Ginni Rometty, Chairman, President, and CEO of IBM

[Music] so Jenny thank you so much for being here with us today Thanks it's a it's a real honor to have you here and as you know there's a slight interest in tech here at Stanford so a particular honor to have one of those powerful executives in the industry but if I may I'd like to pull you back to the beginning of your career you started off in the automobile Industry what prompted the move to tech well III I listen to as John was describing that he said how many years right are y'all looking at

me thinking [Laughter] and I also we were just outside talking about this you've had Mary Barra here too right so because I started actually at General Motors and so so how did I where did why did I move I have to tell you something and it's a it's a kind of an interesting story General Motors had At the time back when I went to university and I went to Northwestern and I was putting myself through school and back in those days GM offered me a scholarship no strings attached nobody does that anymore but no strings

attached help me with school if I would just work in the summers and I felt a great obligation then to to try and so but what I would always say to people would I learned it what I thought was a really young age at the time is that I Learned the importance of passion about what you did and it isn't and I say to Mary you love cars you know I like helping you but I wasn't in love in fact I was working on trucks and buses okay and I'm like I wasn't in love and

and it taught me something and I probably didn't crystallize it till later in life that it was the importance of being passionate about what you do and I and I guess that's so easy to say especially for everybody here who's you're doing Something now you like or you will do but boy life is too short and so you've got to keep moving till you find what that is and I'm not even sure you I knew what it was at the time I could only see what it wasn't and so that was what made me move

and so I cuz I said I love technology because I was an engineer I loved it but I wanted to apply it to do things and and that's what led me then back to it and it actually wasn't much I could tell it was a really complex job search I had looked they had had a lot of job offers but at the time I was getting married and my husband was from the Midwest and so I know for all the job offers I had on the West Coast they couldn't understand why was I not leaving

the cold the snow of Chicago until I finally admitted I was getting married and I was moving over here and I ended up there for us I thought a lot of I said where could I go that I could use Technology in any industry and that's what let me dive yeah so passion was my first lesson at a really young age to learn well passion clearly worked you are now the CEO of one of the most iconic companies in the world to those of us sitting in these seats it can occasionally be daunting to think

about the journey to being CEO can you tell us whether you were ever intentional about taking that job and what kind of the challenges might have been on the way Well let me let me do a poll so this is somewhat interactive all right so how many people think they want to be CEO of anything okay so half half how many are not sure the other half yeah okay or the other third right so to speak because I was talking to Jordi about this I said you know what I never that was never a goal

it was never ever a goal for me and I think there's a lesson in that because I I think there's been a lot of people who've always said you gotta have this Has got to be a mission you've got to want to do this you know people who want this job stake it out and go for it and I'm don't prescribe to that school I prescribe to the school that you you just keep doing what it is you love to do you do it great it opens a door you do something else and that sort

of led to this place right so I can't say I ever started that way I know people want me to say that but I can't say that it that it was really that way but I think The other thing if I can not that if you have it as a question or now but the other thing I would you made me think of though was again if I can share something of value on this I do think people often say to me and John when you introduced me you said I'd been at IBM now it's

37 years and that may seem like a long well it's obviously double most of your ages or something so but so why did I stay right people will say why did you stay and in addition to Being passionate I mean I feel really strongly whatever you go do do something with purpose you can define what that means but do something with purpose and I always felt to this day in different ways and I'll come back to maybe even now as CEO but is that IBM had a purpose in this world in that this world would

be different if it wasn't for IBM and it doesn't mean everything we do is that way and they'll be clearly things other great companies and you'll go off and do But but but there are so many things I can point back in time and forward to and say wouldn't have existed without and that's this idea of purpose and so I started you said as an inter Johnson as an engineer but I've done engineering I've done sales I've done research i've done finance i I feel like I've had a hundred careers I did a consulting company

I did a technical company you know all within one place so that ability to work from anything you can Dream of and then in those wildest moments it has purpose you know and I was thinking the other day a colleague a client I had met about seven years ago we had started some work together you mentioned Watson and we started in healthcare Health Care's one of the most difficult and you know any who's in healthcare who wants to be in healthcare and some way related it is obviously one of the most important things to change

it's almost difficult things to change And it varies around the world and what the systems are but anyways I've always said for IBM it was going to be one of our moon shots moon shots meaning I know how hard it is to change I mean it's so obvious the problems so if it's so obvious why can't it get changed and so there are many many reasons in anyways we started on this and I only tell you this story back to purpose was I will always remember going down the street in New York one day was

with my I was with My husband in someone she called my name out and I turned around and it was a client we were working on the beginnings of Watson and healthcare and I could always remember she grabbed my shoulders he said you know we will change the face of healthcare my little part I'm under no illusions that I will change you know my little part those to me those are the moments you live for and so that is why state did you ask me that question though I felt like telling You that story I

