WEBVTT - Andrew Liveris 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.440 In the past several decades, Andrew Livers has been one 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:08.719 of the most important figures in American business. For fourteen years, 0:00:08.720 --> 0:00:11.880 he served as a CEO of Dow, transforming that company 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:15.240 from a chemical manufacturing company to one led by science 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:18.520 and innovation. Currently, Andrew Livers is involved in a number 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:22.160 of business endeavors, including serving as chairman of Lucid Motors 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:24.880 in e V startup company. He also serves as an 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.720 advisor of the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund. I sat down 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:30.280 with Andrew recently in Lucid showroom in New York to 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:34.400 discuss his accomplishments and his future ambitions. So I've interviewed 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:37.320 many business people on the show, but very rarely have 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:39.959 I interviewed anybody who has any interest in so many 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:43.040 different continents. So you're doing something in Saudi Arabia, we'll 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:47.520 talk about that. You're involved in things in Europe, in Australia, 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:49.559 your native Australia. You are now the head of the 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.320 Olympic Committee. Is that right for the next Olympics in 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:56.720 Australia Brisbane Olympics. They won the bid last year and 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:59.600 on the president of that to put it in place, 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:04.240 and you know it's ten years, so that's an exciting project. 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:07.160 In the United States, you were for quite some time, 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:10.679 more thin a decade the CEO of Dowd Alchemical. Initially 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:13.000 that we're called Dow and you merged it with DuPont 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:15.920 before you step down. Isn't right, correct? So let's go 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:20.280 back to your beginning. You grew up in Australia. How 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:22.520 did you manage to get to Dow and to the 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:27.120 United States. Yeah, the the gene that got me to 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:29.959 have wonder lust was because I grew up in a 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:34.640 little multicultural town in northern Australia called Darwin. Lots of Asians, 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:38.880 lots of Indigenous people, First Nations people, lots of immigrants 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:41.759 like Greeks that came from these very poor areas. So 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:44.959 I had this desire to go see where they were 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:50.560 from and understand the places north of US, Indonesia, China, Asia, 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:54.200 and as a whole, the American into into you know, 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:58.280 if you like. Uh knowledge that I got was listening 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:02.240 over the radio to know things like the jfk assassination 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:05.000 and Man on the Moon, and you know, we didn't 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:07.280 have TV where I grew up, so I was just 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:10.440 fascinated by America. And what had offered the world. So 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:14.680 that combination got me recruited out of campus. I didn't 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:16.960 join a British company. I didn't join an Australian company. 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:19.840 The companies that came by that were American were the 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:22.120 ones that I was intrigued by, and Dow had the 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:25.000 best recruiting line of them all for one year old, 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:27.359 join us and we'll show you the world. So that 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:29.800 combination of where I grew up, what I was exposed to, 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:34.120 and the Dow recruiting line. Because your family a wealthy family, 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:39.440 no blue collars, we would call them immigrants. My father 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:43.000 we lost our grandparents. He lost his parents and so 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:45.200 he raised his two younger brothers. When he was twelve, 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:48.840 he became an apprentice and a carpenter, and he and 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:51.960 his two brothers built a small fledging building business in 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:54.760 Darwin and Um. I was the first to go to 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:57.359 university in my family. Grant with university and you go 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:00.720 to work at Dow and in Hong Kong. Initially ull 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:03.360 they sent me down to a very cold part of 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:05.640 Australia called Melvine, which happened to have a lot of 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:09.760 Greek people. I got cold redefined when I went to Michigan, 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:12.280 but I thought it was cold at the time they went. 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:14.280 I went there for six months and there was an 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:17.480 accident in a factory in Hong Kong and they sent 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:19.800 four Australian engineers. I was wanted them to go work 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:23.200 to actually help the locals adjust to operating a complex 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:27.080 chemical environment. And so now is a very famous chemical 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:30.240 company was for quite some time. And how do you 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:34.240 go from Hong Kong with this Australian accent to an 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:36.880 American company in the middle of the United States. The 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:39.680 visionaries that ran down in the sixties that led to 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:43.040 my recruitment in the seventies had this view that to 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:46.960 go international yet to hire local well before it was vogue, 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:49.640 and they went around the world looking for people who 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:53.080 were willing to go to these far flung locations. Hong 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:56.440 Kong at that time wasn't a sophisticated city that it 0:03:56.560 --> 0:04:00.480 is today. And basically, you know what they did was 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:05.720 they localized and grew talent locally, but kept a playbook. 