Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Hi, I'm
Speaker 1: Jason Kelly and I'm Carol Masser. Welcome to the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week Weekend Podcast. This is a special edition because
Speaker 1: this week we're at Stanford University Graduate School of Business
Speaker 1: unveiling Bloomberg Business Week's annual Business school rankings, and Stanford,
Speaker 1: for the second straight year, it's number one, defending their title, Carol,
Speaker 1: and fiercely coming in number one. And we were there
Speaker 1: in the sunshine, just soaking it all in the greatness
Speaker 1: that is that campus. Pretty confident there because, as you said,
Speaker 1: they were number one, coming in ahead of Dartmouth's Tuch
Speaker 1: School of Business. But Chuck, I gotta tell you, they
Speaker 1: made a big move. They jumped seventeen spots, coming in second, Harvard,
Speaker 1: University of Chicago's Boot School and the Darden School at
Speaker 1: UVA rounding out the top five. We'll hear from some
Speaker 1: big name Stanford alum like A b in Bath's, Carlos
Speaker 1: Brito and John Donahoe. He's currently the CEO of Service now,
Speaker 1: but he's also the next CEO of Nike. He'll take
Speaker 1: that spot in the new year. Blassic Guy in the
Speaker 1: News because of the team that he owns. That's Joe
Speaker 1: lake Up. He's the owner of the Golden State Warriors.
Speaker 1: But first, well, yes, indeed, bloomber Business Week naming Stanford
Speaker 1: the number one US business school in a NBA ranking.
Speaker 1: Let's get into it, though, because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: work that goes into it. Let's catch up with a
Speaker 1: couple of our editors are Bloomberg News Senior editor Caleb Solomon.
Speaker 1: He joins us from our Boston bureau, and also with
Speaker 1: us is our Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel Weber. I
Speaker 1: gotta start with you, Joel. First of all, I know
Speaker 1: there's a lot of work goes into it. We know,
Speaker 1: and talking to the alumni that everybody looks for these rankings, UM,
Speaker 1: talk to us a little bit about it. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's the thirty first year that Business Weeks has done
Speaker 1: a business school ranking. But really we we uh we
Speaker 1: we started from scratch almost a year ago, uh to
Speaker 1: basically reimagine what the business school ranking could be. And
Speaker 1: and Caleb gets big props for being one of the
Speaker 1: architects of that. And we really tried to lean into
Speaker 1: where we thought h a ranking of this variety could go,
Speaker 1: and so much of that has been let's actually lean
Speaker 1: into the networks and the students and the alumni and
Speaker 1: actually start asking questions to them about their experiences. And
Speaker 1: that's what really makes this ranking be so definitive. It's
Speaker 1: very interactive, so you can actually customize the ranking based
Speaker 1: on what you're what you're interested in, and that's um,
Speaker 1: you know, I just hats off to Caleb as being
Speaker 1: one of the architects for it. So, so, Caleb, when
Speaker 1: you look at this year versus last year or even
Speaker 1: years before, what what are some of the distinguishing things
Speaker 1: that jump out at you? You know, thanks Joe for
Speaker 1: all that. You know, so you you you nailed what
Speaker 1: we what we were, what we're all trying to do here.
Speaker 1: We just to really personalize these rankings. So I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're looking at a school, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the top tier school, say in the on the West Coast,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter to you where Harvard and m I
Speaker 1: t in our on our list. So we gave you
Speaker 1: the ability to really personalize this based on your scores,
Speaker 1: the region that you're interested in, the industries that you
Speaker 1: want to work in, and really create your own customized
Speaker 1: ranking and all of the tools that we built to
Speaker 1: do that, we made them so much better this year.
Speaker 1: The personalization, this ability to sort of create your short
Speaker 1: list along the way that provides all of the comparisons
Speaker 1: of the amazing data we have. It's all at your fingertips,
Speaker 1: it's all share able. You can send it to friends,
Speaker 1: you can send it elsewhere. Those are some of the
Speaker 1: biggest changes we made. And talk to us about how
Speaker 1: Stanford got the trophy. Stanford just came out number one
Speaker 1: in a couple of our big indexes and compensations. Stanford
Speaker 1: was number one, tied with Wharton in Tonio. So that's
Speaker 1: that's one of the key measures for business school. You know,
Speaker 1: how much do you make when you get out of school?
Speaker 1: What what our alumni made game five, six, seven years
Speaker 1: after they're after they left school. And the other big
Speaker 1: index that mattered a lot to standard was entrepreneurship, where
Speaker 1: again they came out number one. So with number one
Speaker 1: place on those two indexes, that pushed them right to
Speaker 1: the top. Carol Jason, I'm like looking at you, Caleb
Speaker 1: from here and I'm like, you guys are in at Stanford, Like,
Speaker 1: what have you guys been hearing out there? What's what's
Speaker 1: been interesting. Well, everybody knows they're the champs out here.
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, this is this school is unbelievable in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. When you you know, we've got
Speaker 1: a chance to talk to a lot of the alum
Speaker 1: as well as the students. You know, the people who
Speaker 1: come here. It's a very diverse student body. Uh. They
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time thinking about that in terms
Speaker 1: of who they recruit, but also who's teaching and what
Speaker 1: they teach. Caleb, I did want to ask you because
Speaker 1: it did come up in some of our conversations here
Speaker 1: number two with a bullet talk coming in making bake
Speaker 1: move talk to us about that? Yeah, that really that
Speaker 1: really jumped out to all of us. UM so TUK
Speaker 1: did pretty well. Asked year on compensation exactly, Dartmouth and Hanover,
Speaker 1: New Hampshire, UM near near where I live and so um.
Speaker 1: But what they really came out they surged in the
Speaker 1: networking index and our networking indexes. You know, how much
Speaker 1: do alumni interact with students? How much do alumni help
Speaker 1: other alums get jobs? What's kind of the halo the
Speaker 1: impact of like when you go looking for a job,
Speaker 1: how much does having, you know, telling people that you
Speaker 1: came from talk or is they like to call him
Speaker 1: a tucky? How much does that matter? And UM, I
Speaker 1: think we got a lot better response this year from
Speaker 1: both the alumni classes that we surveyed as well as
Speaker 1: the graduating students, where they must have had a much
Speaker 1: much much better experience with other with alums than they
Speaker 1: did in the past year. What else did for you
Speaker 1: guys in this year's survey stood out is just the
Speaker 1: range of responses we get. So the way we broke
Speaker 1: it down is UM, you know, so an entrepreneurship While
Speaker 1: Stanford comes out number one BABS and the school that
Speaker 1: overall is ranked lower than Stanford came out number two
Speaker 1: in entrepreneurship UH, the University of Maryland came out number five.
Speaker 1: The Salt Lake City School, Utah, the Utah School actually
Speaker 1: school in Utah UM came out number six. So it's
Speaker 1: it's finding these gems and specific areas that may interest
Speaker 1: you where you just you know, you don't think of
Speaker 1: these schools necessarily as bastions of entrepreneurship, but they're really
Speaker 1: teaching people how to do well in this field, and
Speaker 1: and we're bringing that information out to people and that's
Speaker 1: Joel Weber and Caleb Solomon breaking it down for us
Speaker 1: what went into those rankings. They are must watch four
Speaker 1: Shore prospective business school students, alumni, and of course the
Speaker 1: schools themselves. They're watch them pretty clothes and there's so
Speaker 1: much material online. So I'm so glad you got to
Speaker 1: hear what Caleb and Joel had to say, but definitely
Speaker 1: check out what's online because there's a lot more information
Speaker 1: there as well about the top business schools that are
Speaker 1: out there. So we kicked off our week at the
Speaker 1: Stanford Graduate School of Business and Palo Alto, cal of Fornia.
Speaker 1: The school it took the title of top business school
Speaker 1: in Bloomberg Business Weeks, I know rankings. It did so
Speaker 1: Jason for the second year in a row. And to
Speaker 1: kick it off that day, we had a chance to
Speaker 1: sit down with the dean of the school, John Levin.
