19:59:20
using different technologies, and that's going to change.

00:20:00:15 - 00:20:03:04
And future of work.

00:20:03:04 - 00:20:05:29
So you're you're talking with your group last week.

00:20:05:29 - 00:20:10:01
What's, what's your hunch on Future of Work and its most significant changes.

00:20:10:14 - 00:20:13:05
Look I mean I think there's certain things that are for sure, right?

00:20:13:12 - 00:20:15:20
Some of the things that are for sure is going to be

00:20:17:08 - 00:20:18:07
fewer people

00:20:18:07 - 00:20:21:19
or more fewer people in more places.

00:20:22:00 - 00:20:24:19
So you're not going to have these big congregations of people

00:20:24:19 - 00:20:27:29
in office buildings or factories or things like that.

00:20:28:23 - 00:20:32:13
Resiliency is going to be much more important than than

00:20:32:21 - 00:20:35:22
like I said before, productivity and things like that.

00:20:36:25 - 00:20:38:28
Global supply chains are going to be reordered.

00:20:39:09 - 00:20:42:10
So the notion that you're going to make something in Asia and Mexico

00:20:42:10 - 00:20:45:12
shipping around the world, I think they're going to be collapse

00:20:45:12 - 00:20:49:21
or you're going to see more smaller factories located closer to markets.

00:20:49:21 - 00:20:52:01
I think that's going to change.

00:20:52:02 - 00:20:55:00
But the issue of how do you get people you know, how do you get

00:20:56:10 - 00:20:59:24
unemployment back down to three or four or 5% in the U.S.

00:20:59:25 - 00:21:01:15
and whatever it is globally?

00:21:01:15 - 00:21:03:14
I think that's maybe, you know,

00:21:03:14 - 00:21:06:03
in addition to all the other problems we have, that's a very big problem.

00:21:06:13 - 00:21:08:15
So I view that as being,

00:21:10:01 - 00:21:10:18
you know, when all the

00:21:10:18 - 00:21:13:23
dust settles here, that's going to be a real challenge.

00:21:13:23 - 00:21:14:11
Absolutely.

00:21:14:11 - 00:21:17:01
And it's it's yeah, it's not it's not easy to see

00:21:17:14 - 00:21:19:27
the way out of it in the next few months.

00:21:20:07 - 00:21:23:20
I'm fascinated, Jeff, what your reflections are on working

00:21:23:20 - 00:21:26:05
with the latest age tech founders.

00:21:27:10 - 00:21:30:07
You said on many points Friday, I think collective health,

00:21:30:07 - 00:21:33:26
which some SoftBank led the series last year and Formlabs.

00:21:33:26 - 00:21:37:03
So we know the 3D printing company out of MIT Media Lab

00:21:38:07 - 00:21:41:28
desktop metal that I saw Coke actually invested in.

00:21:41:28 - 00:21:44:10
And now, yeah

00:21:44:28 - 00:21:47:12
dude you know that personally is that it was.

00:21:47:12 - 00:21:47:17
Yeah.

00:21:47:17 - 00:21:49:21
No, I think that they become great,

00:21:49:21 - 00:21:51:29
you know, super strong investors and stuff like that.

00:21:51:29 - 00:21:54:15
So yeah, look, I mean, I think,

00:21:55:11 - 00:21:58:00
you know, the the companies I join, I tend to want

00:21:58:00 - 00:22:02:23
I tend to identify with the founders and like to work with them.

00:22:02:23 - 00:22:06:17
And so I've got maybe 12 or 15 companies that I work with.

00:22:07:12 - 00:22:10:11
And, you know, I again, I look for

00:22:10:21 - 00:22:14:16
are they willing to learn, you know, resiliency?

00:22:14:22 - 00:22:17:05
Right. I think that's that's super critical.

00:22:17:05 - 00:22:17:21
Critical.

00:22:18:21 - 00:22:20:08
Can they renew themselves and

00:22:20:08 - 00:22:23:21
others or are they willing to kind of continue that path?

00:22:24:02 - 00:22:25:11
And can you deal with failure?

00:22:25:11 - 00:22:25:19
Right.

00:22:25:19 - 00:22:28:26
Can you can you deal with the fact that things don't work?

00:22:29:01 - 00:22:30:27
And so those are the things I look for.

00:22:30:27 - 00:22:32:08
And the people that I work with.

00:22:32:08 - 00:22:34:25
And that's great fun. Right.

00:22:34:25 - 00:22:40:12
And the companies that do the best, you know, they have a product market fit,

00:22:40:27 - 00:22:41:29
you know, so

00:22:42:06 - 00:22:46:02
they've got a nose for the technology and they build their culture.

00:22:46:11 - 00:22:46:21
Right.

00:22:46:21 - 00:22:49:00
And I look at

00:22:49:00 - 00:22:51:24
look, I watched Salesforce almost from the beginning.

00:22:51:24 - 00:22:52:01
Right.

00:22:52:01 - 00:22:54:14
I've been able to watch 20 years of Salesforce.com.

00:22:54:14 - 00:22:54:27
Right.

00:22:55:09 - 00:22:58:14
And I think what Mark continuously has done is just understood

00:22:58:14 - 00:23:00:17
the product market fit.

00:23:00:17 - 00:23:04:10
And he's constantly willing to invest in people,

00:23:04:20 - 00:23:07:22
invest in capability and raise the game

00:23:07:22 - 00:23:10:16
from a standpoint of his own leadership and his own leadership team.

00:23:11:04 - 00:23:12:27
And so what you want to see are the companies

00:23:12:27 - 00:23:15:11
that can can go on that path.

00:23:15:11 - 00:23:19:21
And, you know, my hero is always were the ones that the entrepreneurs

00:23:19:21 - 00:23:20:22
that skill your skill.

00:23:20:22 - 00:23:22:29
And so I was like like Fred Smith and FedEx.

00:23:22:29 - 00:23:25:05
I mean, I love Fred. Right?

00:23:25:21 - 00:23:27:15
He he founded the company.

00:23:27:15 - 00:23:29:14
He's still there today.

00:23:29:14 - 00:23:32:21
He's still the most curious guy in the room and things like that.