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:08.800 So I was spotted early by the then Dow leaders 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:11.880 and they started to move me around to test me 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:15.560 in different places, mostly in Asia and then eventually to 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:17.520 the U s where you're trained as an engineer. What 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:21.520 was your skill set? Chemical engineering? Which you know, when 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:24.400 I look at today's world and I think about chemical engineering, 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:27.200 the word chemical sort of sort of puts you into 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.720 a different place with the thought, it's really problem solving engineering. 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:32.919 And I learned how to be a problem solver about 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:36.480 learning chemical engineering. So you eventually moved to now headquarters 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:39.960 where is? It's in Michigan? Right? But what what small city? Is? 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:42.640 A little town called Midland where the founder founded the 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:46.080 company and we're still headquartered there, right, So you moved there? 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:49.039 And for how many years were you the CEO? So 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:53.880 just shire fifteen? Of course the last couple were in 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:58.480 the merged entity, which my successor. Then we've set up 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:00.360 the d merger and we can talk about that if 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.640 you like, But certainly the fifteen years included the last 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:08.560 two as executive chairman of the DuPont entity. But I 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:12.080 led us into the merger and the rationale behind that 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:15.599 was a ten year remake. We put a strategy in 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:19.280 place at oh five uh, and we executed over ten 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:23.239 years to move us back to an innovation centric company. 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:27.160 We had lost our way, we had commoditized, we had 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.080 rested on the laurels of all our previous inventions. And 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:32.560 by the time the nineties and the os came around, 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:36.760 we were really our innovation chest was bare, our cupboard 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:40.160 was bare. So we reconstitute an innovation in the company 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.960 by changing the portfolio. So you took down chemical, you 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:47.000 renamed it Dow at one point, took the chemical out 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:49.120 of it, and then you merged it with du Pont, 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:51.679 and then you split the company into three different companies. 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:55.960 Is that right? Yes? So too amazing American iconic companies. 0:05:56.320 --> 0:06:01.600 Three hundred so years of corporatetory between them. Um DuPont 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:05.600 founded on explosives, Dal founded on you know, chlorine. Um. 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:07.919 You think about the corporate history and both of those 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:11.800 the portfolios they both had assembled by the time we 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:16.039 hit this century were across a range of different applications 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:19.279 and there were many things, too many markets. So what 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:21.560 the premise of the case was, working with their green 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:24.520 on the DuPont side, as we put the two together 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:29.240 and separate them into more pure plays, so Dow Materials, 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:34.000 the Agg company agricultural products, and of course the DuPont Company, 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:37.400 the new DuPont Company on specialty chemicals and plastics. And 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:39.839 you step Down as CEO of Down a number of 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:42.200 years ago. Did your wife's say, when you're done being 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:44.520 the CEO is the time you've spent more time with 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:46.560 me and stay at home and now you're running around 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:48.880 the world. So was she disappointed or she happy to 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:50.719 have you out of the house there? Did she expect 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:55.760 me to retire? No? She knew me better. The story 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:58.920 on the Olympics is a classic. That call came I 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:01.479 don't know two months ago on a Saturday, We're in 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:04.480 Sydney in our living room, I got a call from 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:07.440 the Premier of the State of Queensland saying we'd like 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:09.760 to offer you the presidency of the Olympics. I said, 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.480 excuse me, And you know I was aware of Brisbane 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:17.200 at one so I didn't embarrass myself. But um, I said, 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:18.920 can I get back to you. Can you tell me 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:21.160 a little more and I'll get back to you. Yeah, 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:25.440 but we want to announce it on Monday. Stop. Okay. 