Speaker 1: He told us what it means to take the top
Speaker 1: spot for the second year in row, and also what's
Speaker 1: new and different about Stanford. It's really just a testament
Speaker 1: to the fantastic students and faculty and staff and alumni
Speaker 1: we have at the school. And I couldn't be happier
Speaker 1: to be Bloomberg's Top business school this year. What's on
Speaker 1: their minds right now? It is a topsy turvy corporate world,
Speaker 1: and as they prepare to get into the next phase
Speaker 1: of their career, what are they most worried about? Well,
Speaker 1: the students, you know, they're arriving these days at a
Speaker 1: time of great change in business and technology and society, globalization,
Speaker 1: and those things are all in their mind. They're thinking
Speaker 1: about Right now, they're thinking about what am I going
Speaker 1: to do my eight am class? Right? But then they're
Speaker 1: going to be thinking about what jobs am I going
Speaker 1: to get? Has my career going to evolve? Am I
Speaker 1: prepared for a changing world? And that's what That's what
Speaker 1: they're here for. They're here to get exposed to all
Speaker 1: kinds of different opportunities and ideas and people and develop
Speaker 1: the skills that are going to carry them forward for
Speaker 1: their careers. I do feel like corporate responsibility and governance
Speaker 1: is really front and center. How do you work all
Speaker 1: of that in to what you do here at Stanford? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we start with that on day one. We asked the
Speaker 1: students what kind of leader do you want to be?
Speaker 1: What kind of organizations do you want to help build?
Speaker 1: And that's just carries through the curriculum and the experience here,
Speaker 1: and it's never been more important to be, you know,
Speaker 1: become leaders grounded in ethics and in thinking about purpose
Speaker 1: and what your source of rer responsibility is. And that's
Speaker 1: a big part of the discussion throughout the time that
Speaker 1: students spend here at Stanford. I have to think to
Speaker 1: given where we are in Silicon Valley this time, where
Speaker 1: there's a lot of talk in Washington about Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: its role in society, how do you square all of
Speaker 1: that being really the face of Silicon Valium Anyways, it's
Speaker 1: a great question when I canda Stanford is twenty years
Speaker 1: ago and Washington just steamed could not have been farther
Speaker 1: away from Silicon Valley. It was irrelevant people. Where's that
Speaker 1: here building things, making companies, trying to make the world
Speaker 1: a better place. And it doesn't feel that way right now.
Speaker 1: It feels like Washington and Silicon Valley have come much
Speaker 1: closer together. There's more you talk about regulation, There's going
Speaker 1: to be more regulation. The impact of Silicon Valley on
Speaker 1: government and on democracy has is enormous and we're right
Speaker 1: in the middle of that. And I think that's a
Speaker 1: really important responsibility for Stamford to to be in the
Speaker 1: middle of that discussion to try to facilitate connections between
Speaker 1: Washington and tech firms. And we're trying to do that.
Speaker 1: It's rapidly moving now and I do think about you know,
Speaker 1: we've heard from various Stanford grads or a lums. You
Speaker 1: know what happens is it's not uncommon for a lot
Speaker 1: of executives to just kind of drop in and have
Speaker 1: conversations who students here tell us about how important that
Speaker 1: is as part of kind of what they learned the experience.
Speaker 1: I think it's a huge part of what students experience here.
Speaker 1: It's part out of what just opens their aperture to
Speaker 1: what are the opportunities for them in the world. Is
Speaker 1: getting exposure first of all to having a really world
Speaker 1: class faculty that they can learn from, but then to
Speaker 1: have a mix of people just coming in through campus,
Speaker 1: talking in classes, talking to the students, meeting with them,
Speaker 1: and that's that that's really what opens their eyes to
Speaker 1: the things that they might go on to do in
Speaker 1: their lives. One of the interesting things about a business
Speaker 1: education is for a long time it was a fairly
Speaker 1: straightforward proposition. It was an investment. You paid X tens
Speaker 1: of thousands of dollars. You came out on the other end,
Speaker 1: you got paid very well, paid better than maybe you
Speaker 1: were going in. It seems more complicated now and and
Speaker 1: maybe even some existential questions around why am I getting
Speaker 1: them an m b A. How do you make the
Speaker 1: case for Stanford to students. Yes, you're number one, but
Speaker 1: still you've got to make a case that you're better
Speaker 1: than the Harvard's, the Wharton's, and the Sloans of the world. Well,
Speaker 1: all of what you said is still true. There's still
Speaker 1: great economic r o I on an NBA here and
Speaker 1: other schools. What's I think what has changed is the
Speaker 1: students have evolved. It's a much broader set of students.
Speaker 1: We have students from consulting in technology and finance, just
Speaker 1: like we always did, but now we'll have students who
Speaker 1: come in from from government, from healthcare, from education. We
Speaker 1: have a student in the first year class who was
Speaker 1: a central banker in Yemen, another one who was a
Speaker 1: dentist in Nigeria, a woman who was an Olympic medalist
Speaker 1: on the US swimming team. And you put all those
Speaker 1: people in the mix together and that's part of the
Speaker 1: magic of the place. And then they go on to
Speaker 1: approximately the same richness of careers and that's changed. That
Speaker 1: that sense that the NBA can prepare you for anything,
Speaker 1: for all different walks of lives, all different careers. I
Speaker 1: think that's really fundamental to to what we're trying to do.
Speaker 1: So one of the things we talked about when we
Speaker 1: were here just one year ago, celebrating you guys as
Speaker 1: the number one top ranked NBA program was immigration issues
Speaker 1: and how that was impacting foreign students being able to
Speaker 1: study here in the United States. What's changed in the year,
Speaker 1: if anything, that's really front and center for us. More
Speaker 1: than of our class is international here, and that's part
Speaker 1: of what makes the programs so special, as you have
Speaker 1: people from sixty countries and they speak seventy languages, even
Speaker 1: though it's a very small program here, intentionally small, and
Speaker 1: I think I think one thing that I hope people appreciate,
Speaker 1: it will come to appreciate, is just what an incredible
Speaker 1: asset that is for our country to bring people in
Speaker 1: from all around the world and have them study here
Speaker 1: and many of them will stay in the United States
Speaker 1: and contribute enormously to the great companies. Great great companies
Speaker 1: go on to be great leaders, and some of them
Speaker 1: will go back and that's great for us too, because
Speaker 1: they'll bring American values and understanding and thinking back to
Speaker 1: their countries around the world. So before we let you go,
Speaker 1: what's your single biggest challenge in your job as you
Speaker 1: look across the next year. I think it's actually similar
Speaker 1: to one of the big challenges faced by any organizational
Speaker 1: leader right now, which is just trying to interact with
Speaker 1: all types of different people and different constituencies. And at
Speaker 1: the Business school, we have our students, we have are
Speaker 1: Fast Cold, we have our alumni, we have silk On Valley,
Speaker 1: we have Washington, we have the university, we have the
Speaker 1: whole business community. And that's both can be some one
Speaker 1: of the biggest challenges, but it's also one of the
Speaker 1: things that makes my job so fun. That's John Levin,
Speaker 1: the dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Great conversation,
Speaker 1: and we also talked to him offline after we're done
Speaker 1: with the interview, and he talked about how you've got
Speaker 1: students who are so comfortable getting in front of a
Speaker 1: camera that it's putting a little bit pressure on the
Speaker 1: teaching community to also get better when they stand up
Speaker 1: in front of the classroom. So Catherine august Wilda is
Speaker 1: Stanford Graduate School of Business, class of nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 1: She's Vice cheer at the San Francisco Bay's first Republic Bank,
Speaker 1: the publicly held regional bank serving coastal, urban and affluent markets.
Speaker 1: She's been at the bank for a long time, really
Speaker 1: got it to where it is today. And she joins
Speaker 1: us here at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in
Speaker 1: Palo Altar. So nice to have you with us, delighted
Speaker 1: to be here us about your time at Stanford, And
Speaker 1: I'm curious about you know, how easily you felt accepted
Speaker 1: as a woman. I think you know pursuing an MBA,
Speaker 1: what the environment was like. Take us back there if
Speaker 1: you would. Well, it was ninety I was a class
Speaker 1: of we were a class of sixty women out of students.
Speaker 1: Prior years had been four thirty and then sixties, so
Speaker 1: we were a big class of women and state at
Speaker 1: that level for a very long time. So women were
Speaker 1: for the first time a presence here, but it was
Speaker 1: a very beginning of it, and I it was before
Speaker 1: women knew they could do whatever they wanted, So it
Speaker 1: was we were certainly accepted, but I will did you
Speaker 1: feel like an equal as a student here? Absolutely? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: There were However, very few women guest speakers in classes.
Speaker 1: There were I only think I had one female professor,
Speaker 1: one woman ever was a guest speaker in a class.
Speaker 1: But there weren't There wasn't the bench to cho from.
