Speaker 1: You know, tech stocks really have had a bit of
Speaker 1: a rough time lately. But some of them, you know,
Speaker 1: when you think about it, even after the recent folatility,
Speaker 1: will you know, there's still up a lot some of them, Yeah, Denis.
Speaker 1: And take Google's parent Alphabet for example. It's come down
Speaker 1: from its highs for the year, but people invested in
Speaker 1: Alphabet at the start of the year still aren't exactly
Speaker 1: losing money. Yeah. And David Rubinstein had a chance to
Speaker 1: talk with Ruth poor At on the David Rubinstein Show
Speaker 1: Peer to Peer Conversations about the company, and he starts
Speaker 1: here by asking her how business has been during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Let's listen in So during this period of time, Google
Speaker 1: has done quite well, Alphabet has done quite well. Your
Speaker 1: stock is up but more than this year, and I
Speaker 1: should say from the time you became the CFO, the
Speaker 1: stock is up about over and the market caps over
Speaker 1: So done quite well under your leadership. But I'm curious
Speaker 1: or more people looking at doing searches now during this
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen period of time than ever before, or the
Speaker 1: people not spending as much time searching. I know people
Speaker 1: are spending a lot of time searching. We have trillions
Speaker 1: of searches every year pre COVID post COVID. It's really
Speaker 1: the nature of searches the change. And so early in
Speaker 1: the crisis, people really migrated to shifting for information about
Speaker 1: the disease. What they needed to know is all information
Speaker 1: about COVID. You then saw people shift to Okay, how
Speaker 1: am I going to live my life in a COVID world?
Speaker 1: And so more things that more how to search is
Speaker 1: what do you do? On? How do I cook? What
Speaker 1: do I do? And meditation wellness. It was really moving there.
Speaker 1: Now you're seeing people moving back into more um commercial
Speaker 1: activities and I think one of the big surges that
Speaker 1: we saw was how can I how can I help
Speaker 1: in my community? How can I help others? And it's
Speaker 1: always really quite inspiring to see through search how people
Speaker 1: are feeling about the world. So most of your employees
Speaker 1: are still working remotely? Is that correct? So we moved
Speaker 1: everybody to remote work from home, all d and twenty
Speaker 1: thousand of us. But as countries are opening up, we're
Speaker 1: starting to move people back in. So, for example, in
Speaker 1: Taiwan we actually are about in places in Europe we've
Speaker 1: been bringing some people back, but fundamentally we moved everybody
Speaker 1: to work from home. When you started working remotely, did
Speaker 1: you ever worry it would be a problem because you
Speaker 1: have all these people, but you're technically very savvy. So
Speaker 1: when we started the move to work from home, it
Speaker 1: did seem daunting. I'm responsible for our crisis response and
Speaker 1: put together a really strong governance around how do we
Speaker 1: get people to move from home with a global team
Speaker 1: and then a regional team, and we were in sync daily.
Speaker 1: That worked really well. What we were most concerned about
Speaker 1: was what would be the impact on productivity and wellness.
Speaker 1: Our chief medical officer, very early in the crisis said
Speaker 1: that more people would be affected by mental health issues
Speaker 1: than actually the physical disease itself, So we focused on
Speaker 1: those two and I think that was really important. The
Speaker 1: other thing is Google is really about our people and
Speaker 1: the ability to to liver for users and communities because
Speaker 1: of our compute capacity. And one of the things we
Speaker 1: didn't have to worry about was our ability to to
Speaker 1: really deal with the surgeon online activity. And that was
Speaker 1: because of all of the investments over many years and
Speaker 1: all of the testing for what could happen in a
Speaker 1: sort of crisis scenario. And I think it's an important
Speaker 1: point because you can't solve the risk management issue in
Speaker 1: the middle of a crisis. You obviously need to solve
Speaker 1: it ahead of time, and that worked. So many companies
Speaker 1: are saying, well, now that I've learned that my people
Speaker 1: can work from home, maybe I don't need all these
Speaker 1: people either in the office or I don't need all
Speaker 1: these people. Is that your view? You don't need all
Speaker 1: the people you have, or you may not need them
Speaker 1: all in the office. We believe that when people are
Speaker 1: together that's a critical element for innovation. Collaboration helps support innovation.