don't know why I felt it was important face time I don't know what but go ahead I think what always tell it that was a thank you more interesting also than my question was okay why do you stay here sorry no it's not interactive we're cutting that off I looked you've got you've had a lots of different jobs already about yeah several experiences right experiences not only with any purpose or I'm here no do you believe about purpose though Doing something about purpose or just more I'm just curious I do now I'm not trying to

put you on the spot I am I am serious does it seem important now or maybe later I think it always seems important I think any purpose is something that need a lot of people here think about a lot and it's one of the reasons why older people come to business school I mean it isn't the only reason don't so don't make it I don't mean it to be as an altruistic point cuz I think you can you can do multiple you have commercial value and purpose at the same time right you can learn and

have purpose at the same time and I think those are those companies that offer that wonderful combination and it isn't as if it's like all you have to do every moment of every day right so that's all I just I think you will find many opportunities to do both so throughout your career when you were faced with choices other companies trying to lure Your waiver greater personal commercial value was always that that purpose you found at IBM that kept you I think you know this purpose is that I actually if I can this purpose point

I think is an important point right now in this moment in time geordie and I were talking about before I got out here I just came back from well feels like it was a long time ago thing was last week the World Economic Forum and this year I co-chaired it and I co-chaired it with six other women so highly unusual and if you think about it that was decision was made a ago actually to have this be women to co-chair it but I thought hard about you know did I want to do it and why

and it's gonna be related to the question you just ants asked me so he said purpose actually this is a really interesting moment in time for technology actually for business in total I feel like this is this wonderful Wonderful we have this opportunity to solve so many problems many you work on but with them come a set of challenges that are greater than have ever been in time before and so the reason I had agreed to do with was this idea to about responsible stewardship now maybe there's a better word but I feel Tek ourselves

as well as even most companies this idea that what is responsible stewardship because there is no doubt these technologies and we will talk a Little bit about it they're going to impact everybody they're gonna impact everybody's job and they're gonna happen faster then other series have happened before and we have this I think a real issue of creating a world of haves and have-nots out there whether it's businesses whether it's people individuals and that there is this idea that you've got to responsibly bring these technologies into the world so when you say to me what

also keeps me There it is that belief and I think this is it really this moment and maybe we'll talk more about it but this ability to usher them in with transparency with purpose that word again to also live by a set of data principles so the whole world doesn't end up with all value in a few hands I think that's wrong and a third is then a real obligation of business and government and society to prepare people to live in this world I always think it's like you know Transforming a company you can see

where you are and where you want to go you get killed in the transition and it's always this transition that makes the difference and so so why do I say I believe really strongly that we understand that stewardship that it is not enough to make things you have to bring them safely into the world or your job is not done there's a lot you can take your notes back sorry there's a lot there's lots of Unpacking there and I think that one of the interesting points is is in a practical sense how do you balance

your responsibilities to our shareholders you'll need as a company to drive it's a real technological leadership with that stewardship Society how do you do that on a day to day level what do you think seriously when you must think of this in classes right what what what do you think about for that I honestly have no idea I'm not putting out because I think you actually probably know the answer to that to be honest with you so to me the answer is always been and maybe it's because of our pet you talked about our past

well first off if you don't define yourself as a product if you don't protect your past and then if you try to do the right thing for the long term I think you end up in the right place if you do those three things and so so to Me that balance I always feel like many of us and again some of you in the places you go we are allowed to operate because our clients and society allow us to operate and that is built on trust and so you know in the end society or business

will decide if they trust you and so always with that in my mind I mean I go back in time things like and not not accredit any of my decisions by any stretch this goes back decades when governments had asked us in many Countries we were talking about you know today IBM's in 170 countries thirty five percent of our businesses from the United States so we've got quite a lot of experience everywhere else how many times governments had asked us for access to technology backdoors into technology and we're the only Technic and say we said

no from the beginning of time because our licence to operate was based on trust and so I think this idea if that's the role you feel you play and You make that decision for the long term and a trust will matter you will actually make those right decisions and I think it's true for consumer companies I don't think it's true for just you know we're b2b but I think it's true for everybody there's a lot of rising mistrust in technology companies these days I think and you've seen a lot of tech leaders go to Washington

publicly apologizing how how do you think the tech industry as a Whole needs to rebrand itself or re-evaluate its image is all all part of this communication is it is it being demonstrative how does that work hmm I was gonna ask you what you think but I won't do that okay so so next week you'll just be me up here seems a little Y better you are doing good yours well prepared and so that's in fairness so so let's just talk a little bit about that right I let me just pack it in small I

really believe this is a moment in time For all of us and I say this to all my clients right this is our moment for this kind of stewardship you know really principled stewardship stewardship you know about how to bring all this technology and so I think when you do that you recognize what you are and what you're not and or what you've become and so as an example we'll probably talk a little bit about AI and in na I as an example is one of the many technologies but I feel this way about others

too When I say what do you have to do to build trust well you have to bring it into the world and be clear about its purpose its transparency and it's explained ability so purpose meaning tell people this is to augment what man does honestly I wish I wasn't AI specialist like 30 years ago we should have been called augmented intelligence I've been saying this for a decade because I do really see that will solve so many great problems but this Will be a world of man and machine and so they're gonna have to work