Speaker 1: So fast forward to today, you are very involved in
Speaker 1: the school. What have you done and how have you
Speaker 1: sought to sort of change that? Because nineteen very different world,
Speaker 1: and and Stanford is is known for having a more
Speaker 1: diverse student body at this point in terms of women.
Speaker 1: This is now we have enough forty seven percent in
Speaker 1: the class. A group of us began about fifteen years
Speaker 1: ago working with the admissions office to interview women and
Speaker 1: to help recruit those women who would have long careers
Speaker 1: and who would be the future leaders of America in
Speaker 1: the world. And I think some of that was helpful.
Speaker 1: I think when we started that we were at thirty
Speaker 1: one percent. We're now forty seven percent. So we've worked
Speaker 1: very hard to both interview, recruit, talk to women who
Speaker 1: are considering coming to Stanford or other places and telling
Speaker 1: them why this is such a great place to be
Speaker 1: in terms of other diversity. About ten years ago I
Speaker 1: taught I was a guest speaker in a class. I've
Speaker 1: done it for about ten years for a professor, and
Speaker 1: I was stunned to see the diversity in the class,
Speaker 1: the number of international students, the ethnicities, the gender mix
Speaker 1: was totally different than when I was here. So this
Speaker 1: is a class of mixed from all over the world,
Speaker 1: from all genders, from all all ethnicities. And I think
Speaker 1: it's great because these different people are learning together and
Speaker 1: showing each other different experiences that they will go and
Speaker 1: take back to whatever they do next. Agreed. And we
Speaker 1: know all the studies about having diversity, whether it's you know,
Speaker 1: throughout your employee base, your you know, senior executive levels
Speaker 1: as well as your boards and your C suite. One
Speaker 1: thing I want to ask you, and I was doing
Speaker 1: some research UM in terms of women MBA's, women with
Speaker 1: NBAS are in six or more with an MBA, but
Speaker 1: still not as much as men. Why is that still around?
Speaker 1: Why is that we're improving the pipeline. There's almost parody
Speaker 1: in terms of the number of students here. Why doesn't
Speaker 1: it carry over on all levels when we get into
Speaker 1: like kind of the corporate Well, there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of studies on this, and I'm not the expert on it,
Speaker 1: but I think, uh, in some cases women may not
Speaker 1: have as many opportunities because people tend to promote people
Speaker 1: who are more like them, and so until people are
Speaker 1: running those corporations, they may not be as obvious. When
Speaker 1: women wind up on corporate governance committees, there generally winds
Speaker 1: up being more women on boards. So it's a matter
Speaker 1: of looking around and saying, am I comfortable with this person?
Speaker 1: And some of us look different, And so I think
Speaker 1: the more women get to the top, the more women
Speaker 1: will be throughout the pipeline, and the less they will
Speaker 1: be paid unequally uh and have unequal amounts of positions.
Speaker 1: But it's going to still take time. The thing is, uh,
Speaker 1: some women for one reason, other may not decide to
Speaker 1: go for it. And you have to be pretty committed
Speaker 1: whoever you are, if you want to get to the top.
Speaker 1: It has to be a very core goal. And one
Speaker 1: of the things I did when I was here, I
Speaker 1: felt so lucky to be here. I felt like I
Speaker 1: had wound up in a place that was going to
Speaker 1: change my life and I wanted to be a beacon
Speaker 1: an example for other women. I've many of us felt
Speaker 1: that way, and so I always had in my mind
Speaker 1: that that was one of my objectives. Uh. Some women
Speaker 1: saw that and copied us, some didn't. I think it
Speaker 1: will still take more time. I think Dean Levin's focus
Speaker 1: on this is probably gonna help a lot um. But
Speaker 1: we have to help women understand that they can do it.
Speaker 1: They have to ask for what they want, they have
Speaker 1: to speak up, and they have to move on if
Speaker 1: they're not going to get it in their existing company.
Speaker 1: And that's Catherine august Dewilda. She is now the vice
Speaker 1: chair of First Republic Bank, a place where she has
Speaker 1: held some senior positions going all the way back to
Speaker 1: n She has seen the growth of that bank, but
Speaker 1: also the growth of the financial services industry and also,
Speaker 1: how candidly, the growth of Stanford Graduate School of Business,
Speaker 1: no doubt about that. Bloomberg Business Week released its Best
Speaker 1: Business School rankings in the United States, and for the
Speaker 1: second straight year, drumroll, please Stanford it's number one. The ranking,
Speaker 1: of course, is based on surveys of more than twenty
Speaker 1: six thousand NBA students, alumni and recruiters about their goals
Speaker 1: and experiences, as well as important elements like compensation, job
Speaker 1: placement data from each school. It's all in the magazine.
Speaker 1: It's also at Bloomberg business week dot com, so I
Speaker 1: highly recommend that you check it out. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: we spoke with Stanford Business School Alamin A. B InBev
Speaker 1: CEO Carlos Brito about the program, his journey there, and
Speaker 1: also we got into his business. We talked about the
Speaker 1: slowdown in Chinese consumer demand and the trends he's seeing
Speaker 1: in his industry. So when you think about Stanford, I
Speaker 1: mean this was a formative moment in your career, really
Speaker 1: set you on the path that you're still on today
Speaker 1: in many ways. Take us to the decision to choose
Speaker 1: Stanford in the first place. Well, when I was applied
Speaker 1: to business school, I was in Brazil. Brazil was a
Speaker 1: very close country. In those days. Everything was difficult. Nobody
Speaker 1: would travel abroad. They didn't send the money abroad to
Speaker 1: pay for fees too. To apply to a college in
Speaker 1: the US was a big deal. We had to know
Speaker 1: somebody in the US and all that. So I started
Speaker 1: researching and back then Business Week had a ranking of
Speaker 1: business schools and Stanford number one. So I set my eyes,
Speaker 1: looked at the magazine. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, that that
Speaker 1: was our bible and all the ranking. So I looked
Speaker 1: at it and said, hey, yeah, I'm gonna apply to
Speaker 1: the schools, but Stanford, for sure, it's number one. And
Speaker 1: at the time, Stanford would take only one Brazilian per year.
Speaker 1: It did that. It did that through the eighties through
Speaker 1: the nineties, and U by said, oh, we'll apply. Long
Speaker 1: story short, that was accepted and then I had to
Speaker 1: fight for scholarship because my my parents didn't have that
Speaker 1: kind of money to send me to school. So and
Speaker 1: then I went to Stanford Business School and uh, it
Speaker 1: changed my life. You gotta talk about the financing to
Speaker 1: get there. Well, it was interesting because I got a
Speaker 1: scholarship from the Rotary Association, but they didn't cover Stanford,
Speaker 1: said the end Rotary Club. So at the end when
Speaker 1: I went, when I got accepted to Stanford, in the
Speaker 1: last round of acceptances, I tried to change the scholarship.
Speaker 1: They said, no, we don't cover Stanford. So long story short,
Speaker 1: there was a businessman in Brazil that had a boutique
Speaker 1: investment bank called George Paulo Lemon, one of the top
Speaker 1: guys today in the world of business. And I knew
Speaker 1: that he had a bank that would give loans to
Speaker 1: some of the bank employees that we're pursuing an NBA abroad.
Speaker 1: I was not one of them. I worked for Shell Oil.
Speaker 1: But because I was the Brazilian accepted Stanford that year.