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:28.520 So anyway, my wife said, who's that? And I told 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:30.720 her and she said, looked to me in the face 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:34.360 and said you've got to take it. And I said, 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:36.720 you know how busy I am? Right? And she said, 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:38.680 I know how busy you are, but you've got to 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:41.240 take it because you're the right person to get it done. 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:43.360 And if it means you've got to drop some things, 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:45.720 drop some things, but take it. That's the type of 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:47.560 partner I have. How did you wind up to be 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:49.920 the chairman of an automobile company when you hadn't really 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:54.200 been in that industry. I think the manufacturing thematic that 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:57.280 I had throughout my whole career, wrote a book on it, 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:01.440 making it America UH made me an attractive Canada to 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:04.360 a whole host of different companies around the world, whether 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:08.480 it be board or advisory. Um. Certainly the lucid experience 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:12.240 was something I didn't predict, but it came really through 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:15.720 my association with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, who with 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:19.960 a major investor in l Tiva, the predecessor lucid Um. 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:22.200 I got asked by the p a F to come 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:25.760 in and help rebuild the company and create what you 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:29.280 see here, which is a full fledged EV company. First 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:33.960 greenfield site e VS Tesla did a modified site right, 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:36.000 so we built a greenfield site and it's up and 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:38.880 running right now. So manufacturing was a big piece of 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:43.199 my expertise that it was attractive to joining the lucid experience. 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.520 So Saudi A Ramco is now the most valuable company 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:50.000 in the world. Is that right? Yes? And your involvement 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:51.920 is that you're on the board of it. Yes. And 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:54.840 you see energy prices or oil prices coming down at 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:56.720 any time in the near future, you think they're going 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:59.000 to be over hundred dollars a powerful quite some time. 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.000 Look commodity markets, as you must know well known your 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:06.320 storied career, David, impossible to give you an answer other 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.439 than you know, the most important dynamic of them all 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:12.920 is climate change and CEO two emissions and how can 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.000 we make oil and gas for that? A man of 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:18.680 cold before, But I think coal is destined to be 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:21.600 phased out. But all in gas and our addiction to 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:24.360 it and the transition that is needed to get c 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.280 O two out of the air will eventually damp and 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:31.800 demand EVS, which I'm sure we'll talk about soon. EVS alone, 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:36.400 electrification of the transportation market will see a dampening of demand, 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:38.679 But it's impossible to predict in a short term. How 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:42.200 do you predict a war Russia Ukraine and the effect 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:44.680 that it had on commodity prices? So we do. We 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:48.040 will go through periods, a zigzagged line, if you like, 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:51.160 a pricing for some years to come. And I can't 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:52.520 tell you whether it's going to be high or low. 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:55.400 No one can. But Sara Arabia, which has an enormous 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:58.040 amount of oil, seems to be interested in finding ways 0:09:58.080 --> 0:09:59.760 to do things that are not related to the oil. 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:02.960 Electric vehicles is one of them. I guess that right. Yeah. 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:07.280 Diversification the vision that was put in place and you're 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:11.160 you're quite familiar with by His Highness the ground prints 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:14.480 has has a big piece of it to diversify away 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:18.319 from oil and to go into other businesses and other 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:22.320 activities that might be related, so chemicals and plastics and 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:26.920 downstream creating a circular carbon economy hydrogen and going to 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:31.920 the green economy solar renewables, his general wind, nuclear power. 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:34.840 This diversification on the energy mix is a big part 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:39.079 of the vision and that's what Ramco and others in 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:41.640 the Kingdom are driving. Let's talk about Lucid for a moment. 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:45.280 Here the chairman of Lucid and it's an electric vehicle company. 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.440 Um Tesla seems to be so far ahead of everybody else. 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:50.400 How do you compete with Tessa when they have such 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:54.000 a large share of that market. This is a technology business. 