together and that is gonna mean a lot of change and so if you are clear that your purpose though is to work with not to replace and I'm not Pollyanna there are things that will be replaced but then you'll help people do their job even better and I see this in I can give you tons of examples of it so purpose then transparency you need to I think I need to tell you when I'm using these Technologies and then I need to tell you how they were trained I need to tell you what data got

used I need to tell you where it came from you know it's one thing if you're asking simple questions about weather and if we own the weather company so that okay no problem you probably you assume how weather got there the favorite song but when you're asking about health care you're asking about a regulation you're asking about the right treatment for Cancer you care who trained it and so then the other thing I tell you we've learned over the mistakes we have made is you don't have to be able to explain your answers because if

I'm a professional using a I do I want a black box how many of you would like to work with a black box gives you an answer you don't you want something to say this is why this is the background this is how it came up and it took us down different paths of how to build this kind of Technology because you have to be able to explain it so to me when you said how do you build that trust in this moment I don't think it's about just words I think it is about real

actions you you clear on your purpose you'd be clear a transparency you be clear on explain ability and then you have to live by things like you own your data I don't own your data data can freely flow governments can't have access here's how I secure it and then you help with Skills so I know that's a lot but I honestly think that's what we got to do at this moment in time that is such a special moment to get this off on the right foot does that make sense to you it doesn't make sense

I could ask you everyone but you're right next to me so it does make some sense to me and I guess one of the fears they might have is a someone learning a very traditional set of skills at business school is how how am I gonna or meant what I do with With AI is this something that you think is really gonna be truly practical in every industry that we're all denoted ists are we gonna be replaced by the machine inside you don't I hope nobody how many people believe you're replaced by machines seriously I

mean the way I ask to them it doesn't make you want to answer my question but two brave souls are they're counting on that I cannot see that fire at this point so I we just finished another study there been many Studies I read three more on my way out Thursday I'm going to be at a big group of my colleagues on this topic about the future of work and they're all over the board right but I believe a couple things and then I'll answer your question about that so first off if you and you

guys study technology better than most in the world what different about I think the moment we're in right now is that it has a chance to have an exponential impact not linear Most of time when things change its linear improvement improvement you know goes like this line through it if you go back in time Moore's law with processors doubled every 18 months that would be more exponential if you would go back then in time the social media networking where it later became known as Metcalfe's law that the value would be the square of the nodes

in a network so yeah the network effect so everybody talks endlessly about the amount of data It's not the amount it's if you could really get learning to happen exponentially off that I mean off of that data you would have another exponential curve caused by learning that's what I think's in front of us so if that's true this third kind of big exponential curve in life then you'd say does it replace everything I don't think it replaces everything it does change everything so we've done all these studies it could be five percent of jobs Tempers

I don't think it matters I think it's a hundred percent change so you prepare for that world and I was my own so two ends of a spectrum and one of the very earliest things we did was healthcare and started in oncology extremely difficult and and it's been an interesting road and an interesting learning so first off time does matter with some of these technologies to get started so you may think of Watson for Jeopardy but much much much as Transpired since that time in fact november/december the oncologist which is the most trusted sort of

peer reviewed Journal of oncology put out a study on Watson a thousand patients tumor board and we were able to find 30% more than 30% of the cases new things that should have been followed than what a doctor could find that's not an insult to doctors but there's a learning here right because how many professionals ever want to be told they missed Something or they got something wrong it's very difficult and so there's a whole change management side to what's gonna really happen here and but I then take that same situation and we're now up

to a hundred thousand patients in oncology treatment in India and China see because there there's only one oncologist for 1600 patients here there's one for a hundred it's a very different world and so that sort of idea that motherhood's how does that saying Go necessity is the mother hood of invention of ever it's gonna leapfrog I think in driven by perhaps other parts of the world for different reasons unless specialization so they're there the doctors are learning and saying oh my god I can't do this job by myself I mean it's impossible for almost any

professional right to do this so I learned this lesson with that and the technologies continued to learn faster and faster I remember the very first Cancers took 9 to 12 months to teach now 30 to 30 days a new cancer 30 days a new cancer so this idea will your job change I think everybody's will in professionals at one end of a spectrum and I said there's another end of a spectrum just to give you a feel for why I say this my own HR I actually think I you know most people anybody want to

be an HR professional one okay see there we go now it is most people would is a it's a difficult job be there's a lot of Administration that people think continue you know typically associated with it I've got a fantastic leader who spent four years I think making it the most AI cognitive profession in the world now it's changed everybody's job but it has got everything to do with how recruitment is done proactive retention compensation so there's no bias in it as an example everything to do with not only answering your questions helping Your career

what should you learn and that is applied everywhere along the way and that to me is like a really normal good example of how life changes for all of those jobs and they all changed it does make a difference in that you have people with less training and skill able to do jobs and it puts a premium on being an expert on the other side because they things go very quick from beginning to expert you almost skip right over those does that make does That that's kind of world I think will be in definitely and