Speaker 1: Decided to make my case, and he decided to pay
Speaker 1: for my first year, not out of the bank pockets,
Speaker 1: but out of his own pocket, because I was not
Speaker 1: an employee of the bank. So I went to Stanford
Speaker 1: because of him. And uh, it was interesting because he
Speaker 1: asked three things of me when I went. It's at first,
Speaker 1: keep in touch. Second, before you accept any full time
Speaker 1: job offer when you're done with Stanford. Talked to me. First,
Speaker 1: no obligation to come work for me. And third, helps
Speaker 1: somebody as I'm helping you in the future if you
Speaker 1: can't pay. Yeah. So that was it. And the keeping
Speaker 1: in touch part. If I recall, you know, this is
Speaker 1: the late eighties, and so you were writing letters, writing
Speaker 1: a letter, the writing a letter any through regular email,
Speaker 1: at regular mail. He never rolled back, but he always
Speaker 1: called back. He'll always called me back. So I always
Speaker 1: say that his financial generosity got me to Stafford, but
Speaker 1: he was this time and commitment to me that got
Speaker 1: me through Stafford, because we've had monthly calls and he
Speaker 1: would nudge me in the right direction, asked the right questions,
Speaker 1: you know, asked the questions as well, and also always
Speaker 1: had high expectations for me and what I was doing
Speaker 1: at Stanford, which always propelled me to give my best
Speaker 1: and to put all my energy and passion in what
Speaker 1: I was doing, because that's a different way to go
Speaker 1: to school in many ways. You know, some people have
Speaker 1: their parents, you know, sort of lording over them, but
Speaker 1: other people, you know, they're just sort of left to
Speaker 1: their own devices. Sort of having him sitting on your
Speaker 1: shoulder must have given you a different perspective exactly because
Speaker 1: he was my sponsor for the first year. Then I
Speaker 1: had to figure out how to pay for the second year,
Speaker 1: which was also part of his education in terms of
Speaker 1: me is not getting everything for free. So you as
Speaker 1: you got the scholarship for the first year, but guess
Speaker 1: what second year? You have to figure it out. So
Speaker 1: I had a good summer job. I also got a
Speaker 1: scholarship from the Brazilian government, and I was able to
Speaker 1: conclude the second year, so that was part of the education. Now,
Speaker 1: talking about the education at Stanford, what that experience it
Speaker 1: was like, what you got out of it? That was
Speaker 1: very Transford, you know. For me, it transformed the way
Speaker 1: I view the world. It was a very international place
Speaker 1: in the Pacific room, so very open to the world
Speaker 1: even in those days. It was also a place where
Speaker 1: I learned the value of talent. I was surrounded by
Speaker 1: the best people in the world pretty much at that
Speaker 1: age group, with that kind of orientation businesses, and I
Speaker 1: had to op my game. I used to be the
Speaker 1: top students, that always top of my class in Brazil,
Speaker 1: and I went to Stanford, I was not top of
Speaker 1: my class. I had to work harder elevate my bar
Speaker 1: And what I got from Stanford was that in life
Speaker 1: it's about first who Then what I learned that talented people.
Speaker 1: One talented, very talented guy or a person is worth
Speaker 1: ten very good people, but it's hard to find. We
Speaker 1: hear that a lot from I feel like very successful
Speaker 1: individuals like yourself that go for tens, right, why settle
Speaker 1: in terms of the people you work with, Yeah, but
Speaker 1: go for the very talented because they were worth ten
Speaker 1: other very good people. And I learned that at Stanford
Speaker 1: because I was surrounded by very talented people. I could
Speaker 1: see the difference. They were making discussions, class participation, group works,
Speaker 1: and I said, man, yeah, talented people and never imagined
Speaker 1: could make such a difference. And when you look at Stanford,
Speaker 1: the Valley, Silicon Valley, that's a mirror image of each other.
Speaker 1: So Stanford has open minded, always embrace ideas. Other places
Speaker 1: look at new ideas as threats. Stanford embraced the shake.
Speaker 1: So things are moving, they embraced it, and they say
Speaker 1: there's an opportunity here. So they're very open minded. They
Speaker 1: attracted people off the same kind of mindset, and I
Speaker 1: think the Valley is a true reflection of Stanford, and
Speaker 1: Stanford gets also, you know, retro elementation or retro thanks
Speaker 1: from the value as well. All right, well you you
Speaker 1: at this point in the act, one reinforces the other. Right,
Speaker 1: you work though now far literally and figuratively in many
Speaker 1: ways from Silicon Valley, except that innovation is a huge
Speaker 1: part of your strategic initiatives, where at a b N
Speaker 1: Beth talk about how that has sort of filtered through
Speaker 1: and the things you sort of look back on and
Speaker 1: apply even now in your in your job running this
Speaker 1: comming well. One of the first things we did when
Speaker 1: I left Stanford years later is that we opened what
Speaker 1: we called the ber Garage, which is an office of ours.
Speaker 1: And the whole idea is this, you have new technologies
Speaker 1: being developed in the valley, but we have brands and
Speaker 1: consumers around the world, and these ideas need platforms to
Speaker 1: be tested, to be validated, and we need ideas to
Speaker 1: continue to progressive building our business and evolve the way
Speaker 1: we interact with consumers. So that's a perfect match between
Speaker 1: people with ideas and platforms like ours to test and
Speaker 1: validate those ideas and scale them up in the case
Speaker 1: they work. All right, So let's talk about your consumer
Speaker 1: a little bit. It's an interesting time to say the
Speaker 1: least in the world. You have a global view. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's go straight to China. You know where the business
Speaker 1: it's a huge business. Uh. And yet there are concerns
Speaker 1: about the Chinese consumer right now? What do you see?
Speaker 1: And that played out in your latest earnings and and
Speaker 1: investors were a little spooked by it. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: but the China for us has been an amazing story.
Speaker 1: And the thing is that many years ago we decided
Speaker 1: to focus on the premium and super premium side of
Speaker 1: the market in China. And if you look at China,
Speaker 1: you cannot talk averages. You have to go by segment.
Speaker 1: Interesting because such a huge market, right it's the biggest
Speaker 1: market in the world for beer, for most consumer goods.
Speaker 1: And when you go segment by segment, what you see
Speaker 1: is that this year there is industry declining China, but
Speaker 1: that's on average. But if you go to premium super premum,
Speaker 1: they're growing, and that where the growth is in the
Speaker 1: margins are in China. For example, Budweiser is the number
Speaker 1: one premium beer in China by far. In Corona, Start
Speaker 1: Garden lead the super premium segment by far again, so
Speaker 1: we lead both segments where the margins are and where
Speaker 1: the growth is. So that for us, that's why our
Speaker 1: business in China, our profitsibility is way higher than any
Speaker 1: of our competitors in China even if you add them together,
Speaker 1: despite us being number three invited, but we're number one
Speaker 1: profitability if even if you had the next four. So
Speaker 1: that's because of the brands we have, the premium day command,
Speaker 1: the consuming sides we've always had, and the things we
Speaker 1: offer given the consumer sides were to help me out
Speaker 1: here because I thought in terms of your latest earnings report,
Speaker 1: you did talk about consumer demand below in the United
Speaker 1: States and in China, and from some other makers and
Speaker 1: beverage makers, we've seen that they've talked about increased demand
Speaker 1: in China. So I guess we're trying to reconcile what's
Speaker 1: going on in China right now. Well, in China right now,
Speaker 1: for sure there was some deceleration but still growing. You know,
Speaker 1: it's x percent the whole economy, and in our business,
Speaker 1: Ninthlife is a very important channel where Budweiser dominates, has
Speaker 1: the must of the share in that Nightlife got to
Speaker 1: beat a bit um de emphasize, given some of the
Speaker 1: celebrations in China. So that happens from time to time,
Speaker 1: so it's not time to time to the Ninth Life
Speaker 1: goes down a little bit then comes back up. So
Speaker 1: this quarter was a quarter in which Ninth Life cames back,
Speaker 1: came down a little bit, and that's that impacts Budweis,
Speaker 1: which is on Man Brandon China. That's Carlos breach Out,
Speaker 1: the CEO of A b in Bed and he gave
Speaker 1: the commencement speech in eighteen and great to catch up
Speaker 1: with him about his experience because his path to getting
Speaker 1: his m b A. I feel like it's unlike so
Speaker 1: many others. Well, he tells a great story about it.
Speaker 1: It obviously was a seminal moment in his career, not
Speaker 1: just because it exposed him to everything that Stanford had
Speaker 1: to offer, but his eventual boss was the guy who
Speaker 1: paid for his first year and he's been very successful.