00:23:32:25 - 00:23:37:13
And and so I find, you know, Jeff Bezos, I could go down the list of

00:23:38:15 - 00:23:38:23
who are

00:23:38:23 - 00:23:41:23
the founders that really want to scale themselves

00:23:41:23 - 00:23:45:17
as the company reaches 10 million in revenue or 100 billion in revenue

00:23:45:29 - 00:23:49:00
and so on, what are those attributes and how can I be helpful

00:23:49:15 - 00:23:53:04
to those men and women as they're doing going down that path?

00:23:53:19 - 00:23:58:24
And given that importance of culture, what is your advice to the many founders?

00:23:58:24 - 00:24:02:12
This thing of of some of the practical ways

00:24:02:12 - 00:24:07:13
to think about building a really robust and cohesive culture in their companies.

00:24:08:03 - 00:24:11:00
So, I mean, I think the presence of,

00:24:12:04 - 00:24:15:00
you know, I think good leaders building good cultures,

00:24:15:00 - 00:24:18:22
they they leave their imprint no matter how big the company is.

00:24:18:22 - 00:24:22:21
And it doesn't mean that there's one way to do it, but they create an aura

00:24:23:05 - 00:24:26:08
that is that is,

00:24:26:08 - 00:24:28:26
you know, that people can always feel their presence.

00:24:29:20 - 00:24:31:16
They know how to develop talent.

00:24:31:16 - 00:24:35:28
So so they care about the human resource side of the company.

00:24:35:28 - 00:24:38:15
So so I would say, you know, kind of aura

00:24:39:14 - 00:24:40:03
developing

00:24:40:03 - 00:24:42:10
other leaders and managers is critical.

00:24:43:04 - 00:24:45:28
Finding their own systems of accountability.

00:24:45:28 - 00:24:46:09
Right.

00:24:46:09 - 00:24:48:09
How do they how do they drive,

00:24:50:05 - 00:24:52:00
you know, kind of like

00:24:52:23 - 00:24:55:13
over and over again, the kind of accountability that you see

00:24:55:13 - 00:24:59:04
in a place like Amazon or other other tech companies that are out there.

00:24:59:22 - 00:25:03:18
And I'd say I'd say the last thing is they kind of dominate

00:25:04:09 - 00:25:07:06
the the communication in the schools. Right?

00:25:07:06 - 00:25:09:18
So so they go to the grassroots

00:25:09:18 - 00:25:12:24
and they know how to communicate, but they also know how to train.

00:25:13:14 - 00:25:16:27
So so those two kind of foundational points,

00:25:17:07 - 00:25:22:05
even if you're a small company, can be really critically important.

00:25:22:09 - 00:25:25:20
You know, I look at companies that are doing that are going through

00:25:25:20 - 00:25:30:10
these horribly tough decisions today, right in the pandemic.

00:25:31:09 - 00:25:31:26
And the best

00:25:31:26 - 00:25:35:06
leaders do all of the hard stuff themselves.

00:25:35:06 - 00:25:38:08
They do the layoffs, they do the communication about the layoffs.

00:25:38:08 - 00:25:41:19
And they don't hide from any of those things that that have to be done.

00:25:41:19 - 00:25:46:04
But I would say, look, I learned working for a really good leader

00:25:46:04 - 00:25:48:16
in Jack Welch about, you know, kind of aura.

00:25:49:05 - 00:25:51:04
How do you instrument a company?

00:25:51:04 - 00:25:55:14
How do you focus on frontline managers and how do you both train and communicate?

00:25:55:14 - 00:25:59:08
And I think those are the kinds of things that you have to continue to work on.

00:26:00:14 - 00:26:05:03
Were you most different as a CEO in 2017?

00:26:05:16 - 00:26:09:07
One, You spoke about the perception and the reality and the cosines.

00:26:09:07 - 00:26:14:07
How in what ways did you evolve most, do you think, as a as a leader in your.

00:26:14:07 - 00:26:18:20
Yeah, I think when I in 2001, I thought that I could control things.

00:26:19:24 - 00:26:22:11
By 2017, I realized I couldn't control anything,

00:26:23:10 - 00:26:25:29
that you're basically in the risk and the risk

00:26:26:13 - 00:26:31:26
shrinking if you're not in the you of the controls game because you know

00:26:31:26 - 00:26:35:02
China was on the scene technology is on the scene.

00:26:35:25 - 00:26:38:14
Government felt differently, much differently about business

00:26:38:14 - 00:26:40:26
in 2017 than they did in 2001.

00:26:41:18 - 00:26:44:02
And so I think leaders understanding that

00:26:44:08 - 00:26:46:20
that they don't they don't control things.

00:26:47:14 - 00:26:50:21
That's really that's really critical like like it's

00:26:50:21 - 00:26:54:23
nobody on this your on your call today Spencer it's nobody's fault.

00:26:54:26 - 00:26:56:26
That's the the pandemic.

00:26:56:26 - 00:26:59:08
Some of you it's going to hurt worse than others.

00:26:59:25 - 00:27:02:06
But it's not your fault. You can't control it.

00:27:02:06 - 00:27:05:18
But what you can do is you can make your company as good as it can be,

00:27:05:29 - 00:27:07:00
given those conditions.

00:27:07:00 - 00:27:11:02
And some people just the uncertainty and ambiguity just freaks some people out.

00:27:11:27 - 00:27:15:12
And today, if you can't handle ambiguity and uncertainty,

00:27:15:25 - 00:27:18:04
you probably should find something, something else to do.

00:27:19:16 - 00:27:20:06
Well,

00:27:21:02 - 00:27:24:00
you've to me out perfectly in mentioning China because

00:27:24:25 - 00:27:27:15
I was fascinated to get your thoughts on a

00:27:27:17 - 00:27:30:28
what it was like doing business in China because that was obviously a central.

00:27:30:28 - 00:27:35:15
I think when you started as CEO of G, 70% of the business was U.S.

00:27:35:15 - 00:27:39:18
Some by the time you finished, 70% was outside of the U.S. And.

00:27:40:08 - 00:27:41:02
Well, let's start with that.

00:27:41:02 - 00:27:42:14
What what was was with

00:27:42:14 - 00:27:43:12
because I know you're still obviously

00:27:43:12 - 00:27:46:29
heavily involved and have thoughts on the US-China relations at the moment.

00:27:46:29 - 00:27:51:21
But what was your experience of building building very large businesses in China?