to go kind of away from AI but still the future of work something that really struck me as I was researching for this interview was IBM's pathways to technology schools as already tell us a little more about and the mission and how you think a future high school is well we'll go through the education well how many of you how many people think that kids coming out of school have the right Skills to be successful broadly speaking not your neighbors okay it is it was the neighbor part that des stopped you or the you're like

oh my neighbor's kids forget it no this we this can i I want to this is something I would like to either get some opinion we're gonna have some lunch afterwards some input from folks this started with I believe back to this point with this moment of technology changing everything that the skills issue is a really big issue Around the world and I don't look at it just in a zip code in an estate in one place in this country I believe it's what's giving rise to all of the political upheaval we've seen there are

people that don't view they have a better future in front of them there is a world of haves and have-nots and that to me is a very dangerous place to go in for any economy and so I think the route when you track back on all of this is skills and so Geordi asked me about this Thing called pathway to technology that we started so this is a wonderful University but I don't believe in the whole globe you can say to people you only have a future if you have a stem degree or you have

a university degree I believe strongly in those I mean that doesn't mean I don't believe in those but for the billions of people on this earth that is not going to be the future and so how do you therefore back to man and machine and how can people have a Really productive future make a good income in have skills relevant and so I think there'll be three things you have to do one of them is for the youth coming through we came up with this idea called pathway to technologies there's a hundred thousand kids in

these schools now so you may say a hundred thousand is a drop in the bucket for billions of people on the earth but it's not it's a reasonable start a hundred thousand and it was the idea could you take a high School everybody and we're now in six countries take a high school in some countries would call it different things but a community college nearby think of it as a six year high school and could you come out with skills that would be employable in in a tech world and we've proven that it is pretty

true do double the median income and we picked the worst kids in the worst schools everywhere in the world that we could find to start with we did not Cherry-pick anything and it is heartwarming I mean every parent wants for their child a better future I don't care where you are from or what country you are from and every kid if given the opportunity so a we help them with curriculum B we give them mentors and see if we have jobs we give them a chance and and I got 300 other companies like ours did

you go in on this everybody and everybody's happy to mentor a kid there isn't I've never met Someone who wouldn't do it yet and this idea I think is becoming a bit viral I'm gonna do all the governors of this country I guess it's February this month already get every state going so there's about ten states that it's already going kind of viral in and I think this is gonna be something that every back to like social responsibility every company can do something here every company it's gonna have to be a public-private partnership to address

The skills issue in this planet and and many of my colleagues have different ways or something like it but it will take that and then there'll be the section of retraining which is only is also one of the hardest again back to this this dislocation here so whether we do a lot of retraining and others do and then I think it leads to something else which is gonna be society in government's coming up with ways that say you know what this idea that you Like go to school until the University and you're done this is

not going to work out so well we're gonna have to do something with lifelong learning and those of you that look at social systems that do some encouragement that people continually go back and do that so what do you think of that idea pretty cool pretty cool okay it's heartwarming I mean the only thing I did not count on is that some of these kids this has really been an interesting thing for me The kids they have their kids so it's okay to call them kids they have you give them this chance so six years

which by the way you guys would never know this the typical community college in this country it takes seven years to graduate from a two-year school and even at that like 7% of kids I mean it's ridiculous and partly it's cuz the curriculum they don't teach anything employable and and that's how they're funded so we've been working With the government to get them to change that to say you can't just give schools funding they got to teach an employable skill and that's not just a vocation so but but the funny starting to tell you is

what we had learned so to get going we've got kids graduating in four years with an associate degree in three years also with an associate degree so when we offered him jobs back to my HR they came back to like hey you realize these kids are not like eighteen Yet I'm like oh that's a problem isn't it so they're like we got a like pay for their mother to come with them too you know and so they got a live somewhere so for their internships but anyways we've we've managed through all that and it's to

me it's it's it's very heartwarming I mean in many of them by the way go on to four-year universities that never ever ever would have anyways so it's both ways right because I don't want you to say I'm down on I'm not it's to me about Giving people a chance right that really is heartwarming and these initiatives are fascinating but I would like to change tack slightly to talk bit more about IBM it's a company as the Dean said that's transformed itself several times you're taking it through another transition right now I think we'd all

be interested to know a little bit more about what transformational leadership means to you and how it's become so deeply embedded within IBM's DNA yeah so So IBM a hundred and seven years old right only tech still here three generation after generation only one and and maybe it's because we've had a few near-death experiences that teaches you forever to be humble and forever to realize you have to reinvent yourself and so as I suddenly started like don't my learnings of my from my predecessors don't protect your path don't define yourself as a product and then

do the right thing for the long term no matter How strong the short-term wins are in your face which is what we have done John you mentioned were 46% new products and services in the last several years so in a word what we reinvented IBM around maybe I can convince some of you to come come work for us I'll I'll hold that as my grade of whether I did a good job today maybe in a word it was the word data you're probably not surprised at that right it was an honest I had sort of