Speaker 1: That's been a very successful team ever since. So steeped
Speaker 1: in areas of diversity, organizational behavior, and more. Sarah soul
Speaker 1: is the more Gridge Professor of Organizational Behavior. She's a
Speaker 1: senior Associate dean for academic Affairs at the Stanford Graduate
Speaker 1: School of Business. So nice to have you here with
Speaker 1: Jason and me. We were thinking about all of the
Speaker 1: headlines and in terms of what's going on at companies,
Speaker 1: how do you pull in the headlines like we have
Speaker 1: the McDonald's CEO being fired, we have under arm Or
Speaker 1: being looked into for the last couple of years in
Speaker 1: terms of accounting concerns. But how do you pull in
Speaker 1: what's in the headlines into your teachings? And that's a
Speaker 1: great question One of the things that is sort of distressing,
Speaker 1: of course, about many of these headlines is that it
Speaker 1: actually allows us we hear about them, but it allows
Speaker 1: us wonderful learning opportunities in the classroom, particularly these days
Speaker 1: when we're bringing more and more about diversity, equity, and
Speaker 1: inclusion into all of our classes. Having these examples, these
Speaker 1: real examples that our students have read about and are experiencing,
Speaker 1: allows us to think and work with them, to think
Speaker 1: about ways that they would better handle such situations, and
Speaker 1: allows us to really train them to be better principles
Speaker 1: and purposeful leaders. So while they're distressing to hear about,
Speaker 1: it allows us a lot of wonderful learning opportunities to
Speaker 1: learn from learn from failure. Right, And so what are
Speaker 1: students expecting in this regard that maybe they didn't expect five, ten,
Speaker 1: twenty years ago. What are they expecting to learn? Where
Speaker 1: are they pushing you? This is another great question, Jason.
Speaker 1: Our students have changed a lot over the last ten
Speaker 1: or fifteen years. As you've probably heard about. Our students
Speaker 1: have come of age in a very different era than
Speaker 1: certainly I did, and certainly many of our past students did.
Speaker 1: And they've come of age on college campuses where they're
Speaker 1: undergraduate professors, their undergraduate peers are talking about issues of diversity,
Speaker 1: about equity, inclusion, corporate so ual responsibility, and so they
Speaker 1: come to us as learners who have already been already
Speaker 1: been exposed to some of these pressing issues, and they
Speaker 1: come to us hoping that we will give them answers
Speaker 1: and that we will be able to train them to
Speaker 1: become better leaders. Well, I gotta say, I do wonder
Speaker 1: about what the student body thinks, because right all of
Speaker 1: I feel like global corporations are talking about the importance
Speaker 1: of diversity, and you know how it's just better for
Speaker 1: so many different reasons. So I'm just curious, does the
Speaker 1: student body think that the corporate world is doing enough
Speaker 1: because there's so much conversation. But you know, some of
Speaker 1: the numbers are getting better, but I still think people
Speaker 1: think that there could be much more significant improvements. And
Speaker 1: I think that I think that's kind of mixed. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that there's you know, I tend to be
Speaker 1: an optimists and I sort of tend to point to
Speaker 1: the real winds that we see in many companies. Uh
Speaker 1: and but I also believe in transparency, and I believe
Speaker 1: in making sure that companies are able to tell us
Speaker 1: what they're doing so that we can do better. And
Speaker 1: I think our students really come to us believing that
Speaker 1: they can make positive change in the world, and that
Speaker 1: they want to make positive change in the world. So
Speaker 1: I already said I was an optimist, but but I
Speaker 1: really believe this now. So it's wonderful to see our
Speaker 1: students asking us and pushing us as professors, pushing us
Speaker 1: as leaders of the g SB to teach them the skills,
Speaker 1: the competencies and the values that they need to lead
Speaker 1: better organizations lead into the future. So talk to us
Speaker 1: about some of your work, especially around social movements, because
Speaker 1: I find that so fascinating, especially given where we're sitting
Speaker 1: right now in the heart of Silicon Valley, when there
Speaker 1: are big this is my favorite word, existential questions around technology,
Speaker 1: around humanity, around our responsibility to each other. How do
Speaker 1: you what or I guess I should say, what do
Speaker 1: you make of the last couple of years of social movements?
Speaker 1: You know, whether it's around climate change, whether it's around
Speaker 1: me to like what described the moment where we are
Speaker 1: from your perspective, I think we are in an incredible
Speaker 1: moment where there's a lot of mobilization. I mean think
Speaker 1: not just here in Silicon Valley, but we've all been
Speaker 1: watching the news and various countries, Hong Kong, We've been
Speaker 1: watching Hong Kong, Lebanon, Um, Chile, and and I think
Speaker 1: what we're seeing is what social movements parlance we call
Speaker 1: a wave of protest or a cycle of protest, and
Speaker 1: that is that people are coming together and learning from
Speaker 1: one another and are not content to just let discontent
Speaker 1: be the norm. So we're but we're also I think
Speaker 1: at a point where many of our company leaders, many
Speaker 1: of our leaders of course of not just companies, but
Speaker 1: many government leaders are are open to and willing to change.
Speaker 1: And so we're at a moment right now where I
Speaker 1: think there's openness to learning from what it is that
Speaker 1: people activists want at the same time a willingness to
Speaker 1: work with and collaborate with activists, both at company, but
Speaker 1: I think also and in some of them, some of
Speaker 1: the nations. And that's Sarah soul Stanford Business School Senior
Speaker 1: Associate Dean. She's done some research on the world of protests,
Speaker 1: and that is a really interesting lens to look at
Speaker 1: the world right now. We continue with our special broadcast
Speaker 1: in Palo Alto, California this week. Of course, we were
Speaker 1: at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Just a reminder,
Speaker 1: the school took the title of top business school in
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Business Week's annual rankings for a second year
Speaker 1: in a row. And in talking to the alumni, we
Speaker 1: talked about, you know, how they looked when they were
Speaker 1: considering getting an NBA. Many of them looked at these rankings.
Speaker 1: They absolutely did. And one of the school's more successful alum,
Speaker 1: he's Joe Lacob. He was a ventured capitalist for many
Speaker 1: years at Kleiner Perkins, but now best known as the
Speaker 1: owner of the many time champion Golden State Warriors. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about your time at Stanford. You are a
Speaker 1: class of eighty three. You have to remind me we'll
Speaker 1: take us back there. What was it like on camp
Speaker 1: is in and your experience here? You know, it's very
Speaker 1: very different. Uh. I was a guy that came out
Speaker 1: of a very different background. I was a science biology major.
Speaker 1: I didn't really know anything about business, and I worked
Speaker 1: for a few years and I decided I need I
Speaker 1: liked it, and I needed to get some business rains.
Speaker 1: So unlike a lot of people came from maybe Wall
Speaker 1: Street jobs, I didn't. I didn't know anything, but I
Speaker 1: got in, I came here. It was one of the
Speaker 1: best schools then too. And uh it was a great,
Speaker 1: great experience and for me, perhaps better than even some
Speaker 1: other people, because I learned so much well, and you
Speaker 1: learned a lot about Silicon Valley in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: which is where you really made your career. What is
Speaker 1: it about that? Connection? Mean, obviously geography helps, but there's
Speaker 1: something deeper going on between this school broadly the university,
Speaker 1: but also the business school and what's happening around us.
Speaker 1: What is it? Well, I think geography does play a
Speaker 1: big role. I mean for forty years, fifty years, I
Speaker 1: mean that we've been in the what arguably is Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: No one knows where Silicon Valley really is, but this
Speaker 1: is in the middle of it somewhere. And the truth is,
Speaker 1: the classes are great. When you come to Stane for
Speaker 1: business school, you you're with great students, you know all
Speaker 1: these other people that are in your class, but you're
Speaker 1: in this environment that is kind of hard to replicate.
Speaker 1: I told my kids and I tell others, you can't
Speaker 1: really beat it because you're in the middle of something
Speaker 1: that is hard to explain. It's a culture, and I
Speaker 1: think that culture pervades the business school and the entire area.
Speaker 1: What do you think about we got we caught up
Speaker 1: with the Deaned John Levin earlier about what's going on
Speaker 1: here UM at the school. But it's interesting I'm curious
Speaker 1: about you know, I feel like companies are dealing with
Speaker 1: a lot more in terms of E S g UM
Speaker 1: leadership concerns. I think that's it's very much fun and
Speaker 1: center accountability. Like, what do you think has to be
Speaker 1: a part of getting an MBA today? As someone who
Speaker 1: has been involved with many startups in the VC world,
Speaker 1: and we'll get into basketball at a moment, what do
Speaker 1: you think has to be part of getting an NBA today?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just not about what's in the books, right,
Speaker 1: It's about a lot of other things, and there's so
Speaker 1: many issues that one has to be aware of. UM
Speaker 1: to be a cu oh if that's your goal, or
Speaker 1: to be in business and the world it's a very
Speaker 1: international world now. You can't just think domestically. As we
Speaker 1: all know, it affects the business I'm in even right now,
Speaker 1: as we all know recently. So I think it's you
Speaker 1: really have to have an experience where you get exposure
Speaker 1: to all of those issues, and I think that's what
Speaker 1: Stanford in this place does it. It's very very good
Speaker 1: at doing that. So when you think about this place,
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley and Stanford, so many companies have been born
Speaker 1: of this, private companies. We seem to also be at
Speaker 1: a moment where private valuations public valuations. You've been in
Speaker 1: the business venture capital for a long time. What do
Speaker 1: you make of this moment where people are trying to
Speaker 1: decide what something is worth and there's candidly some disagreement
Speaker 1: out there. How does this end? Well, I'm not really
Speaker 1: investing as a venture capitalist here so much maybe privately
Speaker 1: as an individual to some extent, but I do. I do.