00:27:51:21 - 00:27:53:09
Yeah, look like an early start.

00:27:53:09 - 00:27:57:17
Spencer So I basically started going to China in the 1980s.

00:27:58:11 - 00:28:01:12
I had worked in Chinese Plastics business, which was an early,

00:28:01:23 - 00:28:03:17
an early investor in China.

00:28:03:17 - 00:28:08:07
I led our health care business, which was, you know, a an early investor in China.

00:28:08:07 - 00:28:12:09
So I had a great, let's say, contextual perspective.

00:28:12:28 - 00:28:14:26
And very early in my career,

00:28:14:26 - 00:28:18:28
I basically paid in my own mind and therefore in the company

00:28:19:15 - 00:28:22:20
that the Chinese market was going to be as big or bigger than the U.S.

00:28:22:20 - 00:28:23:14
someday. Right.

00:28:23:14 - 00:28:25:17
So you just need to put that in your mind.

00:28:26:07 - 00:28:29:00
And whatever you think about the politics or whatever

00:28:29:00 - 00:28:31:03
you think about anything else.

00:28:31:03 - 00:28:33:03
And and, you know,

00:28:33:03 - 00:28:36:28
I don't agree with a lot and I see that I've seen change over time.

00:28:37:15 - 00:28:40:21
It exists and it's going to be a huge market.

00:28:40:21 - 00:28:44:15
It's a huge market for aircraft and health care power.

00:28:44:15 - 00:28:47:17
I could go down the list and so I ran the company accordingly.

00:28:47:22 - 00:28:48:01
Right.

00:28:48:01 - 00:28:50:24
I ran the company like saying this is going to be

00:28:52:14 - 00:28:55:20
a second huge market for a company like GE.

00:28:55:21 - 00:28:58:15
So let's get good at it. Let's hire local people.

00:28:58:15 - 00:29:01:25
Let's make local investments like let's let's build local teams

00:29:03:29 - 00:29:06:27
early on, you know, intellectual property and things like that.

00:29:07:11 - 00:29:11:16
Hugely critical, very difficult to protect when you're in China.

00:29:12:04 - 00:29:15:23
But this is a country that's graduated more engineers than the U.S.

00:29:15:23 - 00:29:18:04
and Europe combined for like 25 years.

00:29:18:23 - 00:29:21:20
And so when you get to things like artificial intelligence

00:29:21:20 - 00:29:26:02
or additive manufacturing, things like that, China's very proficient today.

00:29:26:11 - 00:29:28:20
So I would say I always leaned in.

00:29:30:00 - 00:29:32:21
I spent a lot of time there myself.

00:29:32:21 - 00:29:35:15
I had a workforce of almost 25,000 people,

00:29:35:24 - 00:29:38:28
mainly Chinese nationals, mainly local people.

00:29:39:16 - 00:29:42:23
And and it didn't all work.

00:29:42:23 - 00:29:46:27
But over time, I feel like it's important for all of us

00:29:46:27 - 00:29:51:05
to recognize that this is an economy and a country that's not going to go away.

00:29:52:00 - 00:29:55:13
Their role in the world is profound. And,

00:29:56:23 - 00:29:58:28
you know, they're just I think you're better off

00:29:58:28 - 00:30:03:02
helping your people become comfortable doing business there

00:30:03:20 - 00:30:06:06
than just saying, I don't agree, so I'm not going to go.

00:30:06:25 - 00:30:10:17
No. And one thing I'm always struck by, we have fascinating we have Tencent

00:30:10:17 - 00:30:14:13
as an investor and Ling is on the call that chief European representative.

00:30:15:02 - 00:30:18:10
But but I'm always struck by the asymmetry of

00:30:18:19 - 00:30:20:24
how much the Chinese understand

00:30:21:11 - 00:30:24:24
European and US technology in the companies and the detail

00:30:24:29 - 00:30:28:05
and the lack of understanding the other way

00:30:29:09 - 00:30:34:02
in terms of sophistication of understanding Chinese tech in particular.

00:30:34:07 - 00:30:39:10
I'm just with any anyone who doesn't know invested in bytedance and tick tock goes

00:30:39:17 - 00:30:43:23
does do you guys look to learn a lot from what the what

00:30:43:24 - 00:30:47:14
what what models the Chinese technology companies are developing is that an area

00:30:47:14 - 00:30:50:24
both in health care but also in many of the other areas you touched on?

00:30:50:24 - 00:30:53:15
Yeah, I mean, let me make two comments just to your point.

00:30:53:15 - 00:30:54:11
First of all, you know,

00:30:54:11 - 00:30:58:17
kind of the let's say the all of the infrastructure technologies

00:30:58:17 - 00:31:03:15
in China came under the organization called the DRC right inside China.

00:31:04:11 - 00:31:06:17
The DRC knew everything about

00:31:06:23 - 00:31:09:21
GE and Boeing and Caterpillar and stuff like that

00:31:10:12 - 00:31:12:21
in a way that if you went to Washington DC and met with

00:31:12:21 - 00:31:15:21
the Secretary of Transportation or Energy or something like that,

00:31:16:02 - 00:31:19:07
the Chinese counterparty knew a much more about our company

00:31:19:22 - 00:31:23:20
than even people in Washington and Brussels, so they do their homework.

00:31:24:21 - 00:31:26:20
The second thing I'd say, Spitzer, is we're just going to be

00:31:26:20 - 00:31:29:07
in a time period where you're going to have two large markets

00:31:29:22 - 00:31:33:00
moving in parallel without a lot of connections in between.

00:31:33:04 - 00:31:35:11
I just think that's where the world is today.

00:31:35:24 - 00:31:37:22
So China will continue to make progress.

00:31:37:22 - 00:31:40:18
But if you want to be in China, you better partner with Chinese

00:31:40:18 - 00:31:43:16
investors, work with Chinese companies and see how they're going to grow.

00:31:44:06 - 00:31:47:10
And so we're just going to have this time period where you're going to have,

00:31:47:28 - 00:31:49:29
I think, less

00:31:50:22 - 00:31:54:23
co-mingling of funds and technologies.