Come up with this I thought it was corny at the time a decade ago a saying that said data would be the world's next natural resource because I thought the analogy was really good that like oil there are very poor countries with oil so you can have a lot of data doesn't mean you get any wealth from it or any value from it and but those who did in the technologies were happening could make a difference you marry that with we had done all this work on just forget The background a two trillion dollar market

to make better decisions I'm like what we all probably think we all don't make great decisions all of the time so better make in any profession that would be out there and so that's what we started and set out to do and that is what has been really at the root of this so it meant having to transition to the cloud transition to Big Data to transition to AI but I would be the first to tell you guys we do it in a Business context and there is a difference and so just like when I

think about artificial intelligence for consumers versus for professionals I see a very strong difference as an example what we've had to build for is things like it has to learn domain data so you have to learn regulatory environments I talked about medicine you have to learn HR you have and that means you have to learn off of very small amounts of data that's a different kind of AI you don't Have billions of records to look at you might feel like there's billions of regulations but they're not I mean so you have to learn off of

very small amounts that's point one second to second part we felt like you know what 80% of the data is not searchable in the world it belongs to our clients I better protect it for them and I better not just protect the data I got to build this in a way that the insights because that's actually it's more valuable stays With them and doesn't train something for the competitor that is a very different kind of AI that's not an AI that came from a search engine so because I've got to protect those insights for the

and I'll come back to why that is meaningful it also means in this kind world you would have to you would have to be able to explain like I was talking about earlier you have to be able to explain where the answers came from in Consumer not so much required but definitely required when it's a professional that you're dealing with so those are some of the differences and so we've been remaking both our AI all of our cloud systems all of our expertise and then you got to put it in workflow because this again was

my biggest learning I'm telling you the technology alone in a business environment does not matter you have got to be able to change and reimagine the process of work so we Had to build all those capabilities in there and always underpinned by security and then this won't be the end I mean blockchain quantum are all things we've been heavily heavily invested in and if I can humbly say I believe in quantum I know I'm out and I know where I'm at I do know where I am but I believe we're number one and and blockchain

even - for for business reasons blockchain I didn't say Bitcoin and so I know you had Jamie out here I've had endless discussions with him on that so so today that's what IBM is I mean it is we've always lived uniquely at this innovative technology industry expertise trust and security intersection always reinvented for this next moment and so I want my again I'm gonna be with my colleagues in another day I am very optimistic I know many of you want to do startups and you will do and do great things I'm equally optimistic about current

companies that Are out there because as I say to all of them I feel like this is the moment for the incumbent disruptor and why do I feel this this is the moment for the incumbent disruptor if you believe it's a future differentiated by data and knowledge and you own 80% of it if you can do something with it this is your moment now to take it in as I've said it just may be better to have had a past than not to have had a past and so I see this in their actions in

many companies Right now you see it in Walmart coming back you see it and it's this is now their moment they've actually got something that if they're able to harness it and do something with it can differentiate them and they build a platform on there expertise and so I think it really those of you that work on business models it is a time of soul-searching for lots of companies on what's their business model they're saying to themselves you know am I a car rental company or you know actually what I know how to do is

fleet management I'm moving cars around all the time and in the world of autonomous cars fleet management might be a pretty good thing to know how to do so I mean I think everybody's going through that about what it is they can do with all that data and what they their knowledge is and so that's what IBM has become it's the platform for that and you you brought it up so I'll I'll ask there are Lots of students here considering offers from Google and Facebook and the likes why should they go to the IBM instead

I convinced you yet okay let me ask you more questions okay no chests so look I think it goes back to where you and I started and they will do some Q&A here I would come to IBM for three reasons a you got to be passionate about the impact technology can have in the world B you got to want to change the way the world works I mean we do Work on serious stuff that changes the way the world works it doesn't mean we work on everything so other people will do other pieces but there

isn't a bank that we don't run and help reinvent there is not a credit card transaction there's not a railroad car that runs and these are serious obligations about how that happens safely and how it then at the same time reinvents itself so this idea that to help change some of what not everything but to change part of how The world works is more let's just say it is certainly what we aspire to every day okay I mean only the world can determine whether you do or don't and so I'd come for that purpose I'd

come for that strong strong passion about the technology in the third it's something you know what it's something I actually took for granted to the last couple years it is a strong environment of inclusion I have never never in my world I was interviewed not very long ago After many of the incidents of this past here about inclusion and I said you're not gonna be honest with you I've never felt that way and III in you might find that so hard to believe are there isolated incidences I have 380,000 employees of course of my scale

in the in the world but I said I have never I have never felt anything any limit on myself I put there it was never put on me by IBM and I said that I think that is such a deep root it goes back to Having hired the first disabled person in 1914 the first woman executive is 1943 I mean this is I look now and I think others you've got to be kidding me I've taken all this for granted and I no longer take it for granted right and I'm proud of the the culture