Speaker 1: I'm very aware of it all, and I would super aware.
Speaker 1: I'm aware you can't help, but I would say that
Speaker 1: you know, they're clearly private valuations are very very high,
Speaker 1: and there's some structural issues going on here respect to
Speaker 1: the giant funds that have been raised and the prices
Speaker 1: they've been willing to pay for some of these startups
Speaker 1: or a little bit later stage than startups, and so
Speaker 1: I think that the public markets. Private markets have to
Speaker 1: sort of figure all this out. This is no different
Speaker 1: though that's gone on in the past. To some extent,
Speaker 1: We've had these periods where private company valuations perhaps have
Speaker 1: gotten what some people believe to be too high. Public
Speaker 1: companies valuations have to sort of make do with all that.
Speaker 1: I think it'll all work itself out. So jo the
Speaker 1: idea of like I p o ing, is it still
Speaker 1: going to make sense in the future. I hope so,
Speaker 1: and I think so because you know, that's something called liquidity.
Speaker 1: When you're in a private company, you don't really have
Speaker 1: that liquidity, and that's the big difference. And I think
Speaker 1: liquidity is a very important thing and investing. It's not
Speaker 1: just about return, all right. I've resisted for as long
Speaker 1: as I possibly can. We got to talk about basketball,
Speaker 1: but I'd rather talk about that yet because I have
Speaker 1: to think. You walk through this campus and there are
Speaker 1: people who look at you and see, well, that's what
Speaker 1: I want to be when I grow up, is I
Speaker 1: want to own a basketball team. It's not easy right now.
Speaker 1: What do you make of this season so far? Because
Speaker 1: there have been some twists and turns. Every year is
Speaker 1: the same way in the NBA, it's unbelievable. How you
Speaker 1: start the year and everyone has a certain mindset or
Speaker 1: expectations and they change because the fact is that players
Speaker 1: get better, some get worse, some get older, you know,
Speaker 1: the younger ones are emerging, and injuries happen, and so
Speaker 1: the truth is that every year is the same thing.
Speaker 1: You don't really know and that's what makes it great.
Speaker 1: And this year in the NBA, anyway, unfortunately for us
Speaker 1: to some may say we have a lot of injuries,
Speaker 1: but it's really exciting, I think for the fans. But
Speaker 1: to know that, you know, truthfully there's nine or ten
Speaker 1: teams that any one of them might win the title,
Speaker 1: that's exciting. Now I'd rather be the prohibitive favorite like
Speaker 1: we've been. Injuries, of course, i'd rather, but it's sports,
Speaker 1: and things happen and you have to adjust. Well, how
Speaker 1: does it infect the season? Though? Steph Carry is out
Speaker 1: what for three months? Right now? You're up to on
Speaker 1: your basketball? I see he is. He's gonna be out
Speaker 1: for three months. Clay Thompson's out for at least that,
Speaker 1: covering from his A c L. But more than that,
Speaker 1: every single player that was on our roster last year
Speaker 1: is either gone or injured right at this particular moment.
Speaker 1: Now we will improve. We're playing a lot of young guys,
Speaker 1: and I'd like to tell my guys it's a you know,
Speaker 1: I'm always positive. Everything's about You've gotta be positive, and
Speaker 1: I do believe the silver linings and everything, and this
Speaker 1: in particular will allow us to develop our younger players.
Speaker 1: They're gonna get a lot of time, they're gonna get better,
Speaker 1: and we've got some really good ones. So from a
Speaker 1: standpoint of basketball, I think our fans understand it. They're
Speaker 1: going to be with us, and we're gonna end up
Speaker 1: being better. Uh sorry, NBA, We're gonna be better. We're
Speaker 1: actually gonna better when this is all over. I have
Speaker 1: to ask you about China, everything that happened with the
Speaker 1: NBA over there, the commissioner, Lebron, everything that happened, What
Speaker 1: happens next with the NBA in China. You know, I
Speaker 1: could comment on that more, but I'm not is the truth,
Speaker 1: because I think we have a commissioner that is really
Speaker 1: a great commissioner, maybe the best in all of sports,
Speaker 1: and he's on top of this and he's concerned about
Speaker 1: it too. Obviously, and he's uh, the one who's on
Speaker 1: the front lines dealing with these issues, and it's a
Speaker 1: very sensitive subject. It's something that I don't think all
Speaker 1: of us really here and the players and even myself
Speaker 1: can fully explain or understand. So I think it's gonna
Speaker 1: work its way out. It's like everything else, and I
Speaker 1: think we'll get back to the place where we were before.
Speaker 1: That's that's my again, the optimist point of view. That's
Speaker 1: Jill lake Up, the owner of the Golden State Warriors,
Speaker 1: And you know, I give them a lot of credit
Speaker 1: because we kind of gave them a little bit of
Speaker 1: a hard time saying it's not been the greatest start
Speaker 1: to their season, and we talked to him about that,
Speaker 1: and of course the NBA in China really kind of
Speaker 1: holding back in terms of saying anything, but it was
Speaker 1: good to get at least his thoughts on that as well.
Speaker 1: And they've got a new arena to they do and
Speaker 1: a lot of expectations on that team. We'll see how
Speaker 1: the season progresses. Bloomberg business Week at least it's best
Speaker 1: business school rankings in the United States, and for the
Speaker 1: second straight year, drumroll, please Stanford, it's number one the ranking,
Speaker 1: of course, is based on surveys of more than twenty
Speaker 1: six thousand NBA students, alumni and recruiters about their goals
Speaker 1: and experiences, as well as important elements like compensation job
Speaker 1: placement data from each school. We want to get right
Speaker 1: to some students. Stanford Graduate School of Business students uh,
Speaker 1: and we have two with us there are both in
Speaker 1: their second year here at Stanford. Emily Nounez Cabinets and
Speaker 1: Polka Aggarwal are both as I mentioned in the program.
Speaker 1: So nice to have you here with us. We love
Speaker 1: getting all of the different perspectives why Stanford and Emily,
Speaker 1: let me start with you. For me, I knew Stanford
Speaker 1: really was the best business school in the world and is,
Speaker 1: and I know it's really so well positioned for leaders
Speaker 1: who want to become really strong leaders and fields like entrepreneurship,
Speaker 1: innovation and technology leadership isn't a really important thing. How
Speaker 1: about for you? Polke it? Well, So I'm an engineer
Speaker 1: by background, and so I remember this. We both have
Speaker 1: dads that super because I didn't invention competition in undergrad
Speaker 1: and they asked me what's your business plan? And I
Speaker 1: said word of mouth, And so I realized I think
Speaker 1: business would be actually pretty beneficial for me and in
Speaker 1: entrepreneurship as well. So that's that's sort of what led
Speaker 1: the spark to do my n b A and so Emily,
Speaker 1: tell us about your company, Sword and Plow, because it's
Speaker 1: such a cool concept that everybody can understand. It comes
Speaker 1: in part from what you did before you were in
Speaker 1: the army, and tell us about the inspiration and what
Speaker 1: it is. So eight years ago I started a social
Speaker 1: enterprise called Sword and Plow with my sister, and we
Speaker 1: work with veteran known American manufacturers across the country to
Speaker 1: make bags and accessories um such as this necklace. We
Speaker 1: also have leather goods and it's just military grade materials
Speaker 1: from what I understand, some of it, yes, some of it.
Speaker 1: So we incorporate repurpose military surplus um like this lining
Speaker 1: uh as well as the fifty caliber of cells which
Speaker 1: are in all of our jewelry, and they're all made
Speaker 1: by veteran known American manufacturers, and we donate ten percent
Speaker 1: of our profits to veteran nonprofit organizations. It's an amazing
Speaker 1: I mean, we've been looking at some of the products.