00:31:54:23 - 00:31:59:03
So I think it's important for firms like NEA to have China investments,

00:31:59:03 - 00:32:00:18
but you have to look at those in terms

00:32:00:18 - 00:32:02:21
of how they're going to do in the local market,

00:32:02:21 - 00:32:05:20
not necessarily all the time where they're going to go around the world

00:32:05:20 - 00:32:06:20
and vice versa.

00:32:06:20 - 00:32:10:12
But believe me, the Chinese market's going to continue to be vibrant

00:32:10:12 - 00:32:14:15
and strong and develop great companies, particularly in the tech space.

00:32:14:26 - 00:32:17:15
Because, of course, I have the question

00:32:17:20 - 00:32:20:24
of flowing through and I know we have one friend from Victoire

00:32:20:25 - 00:32:24:24
Martin and several others, so I'll come to them in just one moment.

00:32:25:06 - 00:32:27:01
Where will your first flight be?

00:32:27:01 - 00:32:29:13
Post-Lockdown Jeff was that was the first trip.

00:32:29:13 - 00:32:31:19
Do you think I'm going to mean outside the U.S.

00:32:31:19 - 00:32:32:23
or in the U.S.?

00:32:32:23 - 00:32:35:12
But in the U.S., I'm going back to California.

00:32:35:16 - 00:32:39:11
So I look forward to going back there and kind of outside.

00:32:39:11 - 00:32:43:05
I want to go back to I want to go back to China.

00:32:44:04 - 00:32:46:03
I want to go back and see how it's changed.

00:32:46:03 - 00:32:49:24
post-COVID, I talked to old colleagues of Mine Weekly

00:32:49:24 - 00:32:53:29
because I think they give you a pretty good sense for how the economy,

00:32:53:29 - 00:32:57:29
how this economy might reopen, because China is kind of reopening

00:32:57:29 - 00:33:01:03
in maybe one month or two months ahead of time.

00:33:01:24 - 00:33:06:19
And personally, I feel like I understand the geopolitical complexities

00:33:06:19 - 00:33:09:22
and we live in a really difficult time in terms

00:33:09:22 - 00:33:11:29
of global geopolitical relationships.

00:33:12:24 - 00:33:18:10
But I think if you're a business person, you know, China is not going to go away.

00:33:18:11 - 00:33:20:15
You better have a good understanding.

00:33:20:22 - 00:33:23:24
You know, you know, especially I think I told you earlier, I teach it

00:33:24:28 - 00:33:26:12
at Stanford, right?

00:33:26:12 - 00:33:28:22
So I get a new crop of MBAs every year.

00:33:28:22 - 00:33:29:22
I tell them, look,

00:33:29:22 - 00:33:32:22
it doesn't matter whether you're American or you're you're president, whoever.

00:33:32:22 - 00:33:34:14
They're they're not going to protect you from any

00:33:35:13 - 00:33:36:08
of you

00:33:36:08 - 00:33:38:16
may talk about protectionism and stuff like that,

00:33:39:08 - 00:33:42:15
but in the end, the economy is still a pretty global enterprise.

00:33:42:15 - 00:33:46:17
And you better understand where your global competitors for global markets are.

00:33:47:06 - 00:33:49:24
And I think that's what the next generation of global business

00:33:49:24 - 00:33:53:21
leaders have to have to kind of understand the nuance of each market.

00:33:54:26 - 00:33:55:16
Fascinating.

00:33:55:16 - 00:33:59:11
And I the series that Jeff is running

00:33:59:11 - 00:34:04:13
partly is bringing in global CEOs into Gsb and speaking to them.

00:34:04:13 - 00:34:06:05
I almost wonder whether you weren't copying

00:34:06:05 - 00:34:09:07
my first minute, Jeff, but yes, I'm talking.

00:34:10:21 - 00:34:12:02
To you.

00:34:12:11 - 00:34:15:16
About that early days and that and that success is last on for me

00:34:15:21 - 00:34:19:21
because I touched on two points you made around the different perspective

00:34:19:21 - 00:34:22:19
as operators and investors.

00:34:22:25 - 00:34:26:10
And also I loved your answer around that, dealing with ambiguity

00:34:26:10 - 00:34:27:15
and that evolution.

00:34:27:15 - 00:34:30:24
As a CEO, what struck you most

00:34:30:24 - 00:34:34:25
about the best VCs that venture capitalists that you've come across

00:34:35:18 - 00:34:39:00
in terms of skill sets or outlook or anything?

00:34:39:23 - 00:34:41:06
Yeah, maybe you let let me

00:34:41:06 - 00:34:44:01
let me pick two things because I think they're both important.

00:34:44:01 - 00:34:48:13
I think  one is the best VCs have a really good pattern recognition

00:34:48:13 - 00:34:49:17
of what makes good leaders.

00:34:49:17 - 00:34:54:10
And they they're able to track the leaders around company by company

00:34:54:19 - 00:34:57:11
and they can curate companies built around leadership teams.

00:34:57:11 - 00:34:59:13
And they have a real eye for that, which I think is great.

00:35:00:05 - 00:35:02:27
And the second is, I think just tolerance of failure.

00:35:02:27 - 00:35:05:13
It's just the ability to kind of recognize

00:35:05:29 - 00:35:08:14
and, you know, you think it's BS when you come in,

00:35:08:14 - 00:35:12:07
but you actually see the fact that people know

00:35:12:07 - 00:35:15:24
how to work their way through problems and things like that.

00:35:15:24 - 00:35:19:16
So I think those two things,

00:35:19:28 - 00:35:22:25
the best VCs have and you know, I think that's

00:35:23:24 - 00:35:25:07
those come from experience.

00:35:25:07 - 00:35:27:21
But it also takes a certain kind of person

00:35:28:14 - 00:35:30:24
who's willing to kind of keep going

00:35:31:25 - 00:35:35:10
and keep learning and keep renewing themselves.

00:35:35:10 - 00:35:39:00
Yes, I think it's not an industry, if you like, being proved right the whole time.

00:35:39:00 - 00:35:45:00
I wouldn't recommend venture capital to anyone, but.

00:35:45:00 - 00:35:51:11
And now turning over to Q&A,

00:35:51:11 - 00:35:55:20
just Victoire was head of investments, a group Artemus the peanut farming

00:35:56:05 - 00:36:00:27
and carrying owners investment arm and now runs a separate family office.

00:36:00:27 - 00:36:03:19
Thank you, spencer. Jeff Hi.