I didn't build it I have only had to carry it on right and be sure it got even more and I use the word inclusion not diversity on purpose to me inclusion is about sexual orientation gender religion country Ethnicity I don't care what it is right that you feel comfortable this is why we have fought you know and I can't fight every battle we have fought so hard for the dreamers we have fought so hard around these bathroom bills these crazy things but they were so symbolic about people feeling welcome in their workplace in those

states I happen to be a big employer in Texas and North Carolina too so that was but and we got those stopped and but is it because of Just that one thing it could you can't fight everything you know it was because that was very symbolic to me about inclusion and so I feel that environment then and it's what we do even now you know whether it's women I am very proud guys we will have won this thing called the catalyst or door the only tech company and the only company on earth to have won

at four times about inclusion and women in the workforce so that would be my third reason it would be passion Purpose and inclusion yeah well I finally said something that made sense perhaps he's almost right that perhaps a fourth reason could be we've got a lot of crypto investors out here we can be talking about more about blockchain and your what iBM is doing there and maybe right from the inclusion to blockchain yeah excellent segue here how many okay who's it who's a blockchain lover okay baby I think a small group on some meet later

not a big Group about how about bitcoin lover Oh subset okay so can I just say the reason I those of you didn't raise your hand if I could encourage you to go look into black chain is a you think why am i bringing this up as a technology I honestly think the future on blockchain I have a little saying blockchain will do for trusted transactions what the internet did for information and I believe this very very strongly its ability to trade transactions between People who don't necessarily know each other not necessarily trust each other

in a way to remove friction and the movement of about anything I think is quite high and what makes it so possible to really get some traction is it you don't have to rip out the guts and rewrite everything if you're a company to be able to use it so the movement to it is not that difficult and so you had Doug McMillon here from Walmart so Doug and I started a project on food safety You would be shocked at the number of people who died from food and how much food is wasted at food

outbreaks so how on earth could we get every competitor of his and every food company in the world to join onto this their competitors and they're gonna share all the information about what kind of food avocados spinach um right but the spinach breakout what happened all that spinach wasted and in it typically we did we've done the tests on many things Now but mangoes seven days to trace where our mango come came from we do it in two seconds now so this idea of solving that problem we're doing a big joint venture with the largest

shipping company in the world Maersk we've already the paperwork that accompanies a big cargo container exceeds the value of the contents of the cargo came often so there is so much opportunity now I said all that it is not about Bitcoin there's Something under it called blockchain and it does matter how you implement it and you have to have it be permissioned some of what's out there is opaque I don't believe those will be what will take off you can't have people that will in fact some of I won't use their names other companies that

have stuff out there it is a little bit an artist and you know it will allow crime to go on quite freely that is not what we're talking about we're talking about where Permission means I know who's on the network I can tell the Loom that Professor here can only see three things you can see five I know who governs this thing I mean who do you think governs the internet right there is a governing body it's not two people so there's a big open we're a big fans of open source there's a big it's

the fastest growing open source hyper ledger is the name of it community there's been in time out in the Linux Foundation and so it's Governed by 200 companies now that's a good thing you have to have it be immutable anyways I won't give you a lecture on blockchain but I'm so I'm so optimistic about the things that it can do on the positive like food safety in the inefficiencies it can take out to go to better things on the other side it's the fundamental technology not a comment about crypto currencies that's kind of different but

but I guarantee you whatever you do without having Government's have an ability to see some of the money transfers you're not gonna be able to take off so you're gonna go into that now no I'll stay I'll stay clear that okay and want one last question before we turn to turn to audience Q&A I've been struck by the number of times you mentioned that the healthcare industry and cancer in particular and I know you're you're on the board of Moral sloan-kettering is there a reason why this is such a way This is a mission that's

very personal to you or is it just that you see this is the area of the biggest improvement to me it is the biggest use of our GDP and it's the biggest inefficiency with the lowest return and it's true in a developed country like ours guys but you I mean I've spent so much time in Africa India China these are unsolvable problems in these places these people have never ever have a chance to get health care of the Quality you and I experience it if any of us have cancer we will be seen by a

Cancer Center odds of that happening outside this country are like zero I mean in the other outside of developed country and so that does not have to be that way and this is this is to me I mean I guess I did call it a moonshot right and lot to be learned from that but I think all of us in our companies get a chance to work on some of those right so it was health care but go back On the other side I'm a biggest fan of trying to help reg reg tech and I

really basic things as well right improve on the other side but to me us in what we've done is started in healthcare is very sim it was very symbolic and important and I think it's a really hard journey but it is a deadly disease with many variants and it's impossible we started with cancer so we started in the hardest spot is it's an impossible to do without the assistance of these kind of Technologies thank you so much any before you have time to ask me any more questions then turn over to the audience maybe you'd

like to ask him a question Michael [Applause] okay anyone hi there my name's Catherine I'm an MBA - my question is related to your time chairing the World Economic Forum I think the World Economic Forum is one of the coolest ways that private and public Leaders can work together to solve problems in a top-down way but as the world becomes increasingly decentralized how should the World Economic Forum change and adapt to better address these problems that's oh it is it is a good tops down but I think what happens when you leave the World Economic