Speaker 1: It's really incredible. So Pok it give us a sense
Speaker 1: of what it's like to be a student here, especially
Speaker 1: at a time where is a lot expected and a
Speaker 1: lot of big questions about businesses right now. I think
Speaker 1: we would all love to sort of be in your
Speaker 1: classroom in some ways because discussion, asking big questions. How
Speaker 1: do you characterize it? Yeah, What's what's actually really interesting
Speaker 1: about Stanford is that they really bring out the authenticity
Speaker 1: within you, and all the education that's given you is
Speaker 1: sort of surrounded around who you are and staying true
Speaker 1: to yourself, but then also being good at business. And
Speaker 1: the coolest thing is not only are you in the
Speaker 1: Business school at Stanford, but you're also part of Stanford
Speaker 1: as a whole, and there's amazing classes and things outside
Speaker 1: as well they can use to supplement your education. That's
Speaker 1: what's interesting. We heard that from some of the administration,
Speaker 1: from the dean of the school, that the importance of
Speaker 1: it's not just about the graduate School of Business but
Speaker 1: integrating it among all of the other schools that are
Speaker 1: here and getting kind of a more holistic education to
Speaker 1: some extent. Right Definitely, I feel the same way. The
Speaker 1: two most interesting classes that I'm taking or have taken
Speaker 1: the past are making social ventures happen, which is an
Speaker 1: amazing way to learn more about systems thinking and drawing
Speaker 1: my experience of as a social entrepreneur. But then right
Speaker 1: now I'm taking a class across the street at the
Speaker 1: law school about regulating AI and it has just been fascinating.
Speaker 1: And the access that we have to cutting edge thinkers
Speaker 1: in the tech field is um is amazing. And so
Speaker 1: what do you think about the impact of the NBA
Speaker 1: on on the choices that you make going from here? Like,
Speaker 1: what do you do next? Not to put too much
Speaker 1: because you've got a company to right, Yes, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I started a recruiting agency for the blockchain space before
Speaker 1: business school, and so I'm thinking of going to Singapore.
Speaker 1: The biggest thing about Stanford is it opens so many
Speaker 1: more doors, and so the first thing that people think
Speaker 1: about is, oh my gosh, there's now so many options.
Speaker 1: After that think about which option to consider, and so
Speaker 1: that takes two years on its own, and so I
Speaker 1: think I'm closer towards the end of that process, but
Speaker 1: I think I want to go to Singapore and start
Speaker 1: a company there well. And it's interesting too, because I
Speaker 1: do think about some of the really important issues that
Speaker 1: We spend a lot of time talking about UM and
Speaker 1: how the graduate programs, including Stanford, are bringing them into
Speaker 1: whether it's climate change, whether it's diversity. Tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit about, you know, some of the discussions that
Speaker 1: you want to be having because you think it's obviously
Speaker 1: going to be something that you're gonna be carrying with
Speaker 1: you once you leave. Tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: that pocket. Yeah, one of the biggest things for me
Speaker 1: is I think that culture within a company is going
Speaker 1: to become more and more important the more we go
Speaker 1: from data and information can all be done by computers.
Speaker 1: The aspect that people are going to bring that's gonna
Speaker 1: be different is who they are and what kind of
Speaker 1: person they are, and we're seeing more of that, you know,
Speaker 1: coming from the manufacturing just people are machines to now
Speaker 1: big companies are focusing on their people culture and these
Speaker 1: new roles are coming up, and so I really want
Speaker 1: to be part of that, and I think I want
Speaker 1: to do a bit of that in the recruiting space
Speaker 1: or the people operations space in Singapore and so Emily,
Speaker 1: do you plan to expand your company even further another
Speaker 1: company on the horizon, what do you have Yes, Well,
Speaker 1: I've definitely been busy and UM sort of plow has
Speaker 1: a lot of exciting things coming up, including a really
Speaker 1: large collaboration with a publicly traded accessors company coming out
Speaker 1: this Better instead A and being here at Stanford has
Speaker 1: just been incredible to really dive deeper into social entrepreneurship
Speaker 1: and learn about other fields to like technology and increasingly
Speaker 1: some of the issues around UM cultural and social issues.
Speaker 1: And that's Emily Nunias Cavnists and pull get Agarwal two
Speaker 1: very impressive, I daresay second year students in the NBA
Speaker 1: program at Stanford, both very accomplished candidly before they even
Speaker 1: got there. It'll be interesting to see what they do
Speaker 1: now with this credential, because they're just getting started. It's
Speaker 1: really impressive. Bloomberg Business Week released its Best Business School
Speaker 1: rankings in the United States, and for the second straight year,
Speaker 1: drum roll, please Stanford it's number one. The ranking, of course,
Speaker 1: is based on surveys of more than twenty six thousand
Speaker 1: NBA students, alumni and recruiters about their goals and experiences,
Speaker 1: as well as important elements like compensation, job placement data
Speaker 1: from each school. It's all in the magazine so I
Speaker 1: highly recommend that you check it out. And we sat
Speaker 1: down with John Donahoe. He's the incoming CEO of Nike.
Speaker 1: He'll start job in the new year. It was really
Speaker 1: great to catch up with him because to see what
Speaker 1: he said about why he took the job, what he
Speaker 1: sees in terms of the fitness industry. But it was
Speaker 1: really fun. Is there he is or he's been in
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley and we got to talk about some of
Speaker 1: those bigger, broader issues like the tech backlash that we're
Speaker 1: seeing his views on that. This is a guy. It's
Speaker 1: interesting his wife and you'll hear this in the conversation.
Speaker 1: She holds to keep position at Stanford. They were really
Speaker 1: partners throughout. She went to law school while he went
Speaker 1: to business school. So his perspective on this is wide ranging.
Speaker 1: A very thoughtful conversation. We gotta start, John, uh with
Speaker 1: your time at Stanford. Take us back there. Well, I was.
Speaker 1: I was blessed enough to be at the GSB between
Speaker 1: nine and it was really, I think probably the most
Speaker 1: formative experience I had that has set me up for
Speaker 1: not just my career, but to be honest, my my
Speaker 1: overall life. Over the last thirty years. Um, I distinctly
Speaker 1: remember many of my professors as well as my class mates.
Speaker 1: And what Stanford really really, you know, grounded me in
Speaker 1: was this notion of servant leadership. Um. It was a
Speaker 1: phrase I first heard at Stanford. It resonated with me.
Speaker 1: Ernie R. Buckle, it had been a former dean of Stanford,
Speaker 1: and that's where the phrase came from. And if I
Speaker 1: were to say, there's been one foundational, foundational, almost guiding
Speaker 1: principle for the last you know, thirty five years since then,
Speaker 1: it's been a real inspiration and attraction towards this notion
Speaker 1: of servant leadership. Well, and there's so many full circle
Speaker 1: elements to this, and we're gonna get to them throughout
Speaker 1: the conversation, one of them being the Phil Knight Business School.
Speaker 1: But you were the winner, I believe, of the R.
Speaker 1: Buckle Awards. So clearly whatever you learned there really took root.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you go there in the eighties, Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley is certainly developed and developing, a far cry from
Speaker 1: from where it is now. Why did you go west
Speaker 1: in the first place? Well, Stanford at the time that
Speaker 1: you know, I I went to Dartmouth College undergrad I
Speaker 1: was fortunate enough as a senior in college to apply
Speaker 1: to a few different business schools. I was fortunate enough
Speaker 1: to get in, but I knew I wanted to go
Speaker 1: to Stanford because Stanford, as a as a senior and
Speaker 1: a senior in college rather in two it was known
Speaker 1: for teamwork. Um. It was known for working with and
Speaker 1: through others, and that was really attractive to me. I
Speaker 1: had played sports my whole life. I loved team sports.
Speaker 1: I had not yet been in business, but I knew
Speaker 1: that a team approach was what I wanted to do,
Speaker 1: and that was a reputation Stanford had. I'd never lived
Speaker 1: in California. So I joined Baine for two years, uh,
Speaker 1: with the agreement that I was going to going to
Speaker 1: Stanford in four And when I came out, I certainly
Speaker 1: wasn't disappointed. Well, and it's interesting, John, I mean, because
Speaker 1: both you and your wife were there at the same time.
Speaker 1: She was getting a law degree correct a law and
Speaker 1: a master's in Nation studies. UM uh so yeah, joint
Speaker 1: a joint degree. It was sort of a quick you know.