00:36:03:19 - 00:36:07:25
You had a strong view on how to take the time to its new stage

00:36:08:08 - 00:36:11:27
and I was wondering, how did you share and communicate

00:36:11:27 - 00:36:16:15
your real bold strategy to your managers and employees?

00:36:17:17 - 00:36:21:14
Yeah, so I think it's a it's a great question of just driving change.

00:36:21:17 - 00:36:25:03
And I think the first part is you have to

00:36:25:12 - 00:36:28:06
not take on too many tasks.

00:36:28:06 - 00:36:32:17
So I think over over the course of my career, I learned how to do fewer things

00:36:33:01 - 00:36:37:25
and be more disciplined around the changes that you ask people to take on because

00:36:38:23 - 00:36:42:21
I think confusion sets in when you have too many initiatives, too many going.

00:36:43:06 - 00:36:46:10
And then I think what you have to do when you really want to drive

00:36:46:21 - 00:36:49:28
considerable change is you have to find ways to make it

00:36:49:28 - 00:36:54:01
existential, both in terms of the type of people you hire,

00:36:54:10 - 00:36:58:29
but the amount of accountability that you drive in big organizations.

00:36:59:09 - 00:37:02:11
You know, in big organizations, momentum matters.

00:37:03:02 - 00:37:08:02
And so you have to develop this task of listening,

00:37:08:02 - 00:37:11:02
but but always moving forward, you know.

00:37:11:02 - 00:37:16:02
So I would like, you know, one of the big changes I drove was globalization.

00:37:16:09 - 00:37:19:15
So we went from a company that was 30% outside the U.S.

00:37:19:15 - 00:37:21:16
to 70% out of the U.S.

00:37:21:16 - 00:37:24:29
And we developed big businesses in China.

00:37:25:19 - 00:37:29:06
So I would be listening to the team and the team would be pushing back saying,

00:37:29:06 - 00:37:31:10
Jeff, you understand if we do this in China,

00:37:31:24 - 00:37:33:08
they're going to take our technology,

00:37:33:08 - 00:37:34:14
they're going to do this, they're going to do that.

00:37:34:14 - 00:37:37:27
And I would say, just go.

00:37:37:27 - 00:37:39:00
And then after the meeting,

00:37:39:00 - 00:37:41:27
I would take the person back and say, okay, tell me what you think.

00:37:42:10 - 00:37:44:28
I mean, understand, because I couldn't

00:37:44:28 - 00:37:48:17
let anybody see that I wasn't like 100% all in.

00:37:48:27 - 00:37:53:17
And so I think what you learn how to do sign right people, the right metrics

00:37:53:29 - 00:37:56:18
find ways to make sure everybody's all in,

00:37:56:18 - 00:37:59:12
but at the same time, allowing for inputs,

00:38:00:05 - 00:38:03:19
you know, so that you don't screw up too badly too many times.

00:38:03:27 - 00:38:06:12
And I think that's the that's the key.

00:38:07:06 - 00:38:09:01
Hey, Jeff, good to talk to you here.

00:38:09:01 - 00:38:09:16
Thanks for

00:38:10:21 - 00:38:11:20
setting the stage for us.

00:38:11:20 - 00:38:13:01
I want to follow up on the question

00:38:13:01 - 00:38:16:09
you just answered on take on fewer number of tasks.

00:38:16:09 - 00:38:21:09
So as a CEO, former CEO evolves, what are the functions you think

00:38:21:09 - 00:38:25:26
should always be directly reporting to the CEO at all stages of the company?

00:38:26:05 - 00:38:29:27
I mean, this reflects on culture, so I really would appreciate your input here.

00:38:29:28 - 00:38:31:15
Yeah, you know, I think it's a great question.

00:38:31:15 - 00:38:36:04
I would always I'm showing some of my bias here, but I would always say that like

00:38:36:25 - 00:38:40:09
you had this trilogy of CEO,

00:38:40:20 - 00:38:43:03
CFO, human resources.

00:38:43:29 - 00:38:46:14
And the one thing I see broadly in Silicon Valley

00:38:46:14 - 00:38:50:07
and I see a lots of tech firms is they really diminish the role of h.r.

00:38:51:00 - 00:38:52:11
And frequently you'll have h.r.

00:38:52:11 - 00:38:56:06
Reporting to a chief administrative officer or buried down

00:38:56:06 - 00:38:57:24
in the organization.

00:38:57:24 - 00:39:00:12
And i think if you want to build culture early

00:39:00:12 - 00:39:04:07
on, if you want to build a team early on, if you want to build talent early

00:39:04:07 - 00:39:08:07
on, you need to find a way to elevate those

00:39:09:06 - 00:39:12:06
capabilities inside inside the company.

00:39:12:24 - 00:39:16:04
I think if you're a legacy company, the other one that I would add

00:39:16:04 - 00:39:21:03
where I think we missed the boat is the CIO, the chief information officer.

00:39:21:24 - 00:39:24:15
I think too many legacy companies treated those people

00:39:24:15 - 00:39:27:19
as clerks, bury them down in the organization.

00:39:27:19 - 00:39:30:03
And now it turns out digital is everything.

00:39:30:03 - 00:39:33:09
So you have to catch up and in a very and a very big way.

00:39:33:25 - 00:39:37:20
But if I were to give you one piece of advice for your your startup companies,

00:39:38:03 - 00:39:41:25
elevate human resources, get them director reports to the CEO

00:39:42:11 - 00:39:46:02
and make them you know, kind of a core part of the culture in the team.

00:39:46:11 - 00:39:48:19
Thank you. And probably everyone knows

00:39:49:21 - 00:39:52:24
we're raising 260 million in January for

00:39:53:28 - 00:39:54:11
this.

00:39:54:23 - 00:39:56:20
So very relevant scaling question.

00:39:56:20 - 00:40:01:01
A few more one from I think Robert I will I'm you

00:40:01:05 - 00:40:05:23
how do you look at the opportunity for businesses in China,

00:40:05:23 - 00:40:09:01
given the fact that in order to grow sustainably,

00:40:09:01 - 00:40:13:02
you need to be an open and democratic company?

00:40:13:02 - 00:40:16:24
What is the threat for companies in China, given the fact that this is more or less

00:40:16:24 - 00:40:18:02
closed society?