Forum it becomes a Bottoms Up effort of what people can do and I will tell you this year a majority of it a lot of it was on skills issues and how do how everybody Can work in partnership with that so I think what it can do don't try to put more into it than it's capable of right so it isn't as if it's a standing body it is a standing body but an organization that can actually have rules or committees standards and it's more about I think putting standards out there that can be followed

in the rest of the world this is a really critical time you know as different countries move more inward with each other it's a Dangerous moment you know right now Europe is setting many many standards around data honestly America should be in there because they're gonna end up sending setting the de facto standards here so you probably regulations like GDP are global data protection it's gonna end up being a global standard right and and we're not at the table as much as we should be I know every time I'm in Europe and in Brussels the

it's a you Know they're dying for companies to come fill a void that may be a scene is avoid by governments right now and so I think what can happen on when you said what happens next I do think companies can help in this in this time particularly where you might want to call it more and more countries look out for themselves are more nationalistic whatever words you would like to put around it I think it it calls for those of us going back Particularly around things like you know modernization of trade skills in the

world and we didn't talk much about cybersecurity right and in in cyber in that impact because cyber is the one thing that will will stop all the it'll take three steps forward and five steps back right with cyber here with what happens so I think that's what we can all go back and do I am I always remember a meeting years ago that I'd had with Shimon Perez late in his life And I remember a quote he he had said to me I don't know why it's always stuck with me but maybe it's cuz I

I feel it's true he said companies can do more to help countries and governments because they know no boundary and it's true if you those of you that were you know you don't I don't really don't really see boundaries that way and so I think it's an important that's the important follow-on is what this public-private partnership becomes thank you very much For your time my name is Yahya I'm from Saudi Arabia I'm a joint degree candidate here doing MBA M master's in electrical engineering so my question to you was how can a I help businesses

that are outside the US or Europe where the infrastructure that allows AI to let these businesses flourish like intelligent investors or talent like data scientists or something are not available in these countries or locations yeah I look I think first off Many of what we offer is a platform that is available in any country it may not run in the country but it's running somewhere else as a platform and I was telling John ahead of time about one of your one of your colleagues here Joshua Browder who is one of your colleagues I mean I

met him only because why would I ever meet him other than he found Watson and he then built a business called do not pay for people who shouldn't pay parking tickets that They got wrongly and I think he's handled by 200,000 parking tickets those of you that know the story 11 million dollars but he's working on Syrian refugees now and how to get them the right paperwork to stay in different countries and so I think this is more accessible you know when we do work in Saudi Arabia as well this is more accessible than you

think and so to me I think this is a wonderful technology to allow entrepreneurs as well as big as Them coming together actually see a lot for the coming together between those two constituents and if you think of it as a platform it's more accessible than not accessible albeit some issues in certain countries but still accessible the back I'm Ching hall from the MSX program IBM is a company of global giant with a storied history I'm wondering how you keep the IBM family nimble creative and innovative is it more of a top-down or bottom-up approach

or just here view What's your perception I think it has to be so yeah I think it has to be both myself I'm from the Air Force is a big organization anytime you want to get something going you want to start small you want to create space for people by the same time you need some top-down direction to say this division I'm just wondering if you have a slightly different take on it I I do I mean not that this has been one of my biggest learnings perhaps one of my Biggest mistakes as well so

big you know Geordi asked me this so IBM is today an 80 billion dollar company in 170 countries we talked about 46 percent of it new lots of new entrants obviously into this technology field and so how do you get changed to happen fast so I tell you my quick like I'll try to make a very quick story but what my learning was so probably my first two years of CEO I would say to the group because it's true the world is moving so fast Come on faster faster faster you got to work it I

mean I think if anyone would have said what does she talk about they would decisions and to go faster go faster and go faster go faster go faster at costly and I thought about after tiers what did I do I exhausted them that's about what I got done until it dawned on me that I have to check it's my job and we got to change how work is done and I'll tell you so while much will ever be written About the portfolio and how it's changed I think them far more what one day you know

revisionist history one day when we're distanced enough we will look back in the far more interesting story will be how work gets done in what happened to the people and to their skills and I'm the how what we had to learn was we were a b2b company so the shortcut of this is it meant you can be big and be fast but you do have to re-architect work and that means a lot of things like Even in b2b hey they expect everything to be as simple as the consumer world we all live in everyday that

means design thinking that means we hired ten thousand of the best designers from around the world brought back that culture that had once existed by the way in IBM everything is done with empathy from the end end-user in and not from an engineering culture out which is what a lot of tech companies are engineering out and so it started with that then it Started with really agile easy buzzword really hard to change the way you do work unless you truly embrace it so we probably now 200,000 agile experts trained black belts it means small multidisciplinary