Speaker 1: We came out there, we had we had been married,
Speaker 1: we had our first child. My first term of of
Speaker 1: business school, Eileen started at Stanford Law School that next fall,
Speaker 1: and we actually lived in married students housing for five years,
Speaker 1: so the two years I was at business school and
Speaker 1: three years after and and one of the things that
Speaker 1: Stanford really embodied was this notion of family. And Stanford
Speaker 1: feels like a family inside the business school, and it's
Speaker 1: not a place where there's work and home or personal
Speaker 1: and professional life, a more integrated understanding of life. I
Speaker 1: really felt like I learned at Stanford, and we were
Speaker 1: at a very formative stage of our marriage. You know
Speaker 1: what began, you know, a marriage and a set of
Speaker 1: dual careers that have intertwined for the last thirty five years.
Speaker 1: And Stanford kind of legitimized that. They they they they
Speaker 1: took a lot of classes at Stanford that were about
Speaker 1: the human side of management, about the inner journey of leadership,
Speaker 1: not just accounting and marketing and finance, and so in
Speaker 1: at Stanford it was very legitimate to talk about things
Speaker 1: like the inner journey of leadership, talk about your personal
Speaker 1: and professional life and how to build an integrative life.
Speaker 1: And so at a very young age and a very
Speaker 1: impressionable stage of my life, I feel like what I
Speaker 1: got from Stanford is those things were not only were
Speaker 1: they legitimate, they were the best way to lead a
Speaker 1: fulfilling and hopefully impactful life. It sounds like you got
Speaker 1: that early on. Because what's interesting is I feel like
Speaker 1: the conversation among leaders today we're seeing it with the
Speaker 1: Business Roundtable that you know, yep, it's great to build
Speaker 1: a strong company, a financially sound company, but it's not
Speaker 1: just about shareholders. It's a much more holistic approach to
Speaker 1: looking at a company's impact on society at large. And
Speaker 1: it sounds like you learned that early, very much, very much.
Speaker 1: You know, Stanford embodied that. Um it was it was
Speaker 1: some of the other business schools at the time, we're
Speaker 1: almost kind of you know, factories of certain career tracks.
Speaker 1: At Stanford, they really encouraged us to to go inside
Speaker 1: of ourselves, think about what spoke to us, what do
Speaker 1: we care deeply about, to see the world in a
Speaker 1: fairly integrative ray way. They had a very strong public
Speaker 1: sector program that was integrated into the core NBA program,
Speaker 1: not a separate program. And so this notion of you know,
Speaker 1: if I think about back in that period of time,
Speaker 1: this notion of servant leadership, this notion of an integrative
Speaker 1: perspective both of life and business, society and business, and
Speaker 1: also an integrative way to understand a business. I feel
Speaker 1: like those are all things that, um, I didn't know
Speaker 1: it at the time, how how valuable it was going
Speaker 1: to be. And I probably couldn't have used those words
Speaker 1: at the time. I was just in the experience. But
Speaker 1: I feel so fortunate because I think those things have
Speaker 1: served me really, really well in the last you know,
Speaker 1: the last thirty five years since then. So let's go
Speaker 1: back to the mid eighties when you come out. How
Speaker 1: does all of that inform the choices you make about
Speaker 1: the career you want to have and where you want
Speaker 1: to have it. It's a funny example because I made
Speaker 1: my career choice to go back to Bain after Stanford.
Speaker 1: I was following my wife in the sense that she
Speaker 1: was still in law school, and so I said, all right,
Speaker 1: I'll go back to Baying. They paid for business school. UM.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I would have chosen to do
Speaker 1: that or not, But by saying that I valued that
Speaker 1: part of our relationship, UM, you know, allow me to
Speaker 1: go back to ban And I'll actually go back one
Speaker 1: other story prior to this, and just and this just
Speaker 1: tells you about what Stanford's like. During my first year
Speaker 1: at Stanford Business School, my wife applied to law school
Speaker 1: and she got in. And so during the beginning of
Speaker 1: my second year, which was going to be her first
Speaker 1: year Stanford Law School, we had a one year old child.
Speaker 1: I went to the dean of the Dean of Students
Speaker 1: um Student Affairs at Stanford Business School, Jerry Gould, and
Speaker 1: I said, Dean Gold, I have to take next year
Speaker 1: off or I have to work part time because we
Speaker 1: have a one year old. We can't both be in
Speaker 1: graduate school at the same time. And this is classic Stanford,
Speaker 1: she says. Dean Gold says, oh, John, not just do this.
Speaker 1: Go ahead to start and you know, if you want
Speaker 1: to take three classes instead of four, that's fine. Maybe
Speaker 1: start with four. If you want to drop one, that's fine,
Speaker 1: and we'll be flexible. You don't have you don't have
Speaker 1: to come in with some preordained plan. Well, what she
Speaker 1: did is she gave me permission to have an open
Speaker 1: mind and a mind that said, hey, it was legitimate
Speaker 1: what my wife was doing and the fact we had
Speaker 1: a kid as well as going to business school. As
Speaker 1: it worked out, I started that second year Um started
Speaker 1: with four classes. I thought I was going to drop one,
Speaker 1: never ended up dropping one and ended up graduating on time.
Speaker 1: But Stanford, both institutionally for the dean and just the
Speaker 1: culture gave me permission to have the fact that it
Speaker 1: was a father, the fact that I was married to
Speaker 1: someone who was a peer and had a dual career
Speaker 1: that was legitimate, And so ironically I ended up following
Speaker 1: my wife when I went to bain Um thereafter, and
Speaker 1: you know that ended up working it, okay, end up
Speaker 1: staying seventeen years of ban who would have figured at
Speaker 1: that time? And so you find yourself then back in
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley in in many ways and have been
Speaker 1: there really for some of the most formative years. As
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley finds its way deeper and deeper and deeper
Speaker 1: into society and culture. Help us understand the connection between
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley and Stanford, because in many ways and in
Speaker 1: many people's minds, they're inextricable. How how do we best
Speaker 1: understand that? Well, you just said it. You just said
Speaker 1: it well, that they are inextricable. So, for instance, I
Speaker 1: distinctly remember as a business school, students state jobs came
Speaker 1: to campus and gave a speech. Uh Andy Grove came
Speaker 1: to campus, gave us speech, and you know, to be honest,
Speaker 1: we just thought that was normal. It wasn't even It
Speaker 1: was the Stanford largely because of its location, but also
Speaker 1: because of its culture. Um. You know, had a very
Speaker 1: um poorous experience with business Warren Off. It helped speak
Speaker 1: at one of the investment classes. Um. And so the
Speaker 1: outside world, be at Silicon Valley or the other business
Speaker 1: community kind of seamlessly flowed in and out, and you,
Speaker 1: as a student were probach enough to get to get
Speaker 1: access to that. And then once I graduated, and I
Speaker 1: was part of the Silicon Valley community, first at Bain
Speaker 1: and then certainly at eBay, and now it's service. Now
Speaker 1: I'm frequently invited back to speak in a class or
Speaker 1: to do a Suminar. And and of course you'll always
Speaker 1: say yes. D Levin calls me and says, and you say,
Speaker 1: you know, I am so appreciative of my time at Stanford.
Speaker 1: It's like, of course I want to give back because
Speaker 1: what Stanford gave me has been invaluable and so and
Speaker 1: I think that's particularly true you know around Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: That's John Donahoe he's Stanford Graduate School of Business Class
Speaker 1: of Week. Caught up with him because this week in
Speaker 1: the magazine and Business Week magazine, it's all about the
Speaker 1: top business schools in the United States. Stanford was number one,
Speaker 1: so he's an alum, so we talked with him. But
Speaker 1: he was chairman of the board at PayPal, former president
Speaker 1: and CEO at eBay. He had some time at Banning Company,
Speaker 1: was a former CEO there. He's now at Service now
Speaker 1: at the top job, but he's taking over the top
Speaker 1: job at Nike come the new year. A very important conversation.
Speaker 1: Important guy you're gonna want to keep hearing from, especially
Speaker 1: as he takes that new job. And that raps up
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Business Week's Weekend podcast. Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining us. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Jason Kelly. Be
Speaker 1: sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week Radio Live Monday
Speaker 1: through Friday starting at two pm Wall Street Time, And
Speaker 1: if you can't catch us live, do go to our
Speaker 1: daily podcast for the ride home or for maybe the
Speaker 1: run after work, at iTunes, SoundCloud and at Bloomberg dot com.
Speaker 1: And get this week's edition of the magazine on newsstands now.
Speaker 1: Will be back next week. At the same time, this
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg