00:05So welcome for joining us.
00:07We're really excited to have you here.
00:09I want to let everyone know that Renee is
now in her second week of fun employment,
00:15as we like to call it.
00:16So we just want to welcome you to that
life stage we know a lot about it.
00:21>> [LAUGH]
>> Im retired.
00:23>> [LAUGH]
>> Temporarily.
00:26>> Starting there, I'm just curious,
after 30 years at Intel,
00:32what was it like the morning you woke up
and you knew, you were going to leave?
00:38>> Yeah, that's a great question.
00:39>> I don't know that it was one morning,
and
00:42I apologize, I don't want to
have my back to these people.
00:46I think it was a journey
of a couple of things.
00:49I think everyone in the audience probably
knows that I was a candidate to be CEO and
00:55I was not selected for
co-CEO which was the proposal we made,
00:59but to become president.
01:01So I think that was the first.
01:04I actually, at the time, was thrilled.
01:06And I still love the company so much.
01:09I was so
excited to serve in that capacity.
01:12But what I didn't realize three
years ago is that I really
01:16did want to be the leader
of my own company.
01:21And that became more clear to me through
the journey of the two and a half
01:25years up to the point I decided to resign,
that I really wanted to be in charge.
01:31And it turns out, you kind of get to this
point in your career where it's like, and
01:35being in charge isn't so
much about being the boss.
01:37It's more about setting the strategy and
01:40creating the leadership environment
that you want, and making the decisions
01:45around how you're going to handle things
that are more difficult in a certain way.
01:50And so I kind of, I think it was kind
of in the background, but there were
01:55a series of events that occurred where
I would've made different decisions.
02:00And I realized at that point
that it as time for me to go.
02:04Because I had a different point of
view about what was possible for
02:08the company and
the path that I would take to get there.
02:11And I think everybody knows I worked for
Andy forever and
02:15that he's still my mentor and
he would say, if you ever get to the point
02:20where you no longer agree with
the strategy, what are you doing?
02:27And so I said, what am I doing?
02:28>> [LAUGH]
>> And then I quit.
02:32>> [LAUGH] And everyone says to me,
02:34that was either the bravest thing that
anyone's ever done, or the stupidest.
02:38>> [LAUGH]
>> We're still going to figure that
02:42And you know what, I did my exit
interview last Monday morning.
02:48And the head of human resources who's
worked for me for, I don't know,
02:5218 years, had to do the exit.
02:54And I told him in advance, six months ago,
I said, Matt, you're going to need to get
02:58ready for this, this is going to be
very emotional for you, he's like,
03:01we're going to talk about you.
03:03I said, no we're not, because I'm pretty
sure I'm going to be okay in that meeting,
03:06it's going to be you.
03:07And it went exactly the way I thought.
03:08They all came in, and they were all upset.
03:11Are you still going to
take our phone calls?
03:13>> [LAUGH]
>> And I'm like geez, okay,
03:15I've gotta go because I'm retired now.
03:18[LAUGH] Yeah, it was hard.
03:22It's still hard, right?
03:25And I think Intel has
incredible possibilities,
03:29but I would take a different journey.
03:34>> So, let's talk about that.
03:35You mentioned having a difference of
opinion on the strategy for intel.
03:39In case the audience doesn't know,
03:42a few instances in your career,
this came up prior.
03:46So you had the early idea of Intel
housing outsource servers for
03:50small businesses well before Amazon and
others were doing that.
03:54The bust of 2001 sort of led them
to move away from that strategy.
03:58Later on you tried to guide Intel
towards to be an early adopter of
04:03the mobile strategy.
04:04That again,
was an initiative that was not successful.
04:09Talk to us about what it's
like to have that vision, and
04:14some of the difficulties of shifting a
behemoth like Intel towards achieving it.
04:18>> Yeah, I think the first,
they're kind of two different situations.
04:22The first one was a kind of
an acknowledgement about how people would
04:27want to consume technology over
the horizon, and as Andy says to me, well
04:32you were absolutely 100% directionally
correct just a decade too soon.
04:36[LAUGH] Which is the same as being wrong.
04:39that was his polite way
of saying you blew it.
04:43Although he, by the way,
was the one who, he and Craig,
04:46gave us way too much money for
that endeavor.
04:49So that was a different situation.
04:50That was a situation of
making what I would call,
04:55managerial, or
more junior managerial mistakes.
04:59It was my first senior management job.
05:02I wrote a business plan that asked for
a lot of money.
05:05$100 million is a lot of money.
05:07They gave me 350 million, okay?
05:09So when somebody gives you way
more money than you've asked for,
05:13what's the first thing that you say?
05:15You're in this graduate
school business at Stanford.
05:18>> [INAUDIBLE]
>> No thank you!
05:22I don't need that much money because
if you take it, they want a return.
05:26So you don't want to take more
money than your business plan,
05:29until you actually know or
hit the milestone at which you need it.
05:33So when people want to over finance
you because they think you're a little
05:36You say no thank you, I'll be back.
05:39And after I prove to you
I've made this milestone.
05:40Okay, that's your little tip of the day.
05:42I've of course said, my gosh $350 million,
that's a lot of money.
05:46Think of all the things I could build.
05:49then I got to lay all those people off.
05:51So I think that was a learning
experience on two sides.
05:55One, I didn't know enough to stick to my
plan and on the other side of it, I wasn't
06:00a senior enough manager to convince the
then CEO that we should stick it out in
06:05a smaller capacity, like downscale and
then stick it out through the down turn.
06:10He just lost faith and decided to
sell it off, so that's Teradata.
06:16But the second one is
a completely different situation.
06:20This is a situation where I was
a senior manager at the time.
06:23I was Executive Vice President
of the company.
06:25And the CEO and I disagreed.
06:30And I think that I did the right thing for
06:36our shareholders and I think it was
the right strategy for the company, and
06:40I think we'd be a very different company
if we had been able to pull it off.
06:44And Brian and I tried, but it was four
years, or maybe five, Robert, right?
06:49Robert's doing a case about it later.
06:52There's a case about this.
06:53And we lost too much momentum,
06:59had 2 billion units in the field and was
shipping almost 2 billion a year now new.
07:03And at certain point, in my industry,
in any industry, when you have a platform.
07:10Once you get a network effect going,
it's just too late and
07:12I think that was the case.
07:14But that was a case where you had to
decide what you believed, and you had to
07:19stand up for yourself at risk of political
risk and I think that's very dangerous.
07:24And I think you have to
know what's at play.
07:26And so I of course did what I always do.
07:28I went and talked to people who've
advised me through my career.
07:32This mentor thing is real,
you really do need mentors and
07:36I remember that Andy said to me,
this is one of those
07:41situations where if it doesn't go well,
you might have to leave.
07:45And I say yeah, and he said but
you should do what you believe,
07:48if you think you're really right.
07:49Okay, that's not helpful.
07:50>> [LAUGH]
>> Okay, now what?
07:52But, I knew mobile was right and
I believed it.
07:55I was on the board of Vodafone.
07:57I could see the data.
07:58I understood Paul's position.
08:02We had a franchise that generates
cash that people dream about, and
08:07you don't want to disrupt that and
08:09pricing coming in below that is
a huge compression to your pricing.
08:15But it's also was consistent with
the philosophy of the company which was
08:20to always be a first mover and embracing
that which is going to disrupt you.
08:25Right, so
it was a typical Christianson situation.
08:28Seemed pretty strategically
straightforward and
08:31we couldn't execute it.
08:32And the why couldn't we execute it, why?
08:35Because people do what they think
08:41the CEO wants even if
they know it's wrong.
08:46That's what I learned.
08:47And that's a very dangerous phenomena
that people want to please and a lot
08:52of large companies, although I see it in
start ups too, are very hierarchical.
08:57And so they're like, hey,
this is what the boss wants.
09:00And we hear you Renee and we know you're
right, and we want to do that and
09:05we would do it, and we would start
with our hearts sworn in it.
09:07And then when we have resource allocate,
it all comes down to money, right, or
09:10resources, people, money.