00:40:18:02 - 00:40:22:18
You know, it's it's by definition, backward looking.

00:40:22:18 - 00:40:26:19
But, you know, I, I ran a set of businesses

00:40:26:19 - 00:40:31:13
that were in excess of $10 billion in revenue and 25,000 people

00:40:31:22 - 00:40:34:26
to research centers, multiple factories and joint ventures,

00:40:36:15 - 00:40:40:11
big market shares and health care, big market shares in aviation

00:40:41:02 - 00:40:45:11
and I really never had any problems running the business

00:40:45:11 - 00:40:48:11
in a way that we wanted to run the business.

00:40:49:06 - 00:40:52:15
So I think, Robert, the key is you're going

00:40:52:15 - 00:40:56:10
to be a part of the Chinese economy.

00:40:57:06 - 00:41:01:08
You have to go there and become an insider.

00:41:01:08 - 00:41:05:02
You have to be willing to build local teams and make local investments,

00:41:05:24 - 00:41:08:23
and you have to work on your own relationships

00:41:09:17 - 00:41:14:12
with the government or with the, you know, both state and the national government.

00:41:14:12 - 00:41:18:06
And in China, it's not it's not for the faint of heart.

00:41:18:08 - 00:41:20:11
It's not easy, but

00:41:21:12 - 00:41:23:20
over a long period of time,

00:41:23:20 - 00:41:28:25
you know, I always found a way to get done

00:41:28:25 - 00:41:31:21
what we needed to get done in China.

00:41:33:07 - 00:41:34:16
Hey, many thanks.

00:41:34:16 - 00:41:35:27
Can I extend the question

00:41:35:27 - 00:41:40:19
also to give you a perspective on business in the Middle East?

00:41:40:19 - 00:41:42:16
Have you got any experience there?

00:41:42:16 - 00:41:45:05
And given the fact that they have essentially

00:41:45:19 - 00:41:47:19
a huge deep pockets

00:41:48:22 - 00:41:52:08
and are investing in lots of areas these days,

00:41:53:02 - 00:41:56:02
what's your perspective on them as a partner in a business?

00:41:56:19 - 00:41:59:06
It's a great it's a it's a good question.

00:41:59:06 - 00:42:03:10
I think if you want to do business in the Middle East over a long period of time,

00:42:04:05 - 00:42:07:16
you have to understand both the local needs that they have,

00:42:08:02 - 00:42:12:23
but also the pivot that they have to go as countries as time goes on.

00:42:13:20 - 00:42:16:11
So if you take I'll just pick the kingdom.

00:42:16:11 - 00:42:16:29
You know,

00:42:18:02 - 00:42:19:20
Saudi Arabia was

00:42:19:20 - 00:42:23:07
a big consumer of jet engines and health care products

00:42:23:07 - 00:42:26:08
and gas turbines and all the stuff that I used to sell.

00:42:26:08 - 00:42:30:18
But at the same time, they were trying to pivot their economy to be

00:42:31:19 - 00:42:33:26
more entrepreneurial,

00:42:33:26 - 00:42:36:25
more local businesses that were founding and things like that.

00:42:37:17 - 00:42:40:14
And so what I always try to do is find a ways

00:42:40:14 - 00:42:43:24
to win the businesses that I needed to win in the local market,

00:42:44:11 - 00:42:48:07
but also find the right partnerships to localize capability

00:42:48:19 - 00:42:53:05
and find ways to hire local talent, invest in build

00:42:53:05 - 00:42:57:19
local investments, be again part of their the fabric of the world.

00:42:57:19 - 00:43:01:06
So let me just elevate, because you're asking really great questions.

00:43:01:06 - 00:43:04:04
I think about globalization, I think are important. No.

00:43:05:15 - 00:43:08:18
You know, so I basically I'm 64.

00:43:08:18 - 00:43:13:12
Most of my career was built on the US as the center of the world.

00:43:13:28 - 00:43:16:02
We did trade deals.

00:43:16:02 - 00:43:19:00
You know, I used to go to China and my first visit would be with the U.S.

00:43:19:00 - 00:43:22:16
ambassador in Beijing and then the doors would open and things like that.

00:43:23:06 - 00:43:24:27
That's not today. So

00:43:25:28 - 00:43:28:03
those days are long gone.

00:43:28:03 - 00:43:29:04
Okay?

00:43:29:04 - 00:43:31:13
Now it's country by country,

00:43:32:13 - 00:43:35:12
understanding nuance, doing it on your own,

00:43:36:09 - 00:43:39:11
building the right partnerships and local capability.

00:43:39:26 - 00:43:43:19
And we're going to be in that world for a relatively long period of time.

00:43:43:25 - 00:43:47:14
You know, I think there's a there's a mistaken impression

00:43:47:14 - 00:43:49:24
that President Trump ruined globalization.

00:43:50:15 - 00:43:53:28
Globalization was falling apart long before President Trump.

00:43:54:12 - 00:43:54:26
Okay.

00:43:54:26 - 00:43:59:25
And I think for guys like you, Robert, the ability to build those strong local

00:43:59:25 - 00:44:05:11
strategies country by country and picking the ones that matter most are really key.

00:44:05:29 - 00:44:07:24
Yeah, right. Great.

00:44:07:24 - 00:44:13:11
I'm thinking about, you know, a seamlessly go go from globalization to biotech.

00:44:13:22 - 00:44:17:22
Alex of Atomic Office, that founder of in Silico Medicine, which is A.I.

00:44:17:22 - 00:44:19:06
for drug discovery.

00:44:19:06 - 00:44:21:12
Thank you, Spencer. So hello from China.

00:44:22:25 - 00:44:25:27
I have a very provocative and futurist question actually.

00:44:25:27 - 00:44:28:28
So in lot of Asia in general

00:44:28:28 - 00:44:32:12
is contributing quite negatively to the global economy right now.

00:44:32:12 - 00:44:36:20
So many economies become unsustainable over the number of people

00:44:37:06 - 00:44:42:03
retiring and exiting the workforce and contribute

00:44:42:06 - 00:44:46:11
significantly to the kind of burden on the health care sector.

00:44:46:11 - 00:44:49:12
So I can't really see quite a bit of progress on

00:44:49:12 - 00:44:52:28
the kind of emergence of the longevity biotechnology industry.