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.320 So in your earlier question about how did I get involved, 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:01.280 I said manufacturing. Well, manufacturing is an interesting word being 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:04.199 used for a couple hundred years in humanity, as we 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:08.160 obviously went up the technology ladder. Humans are inventive and 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:12.840 innovative because of technology advantages. Lucid offers a technology advantage 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.560 and beats everyone right now and it's being recognized for it. Firstly, 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:19.600 is the distance we can travel without needing, you know, 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.479 to charge, and that's over five miles ep a certified. 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:25.480 Second is our charging time. We can actually get a 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:28.720 recharge of up to three miles in twenty two minutes. 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:33.440 That's technology. Those two topics are all about technology. The 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:39.520 car and it's surrounds is esthetically beautiful, it drives fantastically. 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:44.199 It's absolutely totally a luxury car and clearly in experience 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:47.679 and the software that supports it is also technology. So 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:50.360 what we've been doing at Lucid is homing in on 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:54.120 the technology side of differentiation. Is there room for a 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:56.400 Tesla or a Lucid and a bunch of others? Of course, 0:11:57.120 --> 0:11:59.160 I mean we are going to see e v s 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:03.000 as the prim remotor transportation in our lifetime. Where does 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:09.120 Lucid manufacturers cars Arizona, Cassa Grande Arizona just outside of Phoenix. 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:11.920 And if I wanted to go buy one, where do 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:13.800 I go buy one? You buy him online or you 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:17.559 come the showroom like this and they cost about five 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:21.040 thousand dollars a piece or something like that. You are 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:23.520 in the right place to buy one. We can maybe 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:26.640 hopefully solve your one as you leave the We have 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:31.920 a retail strategy. We go directly retail and service centers 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.480 around the country. We're opening up retail centers as we 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:38.640 speak in Europe, but we have them in the United States. 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:41.000 And this is an example of one. And know the 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:44.120 price point is not five thousand dollars. We have a 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:47.600 price point at the high end, luxury end. Our competition 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:50.920 is Porsche BMW out You're trying to be an electric 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:53.640 vehicle for high end car at this point in time. 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:57.440 That's our strategy. We've got the Dream, the Grand Touring, 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:01.240 We've got the Air and then the SHUV the gravity. 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:04.920 These price points north of a hundred thousand dollars with 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:09.520 the Dream at about one seventy thousand. But clearly that's 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:13.199 the luxury and the mass market end where General Motors 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:15.880 and Ford and others are, you know, pointing themselves. Is 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:19.400 obviously the big opportunity will eventually get there, but we've 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:21.880 made no announcements, and you have one of these corners 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:24.800 I do. I was an early buyer at full price. 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:28.320 I felt it was important that I demonstrate my support 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:33.120 for the team. I'll never forget the the amazing drive 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:36.160 I had in it. Have it down in Florida where 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:40.280 my residences. I drove it, drove to Palm Beach and 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:43.400 drove around there, and every time I stopped, I had 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:46.280 people looking at me, and I knew it wasn't me. 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:49.160 It was clearly the car. And then I parked it, 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:51.800 and I will kid you not, it was like a 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:53.880 mob scene around me. It was one of the I 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:56.120 think it was the second car in Florida, so clearly 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:59.040 had not been seen. I valet parked it at this 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:03.240 hotel where I was in dinner, and the gentleman wanted 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:05.400 to compete with the other gentleman to valet park that 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:07.000 can I drive it? Can I drive it? And as 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:09.240 I said, you know what, maybe I should puck it myself, 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:13.120 and so it's it's it's an attractive car and it 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:16.160 really drives supremely. Well, let's talk about the roads on 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:18.920 which these cars drive. So you've been an advisor at 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.520 the president United States on infrastructure and manufacturing. But on infrastructure, 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:24.760 you've been involved with the legislation that was pay used 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:27.840 not long ago. Why is the United States infrastructure so 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:32.240 terrible compared to so many other wealthy countries. Well, you know, 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:35.920 I have been around US politics like you for a 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:39.720 couple of decades and have served a variety of presidents 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:43.040 from the different parties, and and the attitude in the 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:46.800 United States is obviously to keep taxes low and keep 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:50.800 the public spend under control. And the word control is interesting, 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:54.760 but that stops forward thinking in terms of planning, and 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:58.800 therefore the short termism around our fiscal policies has heard us. 