Speaker 1: It's collaboration within teams, and it's collaboration across teams. It's
Speaker 1: collaboration and its serendipity. So we do look forward to
Speaker 1: having people back in the office. What we're looking at
Speaker 1: is the productivity lift you get if people have the
Speaker 1: ability to work from home some days be in the office,
Speaker 1: in particular when the rest of their team or more broadly,
Speaker 1: teams are in the office. And if you can save
Speaker 1: people commute time, you have better access to talent. Because
Speaker 1: you're solving what people want in their personal life, it's
Speaker 1: actually going to result in a better outcome. What that
Speaker 1: means for real estate we're still figuring out. Early on,
Speaker 1: Google was well known for, among other things, Um, you've
Speaker 1: got free food. Um, what about if you're working at
Speaker 1: home you give them free food showing up by delivery
Speaker 1: or somehow or how do they compensate for that? So
Speaker 1: we're not doing that. But you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: people focus on food when really what we are trying
Speaker 1: to create have been trying to create is this fun, quirky,
Speaker 1: magical campus. And so it's about more than just the
Speaker 1: free food. It's the experience on campus. So what we
Speaker 1: did when we moved everybody to home is we moved
Speaker 1: a lot of these sort of connecting the community um
Speaker 1: to a virtual delivery. And so for food, as an example,
Speaker 1: you can do a one on one session with a chef,
Speaker 1: you can do a cooking class. We took our fitness
Speaker 1: classes and moved them to virtual fitness classes and even
Speaker 1: some sort of goofy Google style ones like yoga with
Speaker 1: your dog. What have you learned about yourself during this
Speaker 1: period of time. One of the things that was actually gratifying,
Speaker 1: if I can broaden that question, is what I saw
Speaker 1: at Google and what I saw about my colleagues. And
Speaker 1: this has obviously been an extraordinary stressful time. UM. We
Speaker 1: feel this responsibility because so many people are counting on
Speaker 1: us for quality information, for the ability to stay connected.
Speaker 1: And what I saw was people really step up in
Speaker 1: a meaningful way, and that was inspiring. It's been an
Speaker 1: extraordinary time. UM. What I learned about myself is one
Speaker 1: of the positive elements of of this has been sheltering
Speaker 1: in place and having my kids who have graduated from college.
Speaker 1: They're now back with us for at least a limited
Speaker 1: period of time, and that's been remarkable in My husband
Speaker 1: and I have thoroughly enjoyed that. So some people say
Speaker 1: that the Google's of the world, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple,
Speaker 1: Amazon are too powerful. They have so much power in
Speaker 1: our economy that it's not healthy. And you've been a
Speaker 1: congressional hearings recently where your CEO testify. UM, what is
Speaker 1: your response to the view that the technology companies are
Speaker 1: becoming so dominant in our economy that it's not healthy.
Speaker 1: We are very mindful of the fact that with the
Speaker 1: scale of these company comes scrutiny, and that it's incumbent
Speaker 1: on us to engage with regulators and help them understand
Speaker 1: what is it that we're doing that is of benefit.
Speaker 1: How how are we providing better services at lower costs?
Speaker 1: Which is really indicative of the competitive nature of the
Speaker 1: world in which we operate. We've got intense competition within
Speaker 1: the US, intense competitors outside of the US, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I think this COVID experience, many companies and
Speaker 1: individuals would not have been able to operate the way
Speaker 1: they did without the support and benefit from technology. But
Speaker 1: it's it's a fair question, and we're engaged constructively here
Speaker 1: and around the globe with regulators on it. You have
Speaker 1: more than a hundred billion dollars of cash um on
Speaker 1: your balance which a lot cash um. Why do you
Speaker 1: need all that cash? Why not just div it ended out?
Speaker 1: Or are you going to use it for investments? So
Speaker 1: at the end of the second quarter we actually had
Speaker 1: a billion, but who's counting? So you're you're right. Um.
Speaker 1: When I got to Google, there had been a longstanding
Speaker 1: view that it was helpful to have cash because of
Speaker 1: the optionality it provided. And I think the question I
Speaker 1: post was how much is too much and how much
Speaker 1: is too little? And can we actually try and um
Speaker 1: to mention that analytically and put together you know, the
Speaker 1: data that led to a conversation about beginning a sherry
Speaker 1: purchase program. And it started small, but we've now increased
Speaker 1: it five times in the last number of years. Um.