00:44:52:28 - 00:44:56:29
So we now can diagnose type of diseases early,

00:44:56:29 - 00:45:02:04
but we can also track the rate of aging and there are some early interventions.

00:45:02:04 - 00:45:05:22
So what would be your futurist view for the next ten years or 15 years

00:45:05:22 - 00:45:08:28
in terms of, you know, the future of longevity, biotech in general?

00:45:09:00 - 00:45:12:27
How long do you expect to live and when do you expect to retire?

00:45:14:01 - 00:45:16:00
So let's say, you know,

00:45:16:00 - 00:45:18:28
again, technically I can't go deep,

00:45:19:27 - 00:45:23:14
but I've been a profound I've watched over

00:45:23:16 - 00:45:27:15
you know, I'm a pretty deep healthcare guy, more in services than biotech.

00:45:28:07 - 00:45:33:09
But I'm a firm believer that the science and technology

00:45:33:09 - 00:45:37:09
is going to continue to just progress by leaps and bounds.

00:45:38:00 - 00:45:40:03
And I see that.

00:45:40:03 - 00:45:42:24
I think it's very hard to regulate against that.

00:45:43:01 - 00:45:43:11
Right.

00:45:43:11 - 00:45:46:16
So I just think that's going to continue to go to number one.

00:45:47:16 - 00:45:49:28
Number two, as a human, I'm rooting for you.

00:45:50:04 - 00:45:51:19
Okay, so hurry up.

00:45:51:19 - 00:45:53:11
So I want to keep working.

00:45:53:11 - 00:45:54:26
I want to keep living.

00:45:54:26 - 00:45:59:01
But but Alex, the point I would make to everybody that's on today

00:45:59:01 - 00:46:04:29
is I actually think health care is going to be 30% of the US GDP.

00:46:04:29 - 00:46:08:23
It's where most people are going to go to work.

00:46:08:23 - 00:46:11:11
I think we we're going to have to shift our thinking

00:46:12:08 - 00:46:16:07
about how we view health care as society, as people age

00:46:17:01 - 00:46:20:09
from one to saying this is a huge burden on the country.

00:46:20:09 - 00:46:22:27
And that's and that can't be withstood

00:46:23:15 - 00:46:26:14
to say basically in five or ten years,

00:46:27:04 - 00:46:31:06
30 or 40% of the people in any country in the developed world

00:46:31:13 - 00:46:34:05
is going to be going to work somewhere in the health care sector.

00:46:34:12 - 00:46:35:02
Right.

00:46:35:07 - 00:46:38:06
And I just think that's that's where people have to

00:46:38:11 - 00:46:41:01
and particularly the pandemic, I think, is going to accelerate that.

00:46:41:21 - 00:46:45:05
That's where people are going to have to change their thinking about health care.

00:46:45:14 - 00:46:47:26
You know, Alex, I graduated from school in 1982,

00:46:49:08 - 00:46:50:07
and if you had gone to work

00:46:50:07 - 00:46:53:21
in the health care industry in 1982, you would have had a good career.

00:46:54:02 - 00:46:58:16
What, good or bad or no matter what you did, I think the same thing is true today.

00:46:58:28 - 00:47:01:06
It's still the most investable sector.

00:47:01:26 - 00:47:05:29
There's more science and freshness around it than just about any place else.

00:47:06:11 - 00:47:08:17
And so hurry up, Alex.

00:47:08:17 - 00:47:10:14
I want you to succeed.

00:47:10:21 - 00:47:13:27
We'll go next to someone who might have helped out with Roberts on

00:47:13:28 - 00:47:16:28
sort of a last question on there, at least for pennies

00:47:16:28 - 00:47:19:23
upon SoftBank and globally

00:47:20:01 - 00:47:23:17
Penny and is a great friend over to Penny thank you.

00:47:23:17 - 00:47:24:02
Thank you.

00:47:24:02 - 00:47:26:07
First of all, Spencer, for including me today.

00:47:26:07 - 00:47:28:18
I know this was a hot ticket.

00:47:28:18 - 00:47:31:18
And Jeff, I'm going to apologize in advance

00:47:31:18 - 00:47:35:02
because we're going to go from the sublime to the mundane here.

00:47:35:10 - 00:47:40:18
But when you mentioned Bytedance, of course, we are also allocated there.

00:47:40:25 - 00:47:43:29
And it just made me wonder, as a fellow American,

00:47:45:12 - 00:47:46:28
do you think that the U.S.

00:47:46:28 - 00:47:49:11
is getting serious? Right.

00:47:49:11 - 00:47:52:20
And if you don't, which I don't, but I don't know how they could

00:47:52:20 - 00:47:53:21
they can fix it.

00:47:53:21 - 00:47:57:19
And then secondly, are you concerned at all in making Chinese

00:47:57:29 - 00:48:01:17
investments with some of the legislation, for example,

00:48:01:26 - 00:48:05:20
in front of Congress now about limiting Chinese aid?

00:48:06:02 - 00:48:08:10
I mean, what does that mean for liquidity?

00:48:09:15 - 00:48:10:02
Yeah, Penny.

00:48:10:02 - 00:48:14:17
So, look, I think you ask a really, really great question.

00:48:14:21 - 00:48:18:14
I think clearly the you know, I again, I have a pretty good

00:48:18:14 - 00:48:22:15
30 or 40 year perspective on China-U.S., particularly in the economy.

00:48:23:03 - 00:48:26:17
It's as bad today as I can think in that time period.

00:48:26:17 - 00:48:29:08
So I think as an investor, when I put my investor hat on,

00:48:29:25 - 00:48:32:29
I think we all need to be cautious today

00:48:33:11 - 00:48:38:11
about what are going to be the actions and reactions of one country to the other.

00:48:38:28 - 00:48:43:03
And so I think in the short term, you have to be cautious if you're

00:48:43:03 - 00:48:46:03
if you're investing other people's money, you have to be cautious.

00:48:47:12 - 00:48:50:29
Let's take a big let's take a bigger view.

00:48:51:05 - 00:48:51:21
Right?

00:48:51:21 - 00:48:55:12
If you take a bigger view, China's amazing market.

00:48:55:12 - 00:48:59:28
If you're a health care investor or a tech investor, China is interesting.