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:01.960 I mean, in essence, infrastructure is a long term return 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:04.760 and and to get a long term return, putting it 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:07.200 into private hands is one way of doing it. But 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:11.040 really the public side of life has to be willing 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:14.320 to blew the forward spend, the forward spent on airports 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:17.920 and roads and e V charging stations has to come 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:22.720 from the public domain. Now, raising taxes to spend money 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:25.880 on infrastructure means you've got to trust the people doing 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:28.600 the spending. And I think the public private model is 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:30.920 the way to go there, which is actually create an 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:36.320 infrastructure bank that the US public company owned or public 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:39.960 sector owned, that has private sector matching funds. I think 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:42.720 that sort of breakthrough has yet to occur in the 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:45.320 United States. So where we go is tax and spent, 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:48.760 which unfortunately one side of the aisle disagrees with. So 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:50.840 what is it that you look back on your career 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:52.680 with and say, this is what I'm most proud of 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:55.120 having done. As you know the old adage, right, who's 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:57.800 at your bedside in that final gasp, you know it's 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:00.960 it's your close family and and and you know, obviously 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:04.880 I'm very blessed that way, But the wider ecosystem. Last 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.720 night I did a one hour interview of Irvan Kristner, 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:11.920 the CEO of IBM to my Academy of Credit, an 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.680 academy and my alma matter. Uh and it's to teach 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:20.920 year olds. And lately we've been introducing postgrads leadership in 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:23.680 the modern century. But do you think business leaders have 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:26.720 an obligation to do more than just make profits for 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:30.200 their shareholders. Do you think they should be more socially responsible, 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.760 more worried about e s G. Than years ago? The 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:37.760 rules are changing, what should be the new rules? Who 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:41.840 knows who's working on them? Is a just government? No? 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:48.440 Is it just business? No NGOs, no citizens? Yes, but 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:51.840 many of them don't know how to direct their their inputs. 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:55.680 So the collective needs to get together. How problem is 0:16:56.000 --> 0:17:01.320 top down isn't working. Top down institute sans are not 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:04.760 winning over the people they are affecting. So bottom up 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:08.600 needs to occur and meets top down in some way. 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:14.399 Which is what? Which is awareness groups, community sessions, town halls, 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:19.480 knowing what your employees think, being available to them, ubiquitously 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:24.400 communicating to get the sentiment. What's the sentiment? The sentiment 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:26.760 is what's going on out there in terms of inequality, 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:32.959 lack of inclusion, this notion on environmental responsibility, digitalization, and privacy, 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:36.640 the issues of our time need to be integrated into 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:40.359 your strategy. Now, your first book was about manufacturing and 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:43.160 manufacturing of something in the United States has thought by 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:45.360 many people not to be as good at as we 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.040 were forty fifty years ago. Is that fair or not 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.080 that that's the perception at least, Yes, that's fair, and 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:53.600 I addressed it in the book because we think smokestacks 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:56.480 and we think of rivers on fire when we use 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:59.840 the word branding is everything, and today everything gets branded 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:02.480 in a heartbeat right through Instagram and you name it. 