Speaker 1: The last one we just did in the second quarter.
Speaker 1: It's billion dollar authorization and I'm you know, so it's
Speaker 1: been a journey and we've we've been increasing the return
Speaker 1: of capital. Um. You know, I've spent a big chunk
Speaker 1: of my career covering firms like Carlisle private equity firms,
Speaker 1: so I do appreciate what an efficient capital structure looks like.
Speaker 1: And this is really trying to um get the balance.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about your background for a moment. How
Speaker 1: you came to be the CFO of Google Alphabet and
Speaker 1: before that, Morgan Stanley. So where did you grow up? So?
Speaker 1: I was born in England, mostly grew up in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: My father was a Holocaust survivor Holocaust refugee. He escaped
Speaker 1: from Vienna right after Crystal Knock when when he was
Speaker 1: a teenager, he was sixteen. He had no high school education,
Speaker 1: he had no college education. Obviously. He escaped to Palestine
Speaker 1: and as soon as he could he enlisted in the
Speaker 1: British Army fought under Montgomery. He was in the Two
Speaker 1: Battles of Alaman, and his view was that the only
Speaker 1: way to find peace in a peaceful place was to
Speaker 1: have a skill that people needed. So he decided to
Speaker 1: teach himself physics while in the army. And he used
Speaker 1: to always tell us as kids that his fellow soldiers
Speaker 1: would would tease him and say, you will die before
Speaker 1: you can ever use this physics. And his answer was
Speaker 1: always if I die, I want to die. And educated
Speaker 1: man and after the war he was one of the
Speaker 1: lucky ones. Um. He was given a place at the
Speaker 1: University of Manchester. He got a master's degree at PhD
Speaker 1: that's where I was born um, and then was given
Speaker 1: a position at Harvard. The only two places he ever
Speaker 1: worked was Harvard and Stamford, and so we moved eventually
Speaker 1: to Silicon Valley, and that's where I grew up. So
Speaker 1: you went to Stamford undergrad I did, and did you
Speaker 1: major in finance? I majored in economics and international relations,
Speaker 1: and thought I would go off and be a lawyer,
Speaker 1: just like you. Okay, well you were smart not to
Speaker 1: do that, but but you did go to Wharton NBA school, right,
Speaker 1: and you've got an NBA from Wharton and you went
Speaker 1: to Wall Street. Well, when I actually went from Stamford
Speaker 1: to the London School of Economics to Wharton, I assumed
Speaker 1: I would be a consultant. When I started in business school,
Speaker 1: I was convinced that what I wanted to do was
Speaker 1: work with companies and helped them understand their problems. But
Speaker 1: then I took a fascinating course and a great teacher,
Speaker 1: and he opened my eyes to this thing called Wall
Speaker 1: Street and mergers and acquisitions, and I got excited. So
Speaker 1: I went from completely convinced I was doing one thing
Speaker 1: to completely convinced the only thing I wanted to do
Speaker 1: as mergers. When you went to Ultimate to Morgan Stanley,
Speaker 1: was it women? Far from it um? When I started
Speaker 1: Morgan Stanley was seven, and so it was sort of
Speaker 1: the Stone Age for um for any sort of sense
Speaker 1: of what was the role of women in banking. In fact,
Speaker 1: I think that general attitude was that those of us
Speaker 1: who were there would get married, have kids and leave.
Speaker 1: We didn't have the stamina. It was just a question
Speaker 1: of time. And I loved Morgan Stanley, I think more
Speaker 1: instantly was the best of the best. But that was
Speaker 1: sort of the Ethos on Wall Street, and in fact,
Speaker 1: a couple of years into my career, I was working
Speaker 1: on a deal and I was out with a partner
Speaker 1: and a client. I was pregnant with our first child,
Speaker 1: and the partner actually turned to the client said, Ruth
Speaker 1: may come back after the first child, but there's no
Speaker 1: way she'll come back after the second child. Unfortunately, the
Speaker 1: client liked me a lot more than he liked this
Speaker 1: partner and basically told him he was an idiot. But
Speaker 1: that really made an impression on me, and the thing
Speaker 1: that was inspiring and helpful and critical in my career
Speaker 1: as there were so many extraordinary men who really bet
Speaker 1: on me help open doors. You know, I didn't know
Speaker 1: at the time those were sponsors, but that's what they were.