co-located Minimum Viable products and think about Minimum Viable products I mean when you think of big things we do like run Airlines banks you think of these big complex things going fast doesn't mean like make that big ugly thing faster it means no but it Means start with something little get it right make it bigger make it bigger make it bigger that's way different on the way you build things so we had to change what agile put that in what did it mean then we had a co-locate you know talk to me about a billion

dollars later in real estate you know renovations and all that kind of thing around the world and so it's been you know we had to change the performance management system we had to move to Net Promoter Score I mean sorry There's like heavy work underneath real transformations and that's what had to do to happen to make you work fast so is that top and that's bottom on top it's both but I tell you until until we as leaders help people change how they could do their work that wasn't going to happen and so that to

me and then the people on skills the skills part for anybody train you know changing a company like actually I'm gonna talk about this again tomorrow a thing I have To do we are all gonna have to change the skills of everybody in our company I mean I lectured for the first Friday of every month for four years I taught a class for four years a MOOC and it was about what the future was what it would be had clients on over and over and so you paint the sure of the world that you are

building then you have to say to people okay now I need to make it so you can change your skills and then I'm going to pay you for Changing them meaning I'm gonna put compensation for those that then go ahead and change skills and then the third thing you have to do after you've done that kind of reinforcement of it then you've got to say okay now I'm gonna make this transparent it's gonna be obvious we're gonna post who's got that skill who doesn't have that skill and that's the world of transparency we live in

stale hot and you'd be surprised people will move there's nothing to do With age this is nothing to do with age and that's why it's changed the way I even think about hiring we were talking about what do you you know what school is it better to hire an MBA or and there's room for everybody I think the most distinguishing characteristic is your curiosity if you are a lifelong learner I would like you you you that because that's what's in front of us and it doesn't matter to me what school you came out of because

that's got to do With passion you know it's this lifelong learning so those the thing about the skills and the people and then changing how work gets done to me that was that will one day be the real sets of learning that comes out of how do companies reinvent themselves in this day and age this must be the last question is it a good one a lot of pressure or will be the second time I'll try so thanks so much for coming in my name's Stephanie young I'm an MBA 3 we Exist is that a

good thing it's on the MBA 3 okay I'm doing a joint program and my question for you was you talked about companies potentially crossing borders that governments couldn't cross I was curious for you personally with IBM how you see IBM's role in government in the US and globally and conversely flip that and think about what you think government needs to be doing to make it effective to make them effective working with companies like IBM yeah look this This is a good question cuz I you can imagine even earlier in the year I got asked this

question many many times and in with my whole workforce actually to explain and re explain to them what is our role and I feel every every IBM CEO has worked with every United States president as an example since Woodrow Wilson and as I said to my workforce and my teams I say guys this is it not about politics it is about policies in fact we're the only we are the only tech I Know of that makes no contributions zero always had a position about it zero zero zero everywhere zero by the way when your answer

is like no it's easy to be consistent no and so don't start and so but it does give you a freedom to then you then debate policies and so it's policy it's not politics and so that is what I have firmly stuck on is to what my issues I don't care in every country we have to deal with because mind you you know whether it was you know I was With Prima Modi last week this week I'll do Prime Minister Trudeau in Canada or whether it is you know shi Shan ping it doesn't matter in

each country and I've never met a country that didn't want you to increase your workforce they're never labor is the currency jobs is currency I don't care who you are that is true for as long as I can remember so I think what we can do is each of us so you adapt the things that are important to you right so what's Important to us is education in every country that we work on what's important to us is inclusion and diversity and this ability and why you want it for innovation I mean it's not just

for an altruistic reason you want it for innovation so we're very strong supporters of open innovation very strong supporters of Education and very strong supporter of free trade I mean I worked really hard on things like TPP because I think they're not only good For business they were good for those countries too it held them to a level in a standard not to steal IP to let data flow freely to have wages be a certain way I mean there were lots of good things and they were modernized for the digital era by the way which

most print agreements are not modernized for so those are some of the main issues we have really devoted ourselves to and of course in the u.s. we've wanted a competitive tax system right and so Because otherwise it allows other countries to buy companies here in all for those kinds of reasons not for the right reasons so that's to me what we should do and in return what do you want government to do well you want them not to heavily regulate you I've never met a place that regulation was a really great thing but there is

you do want them to create in every country a level playing field so that's what I want out of most governments and of course the treatment Of people and the focus on education but that level playing field and that's what we work on in almost every country which is about how to be sure there's a level playing field that people can move freely ideas can move freely right I love that old saying you know I just is true like good ideas have no Passport right and so that is what you want to be able to

have happen and I and I'm sure it's why we fought so hard around immigration too right so that regardless Of country that there should be good and done a lot of work on the immigration as well so that would be my take away be it's always about policies not politics and if you focus on that my view is you can change the world you can change the world well journey as an international student struggling to get a job I hugely appreciate that and also want to say believe me you answer my questions a lot better

than I could have done so thank You very very much for coming ladies engineering [Applause] [Music]