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:05.280 And as a result of that, there's a perception that 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:10.640 manufacturing is yesterday's sector. And that is so erroneous because 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:14.080 pretty much everything in modern life is made. I like 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:17.520 I used to say, now we've only got three functions, okay, 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:21.840 to invent, to make, and to sell. The rest is overhead, 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:26.119 and the make part is actually very connected to the 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:30.000 invent part. China was brilliant in its strategy through the 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:35.360 thirty years of densil being because it attracted assembly and 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:38.760 then insisted on R and D. There were only ten 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:42.720 R and D labs foreign owned in China. By two 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:46.119 thousand and ten there were forty thou foreign R and 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:49.800 D labs. Why because they wanted to know not just 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:52.960 how to make an assemble, they wanted to invent all 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:56.320 the way back to the material, to the actual the battery, 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.080 to the products. And to do that they needed R 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:03.360 and D. Manufacturing R and D live together, Okay, they 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:06.840 live together through prototyping and scaling, and the topics of 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:11.480 invention and innovation are in manufacturing because you actually learn 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:15.400 while you make, and then when you digitize you learn more. 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:20.040 Digitizing manufacturing is a massive innovation opportunity. And frankly, one 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:21.879 of the things that the United States is for normal 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:24.520 at is we know how to innovate and be an 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:28.160 entrepreneurs and how to scale. But if we've lost our 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:32.479 billy to actually make, then we start to atrophy the 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:36.320 innovation side. The conventional wisdom is that the United States 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:40.280 can't manufacture things at costs that are attractive to markets, 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:43.320 so that's why we've outsourced it. You think that's unfair. 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:47.119 It was fair during what I call the loss of 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:52.160 industry such as textiles and footwear and clothing, which were 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:56.399 very labor intensive. It's completely not the case with things 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:59.840 that make the iPhone okay, and all the circuitry and 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:06.280 semiconductors and high end technology content parts e vs. This 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:09.400 is where the United States is actually the best at 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:14.040 and it's not labor cost driven. So offshoring and outsourcing 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:17.440 and and moving things for labor costs. Fine, they went 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:21.040 to countries that have lower labor costs, the Bangladesh and 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:25.680 the Vietnams. But the high end manufacturing, the quality manufacturing 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:30.240 for two days and tomorrow's technology innovations, we should be 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:32.800 the epicenter of that right here in this country because 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:36.399 the labor cost is actually not the relevant cost. The 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:39.440 relevant cost is actually the raw material, the supply chain, 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:42.280 and we have the market. This is one of the 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:45.440 few countries in the world that can say I'm one country, 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:48.880 I have a massive market and by the way, I'm 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:53.440 endowed with a lot of people and natural resources. That's manufacturing. Now, 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:56.200 you were an immigrant through the United States and your 0:20:56.280 --> 0:21:00.399 grandparents were immigrants to Australia. Immigrants has often said have 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:03.480 a capacity to work very hard, to prove themselves to 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.280 move up the ladder. So do you feel you have 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:09.040 an immigrant mindset that has pushed you to do all 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:12.680 these things? I think my story as growing up in 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:16.120 an immigrant family where English wasn't the first language at home. 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:19.240 It was Greek and speak Greek? Do I do? Yeah? 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:21.200 And that useful a lot, I guess when you're talking 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:24.360 to the Olympic committees, never thought of that, but yes, 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:27.560 it's probably useful for that. I think the immigrants backstory 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:30.960 I have really drove me to work hard, but also 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:35.040 to make a difference and a very American trade. What 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:38.520 attracted me to America this very day, and I don't 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:40.800 want to embarrass you, you're a great example of it, 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:44.560 is the amazing giving back that occurs in this country, 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:46.880 and not enough of us know a lot about it. 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:49.600 It gets a bit a few headlines. So I mentioned 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:52.040 the tax and spend thing as being a detriment to 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:55.960 building modern infrastructure. But they on the other side, Americans 0:21:56.080 --> 0:22:01.119 are charitable and give and care about making a difference 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:04.560 in their community. That's what Dow showed me, and that's 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:07.680 what I and my wife Paula and I live today. 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:13.000 That American way to an immigrant means that for the 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:15.480 next immigrants I can make that we can make their 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:17.919 life better. So for somebody's watching this who wants to 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:21.480 be a successful global business leader, what are the skill sets? 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:24.040 Is it hard work? Learning how to read well, keep 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:26.800 continuously reading, learning, how to be a good speaker? What 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:28.800 are the skill sets that you think somebody really needs? 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:32.080