Speaker 1: You became the CFO and at some point you're one
Speaker 1: of the most important people Morgan Stanley, and the US
Speaker 1: government calls up and says, why don't you come and
Speaker 1: work at the Treasure Department, a very senior position. Did
Speaker 1: you seriously consider doing that? Well? One of the most
Speaker 1: meaningful parts of my career was in O eight when
Speaker 1: two crisis, when UM Secretary Paulson asked me to lead
Speaker 1: a team to help him with um the housing the
Speaker 1: booming housing crisis, and um UH spent the entire period
Speaker 1: working on Fannie Mae and Freddie mac and then that
Speaker 1: evolved into work on a I G. And I thought
Speaker 1: it was extraordinary to be able to use skills I
Speaker 1: developed over decades that Morgan Stanley for something so important
Speaker 1: for the country, So that to me remains one of
Speaker 1: the most meaning you're doing that as a employee of
Speaker 1: as doing that. Okay, But Morgan Stanley also went through
Speaker 1: a crisis during that period of time. I'm sure you
Speaker 1: remember it, where Morgan Stanley was close to maybe not
Speaker 1: being able to survive, and then a Japanese investor said,
Speaker 1: we'll put in some money. It turned out that money
Speaker 1: was at three times the stock price that you were
Speaker 1: trading at, and people weren't sure whether the Japanese company
Speaker 1: Mitsubishi would show up. Were you ever in doubt that
Speaker 1: Mistsubishi would show up with that money. That was a
Speaker 1: terrifying period of time. This series of events was there
Speaker 1: was the Lehman Brothers famous weekend, followed by a call
Speaker 1: I got from the Federal Reserve saying we had worked
Speaker 1: on we collectively had worked on the wrong thing. We
Speaker 1: needed to focus on A I G. And asked me
Speaker 1: to get back down to the Federal Reserve that Sunday evening.
Speaker 1: Um they said A I G would be out of
Speaker 1: money by Wednesday. In fact, it was Tuesday when they
Speaker 1: were out of money. And that's the point at which
Speaker 1: Morgan Stanley was running into its own very severe liquidity crisis.
Speaker 1: Morgan Stanley obviously prospered through the period of time. They survived,
Speaker 1: and you did quite well. And then someday somebody called
Speaker 1: you up. I don't know who it was. Was it
Speaker 1: a headhunter? Was it somebody from Google saying we'd like
Speaker 1: you to be considered to be the CFO. UM. Were
Speaker 1: you surprised at that offer because you were a Wall
Speaker 1: Street person, you weren't a technology person. So actually it
Speaker 1: was a very different path to the question. I was
Speaker 1: on the Stanford board and had the opportunity to spend
Speaker 1: some time with Bill Campbell, who was an iconic coach
Speaker 1: to so many people, to Larry to Sergeate, to Eric Schmidt,
Speaker 1: to Steve Jobs. And I left the board meeting and
Speaker 1: went to his home and sat down with him to
Speaker 1: talk about life generally, and he started probing kind of
Speaker 1: what next, what would I want to do? And um
Speaker 1: my comment and was I didn't know. At some point
Speaker 1: I would want another chapter. But one thing I knew
Speaker 1: for certain is I would not leave Morgan Stanley at
Speaker 1: CFO to be a CFO anywhere else. And for two
Speaker 1: hours he kept kind of coming back to that strong assertion,
Speaker 1: and at the end of two hours he said, okay,
Speaker 1: so you wouldn't leave to be a CFO anywhere else? Correct?
Speaker 1: And I'm adamant correct, And he said that I have
Speaker 1: the perfect job. You should be the CFO of Google.
Speaker 1: And of course the two of us burst into laughter,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, that one I would do. And
Speaker 1: and I didn't believe it. I left his home and
Speaker 1: didn't actually believe it was real or that it would happen.