00:48:59:28 - 00:49:01:04
They have huge needs.

00:49:01:04 - 00:49:03:06
There's going to be big companies built there.

00:49:03:22 - 00:49:08:17
So so, look, if I if I were back, if I were 30 years old again

00:49:09:04 - 00:49:12:01
and the company I work for said, we want to move you to Shanghai

00:49:12:01 - 00:49:13:12
to build a business in China.

00:49:13:12 - 00:49:16:16
I would go because I just think it's

00:49:16:16 - 00:49:20:19
it's it's a vibrant, important economy.

00:49:20:19 - 00:49:24:23
And the last thing I would say really is an American as a proud American,

00:49:24:23 - 00:49:28:16
you know, if we if we get through this pandemic and the world economy is really

00:49:29:22 - 00:49:34:11
in top shape, do we really want the two biggest economies in the world at war?

00:49:34:29 - 00:49:37:16
You know, do we really is that if the question is,

00:49:37:16 - 00:49:41:08
how do we get economic global economic growth is the answer.

00:49:41:09 - 00:49:44:08
A trade war between the two biggest economies?

00:49:44:08 - 00:49:45:17
I don't think so. Right.

00:49:45:17 - 00:49:48:05
So I think my my hope is that

00:49:48:26 - 00:49:51:23
is that we ultimately find the right,

00:49:52:23 - 00:49:54:15
you know, strings

00:49:54:15 - 00:49:57:15
of of communication that matter.

00:49:58:09 - 00:50:01:08
The last thing I would say, like, if you believe in global warming,

00:50:01:08 - 00:50:02:18
like I do,

00:50:03:00 - 00:50:05:01
the answer's going to be China, right?

00:50:05:01 - 00:50:07:09
It's not it's not necessarily going to be the U.S.

00:50:07:10 - 00:50:10:21
or Europe or Germany that solves climate change.

00:50:11:10 - 00:50:13:12
It's going to have to be China that does that.

00:50:13:12 - 00:50:17:21
So so a lot of there's a lot of reasons why our connections

00:50:18:11 - 00:50:21:19
should continue to be strong on a global basis

00:50:22:29 - 00:50:24:06
and. Great.

00:50:24:06 - 00:50:25:10
Thank you.

00:50:25:19 - 00:50:26:16
Hi, Jeff. Thanks.

00:50:26:16 - 00:50:28:16
I'm enjoying listening to what you have to say.

00:50:28:22 - 00:50:32:21
I'm just a question, seeing what might happen in the future with.

00:50:32:26 - 00:50:33:16
Substantial.

00:50:33:16 - 00:50:37:22
Remote working, how does one create and maintain a culture

00:50:37:29 - 00:50:41:18
when you know most of your staff may be.

00:50:41:18 - 00:50:44:00
Separated from each other and may never meet each other?

00:50:44:22 - 00:50:48:01
It's this is a super good question, I think, because one of the things

00:50:48:01 - 00:50:52:07
I'm asking my companies to do is really track

00:50:52:09 - 00:50:54:24
how productive we really are remotely

00:50:55:12 - 00:50:59:08
and really understand what is the strength and weakness

00:50:59:09 - 00:51:02:19
of of kind of this world that we're living in right now.

00:51:03:26 - 00:51:06:06
You know, my own belief is that you're going to

00:51:06:15 - 00:51:11:11
we're going to have to reattach ourselves post-pandemic and that there are certain

00:51:11:11 - 00:51:14:29
parts running a company that has to be done in physical presence.

00:51:15:15 - 00:51:18:21
And the sooner we discover what those are, the better off we're going to be.

00:51:18:21 - 00:51:23:01
I mean, I could give you an easy answer to say you've got to communicate more.

00:51:23:01 - 00:51:26:08
You've got to find ways that to, you know, kind of allow you

00:51:26:08 - 00:51:29:17
to build the right context with each other.

00:51:29:17 - 00:51:32:11
But I think that's

00:51:32:11 - 00:51:34:15
naive, really.

00:51:34:19 - 00:51:37:25
The fact is, is that Zoom is an incredible tool.

00:51:37:25 - 00:51:41:00
We're learning every day how incredible these tools are, but

00:51:41:00 - 00:51:43:15
we're missing something about culture

00:51:44:01 - 00:51:48:18
that comes from physical connection, seeing people and meeting.

00:51:48:27 - 00:51:52:01
And I think it's good for you to start logging right now.

00:51:52:09 - 00:51:54:13
What are you missing about? About,

00:51:55:12 - 00:51:55:18
you know,

00:51:55:18 - 00:51:58:20
one of the things that could make a big company small every month

00:51:58:27 - 00:52:02:24
for 12 years, I bring one of a vice president

00:52:02:24 - 00:52:05:10
to visit me over weekend with their spouse.

00:52:06:00 - 00:52:08:28
We would go out for dinner, we would spend a full day together,

00:52:09:15 - 00:52:11:24
and I would say to them, tell me about the company.

00:52:11:24 - 00:52:13:18
Tell me about yourself.

00:52:13:18 - 00:52:15:26
What would you do if you were me?

00:52:15:26 - 00:52:18:11
And I would give them a full discourse on how I viewed them

00:52:18:11 - 00:52:22:19
in the context of the company physically, that's how you build culture.

00:52:22:27 - 00:52:25:28
It's kind of like one by one, by one by one.

00:52:26:05 - 00:52:31:02
So I would urge everybody on the phone to be, while we're in this

00:52:32:03 - 00:52:36:05
lockdown, what can be done virtually, but what do you still want

00:52:36:05 - 00:52:39:24
to have done physically and make sure you don't give up on that?

00:52:39:24 - 00:52:41:20
Because I think we're not going to be

00:52:42:22 - 00:52:45:16
building great companies unless we do that.

00:52:45:16 - 00:52:47:06
Great. Thanks. Thanks.

00:52:47:06 - 00:52:49:05
Thank you so much for taking it really.

00:52:49:05 - 00:52:51:12
You really appreciate that. Great to be here. Good luck.

00:52:51:12 - 00:52:52:24
Good luck to everybody.

00:52:52:24 - 00:52:53:06
Super.

00:52:53:06 - 00:52:55:11
And Andrew, thank you for making it happen.

00:52:55:11 - 00:52:58:05
Thanks, you guys.