Speaker 1: And within a couple of hours he called and said,
Speaker 1: go over to Larry Page's house and spend some time
Speaker 1: with him, see if this works. Right. She went over
Speaker 1: to see Larry Page, and he said, guess what I
Speaker 1: just heard about you? And I wanted you to be
Speaker 1: the CFO. So I had known him. I worked on
Speaker 1: the Google ipeo and had had different interactions through the
Speaker 1: Stanford board. We spent two hours. It was this broad
Speaker 1: conversation fascinating, as Larry Page always is. I left again
Speaker 1: not actually believing that it would happen, and quickly everything
Speaker 1: came together. So you took the position. But now you're
Speaker 1: going to be breaking into another world where women are
Speaker 1: not that prominent. Was it harder break into the technology
Speaker 1: world as a woman or as a harder break into
Speaker 1: the financial world as a woman? Well, when I broke
Speaker 1: into the financial world, I was junior, and I think
Speaker 1: it's harder when you're junior then when you're coming in
Speaker 1: as somebody who's credentialed. But if the question were broadly's
Speaker 1: which world is tougher, Wall Street or um Tech? You
Speaker 1: both have evolved meaningfully since those days of the boys
Speaker 1: Club on Wall Street that UM we're so painful, and
Speaker 1: I think there's a much greater awareness that it's not
Speaker 1: just the right thing to do to have diversity and
Speaker 1: senior ranks throughout an organization, but it leads to better
Speaker 1: outcomes UM and so I think that they're actually pretty similar.
Speaker 1: The difference is there's it's a more collaborative environment um UM.
Speaker 1: In tech, I would say a Well Street can be
Speaker 1: pretty pretty rough, but the more testosterone filled place is
Speaker 1: Wall Street or Silicon Valley. Um, there's a lot of testosterone.
Speaker 1: There's enough to go around. So when you get there,
Speaker 1: you're a fairly buttoned down CFO of Morganstown. That you're
Speaker 1: very precise and so forth. Google is probably a less
Speaker 1: precise place when you get there, right. That's they're making
Speaker 1: so much money and not have to worry about every
Speaker 1: little dollar. I guess, so, did you say we've got
Speaker 1: to change things, and that people say we don't want
Speaker 1: to change, we're doing well, or that people say, yes,
Speaker 1: we want to change. So throughout my career my view
Speaker 1: has been if you actually anchor your points in data,
Speaker 1: it becomes very easy to engage people and what is
Speaker 1: the issue and what's the proper path forward. And one
Speaker 1: of the extraordinary things at Google is we have very
Speaker 1: smart and very inquisitive people. So as I laid out
Speaker 1: whatever issue it is anchored in data, it engaged the conversation. UM.
Speaker 1: And so I actually didn't find it to be discordant.
Speaker 1: In fact, I was really impressed with the view of yes,
Speaker 1: throw in the new idea, well, let us understand what
Speaker 1: and why? Um, And it's you know, it's been a journey.
Speaker 1: So Alphabet, it is the parent company. You're the CFO
Speaker 1: of that. You're also the CFO of of Google. Google
Speaker 1: is the search engine, and that is still massively profitable
Speaker 1: by anybody's standard. I assume, I don't know if you
Speaker 1: like the word massive, but but it's profitable, right, it's
Speaker 1: doing all right. What about cloud computing? Your number three
Speaker 1: in that business but catching up to I guess the
Speaker 1: number one is Amazon, number two is Microsoft. But is
Speaker 1: that important growth engine as well? You think it's a
Speaker 1: very important one. It's a sizeable market. We think, in
Speaker 1: very very early innings, UM, the opportunity for businesses to
Speaker 1: migrate to the cloud provides them with extraordinary added capabilities
Speaker 1: and they're looking to us, whether it's for security or
Speaker 1: data analytics or a I that's what we're able to
Speaker 1: do working with with customers. And you've really seen the
Speaker 1: important migration to the cloud. So we're investing meaningfully in it.
Speaker 1: We do see it as a sizeable opportunity. And one
Speaker 1: of your areas of focus at Google and Alphabet is
Speaker 1: healthcare and health related UM, why is that such an
Speaker 1: important focus, uh of the founders and you UH? In
Speaker 1: terms of healthcare? Why is that so important to you healthcare.
Speaker 1: We have the opportunity with technology to make a fundamental
Speaker 1: difference in healthcare, in particular with AI, in a host
Speaker 1: of areas. For me personally, I'm a breast cancer survivor.
Speaker 1: I've had breast cancer twice. I've had gone through chemo twice, radiation,
Speaker 1: more surgery than than one could imagine. And I view
Speaker 1: myself as one of the really lucky ones. I was
Speaker 1: here in New York City when I was first diagnosed.
Speaker 1: I was treated at Memorial slum Cattering. I had the
Speaker 1: best care, and here I am healthy, as healthy as
Speaker 1: I've ever been. Not everybody gets that, that break and
Speaker 1: that a year two ago. Um I remember when our
Speaker 1: AI engineers had a breakthrough in early stage detection of
Speaker 1: metastatic breast cancer with AI, which struck me as precisely
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that is transformative. And there is
Speaker 1: so much debate in the world about whether AI is
Speaker 1: a positive or not, and I wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: I got an objective, non tech view of this. So
Speaker 1: I called my oncologists to ask whether I was reading
Speaker 1: this the right way, and it really had the impact
Speaker 1: I expected, And his answer was, you cannot democratize healthcare
Speaker 1: without AI. So we look at this as this opportunity
Speaker 1: to democratize healthcare, to provide service, to identify diseases earlier,
Speaker 1: to do things like telehealth that enables everybody to get
Speaker 1: the kind of care that I was able to have.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm passionate about it. Now, somebody's watching this
Speaker 1: man or a woman says, all right, she's a leader. Um,
Speaker 1: she must have some qualities that I would like to
Speaker 1: know about more. What are the qualities that you think
Speaker 1: are important to be a leader. So I think one
Speaker 1: of them is it's very important to be able to
Speaker 1: make clear decisions anchored and data. It's the way you
Speaker 1: can build support for the ideas. Is the way you
Speaker 1: can know where to double down on great opportunities for
Speaker 1: the long term where you should be pulling back. So
Speaker 1: it starts with data analytics. I think the other is
Speaker 1: integrity and building a culture that makes it really clear
Speaker 1: that you expect the highest quality, performance and integrity at
Speaker 1: all times from your people. UM. I would say that
Speaker 1: that the other is making it really clear that you
Speaker 1: want diverse views, that you build a diverse team, and
Speaker 1: that you're open to UM not only open, really expect
Speaker 1: diverse views and debate. Uh you know. To me, I've
Speaker 1: often been asked how do I think about rising stars?
Speaker 1: And my answer is I want someone who's in my face.
Speaker 1: I want somebody who challenges me. And I think creating
Speaker 1: an environment where there's that open to discussion is really
Speaker 1: um is really important. So some people say it's very
Speaker 1: difficult for women to have it all, but you seem
Speaker 1: to have it all. So what's the secret to having
Speaker 1: it all? And is it is harder than people would
Speaker 1: think or is it easier than people would think. I
Speaker 1: think it depends on how you define having it all.
Speaker 1: I've often been asked about work life balance. I think
Speaker 1: that is a horrible term and everybody should banish it
Speaker 1: from their vocabulary because getting balance, just the physics of
Speaker 1: it are hard. To me, the most important thing is
Speaker 1: to find a mix in life that works for you.
Speaker 1: And so for me, it's been an incredible career. I
Speaker 1: get a lot of joy and energy out of what
Speaker 1: I'm doing, and then I have an amazing family. I've
Speaker 1: been married to an extraordinary man for ever. We have
Speaker 1: three wonderful kids. And for some people it may not
Speaker 1: be kids, but it's got to be something other than work,
Speaker 1: and it's finding a mix. So sometimes you may be
Speaker 1: more heavily focused on work, other times more heavily focused
Speaker 1: on family. In that mix changes throughout your life. To me,
Speaker 1: that's been the most important element of it. And I
Speaker 1: would say I get very concerned when I hear women
Speaker 1: have a plan, a plan on when you're gonna sequence
Speaker 1: each step along the way. And I would say, in particular,
Speaker 1: when I had cancer and didn't actually know what was
Speaker 1: going to come, I was able to look back on
Speaker 1: my life and say I have no regrets. And you've
Speaker 1: been listening to Ruth poor atte cfo at Alphabet on
Speaker 1: the David Rubinstein Show Peer to Peer Conversations