09:12Whenever resource allocation conflict,
09:15it always goes the other way because
you know that's what the boss wants.
09:19So you mentioned Andy and
you mentioned mentorship.
09:22You started in till 28 years ago-
>> I did.
09:25>> As a [LAUGH] technical-
>> But I was a lot younger.
09:27>> [LAUGH] As a technical
assistant to Andy Grove,
09:31who is sort of a Silicon Valley great.
09:34>> That wasn't my first job, but it was
right at the seven year mark on my career.
09:39>> And so he was famous for
his confrontational nature,
09:43he like to call it
constructive confrontation.
09:47What did you learn while you were
working so closely with him and
09:49how did that inform how you decided to
manage when you got to the president
09:53role and throughout the rest
of your career with Intel.
09:57>> Well, I think Andy had a couple
of pieces of advice that he
10:00didn't always follow, but
that were actually very, very important.
10:05I mean, we don't always,
all aren't self-consistent, but
10:09one of them was to watch what people do,
not what they say.
10:14we'd be negotiating a partnership or
I'm an employer giving a presentation and
10:20it say, yeah, you hear what they
saying but what are they really doing.
10:22because whatever people are really doing
that's actually their strategy, right.
10:26Not what they're saying.
10:28So I have used that technique, I can't,
I mean probably almost every day,right?
10:34I read what people are going to say
to me and then I kind of figure out
10:38what have they actually been doing,
what's their real action?
10:42If they are consistent then you have
one point of view and if they're not,
10:46The other one is clarity imperative.
10:48And this is really important.
10:51[LAUGH] Andy used to be ruthless and
one of my first, I love this story.
10:58So I'm, all of, I don't know,
28 years old or something, and
11:01I go into this meeting and
the guy comes in and he's got all this and
11:05he's going to pitched for
a new networking business.
11:07We were in and out of networking
probably four times at Intel.
11:10And he begins pitching but he's actually
talking about something different.
11:15[LAUGH] And he's like that's
not the topic of this meeting.
11:19And he's like, well, yeah, no.
11:20Yeah, [LAUGH] I've told this story
before in one of your classes and
11:23he [LAUGH] goes, yeah, no,
that's not what we're here to discuss.
11:26You're not being clear, you don't
have your act together and he said,
11:30meeting is over, he got up and walked out.
11:32It was a room full of people,
I'm like, that's kind of cool.
11:35So but the clarity imperative
is really knowing what it
11:40is that matters and being able
to write it down in five slides.
11:46Like the five slide test
actually is hard and
11:48I think that's one of the things
that he really forced.
11:51He forced intellectual rigor and clarity
and that is something that has really been
11:56defining of my leadership
style because I will tend
12:01to find the thing that somebody's either
hiding or not saying and go after it.
12:06And that is so Andy.
12:08And I'll find it like in a millisecond,
it used to take me longer but now,
12:12>> [LAUGH]
>> [LAUGH] And I'll go as soon as I find
12:13it, I know there's something there and
there's something they're not telling me.
12:17And there's a reason
they're not telling you.
12:18And whatever that is,
that's what's really going on.
12:23>> Very interesting.
12:24I hope you guys are writing this down.
12:25>> It just happened.
12:27I just told you the story
in the green room.
12:29I just joined the board of Citi, and the
CFO came in and he was talking about all
12:32these things, and I was like, wait, wait,
wait, wait, and he skipped over something.
12:37In the normal course of managing
corporate finance of a company of scale,
12:41Citi's about the same size as Intel.
12:43You would ask the following basic things,
and so of course I just asked the question
12:48he glossed over, I made him go back twice
and I knew there was something there.
12:52>> [LAUGH] So okay, in terms of
talking about getting on boards and
12:57thinking about how you analyze what's
there versus maybe what's being unsaid.
13:05You have said that you wanted
to take on a CEO role somewhere?
13:10>> What's your process for
deciding what exactly you're looking for?
13:15>> That is a great question.
13:17So my process isn't very good.
13:20And my mentor explained to me that
I really, really sucked at this.
13:24I made a list of the things I didn't
want to do, because [LAUGH] I decided
13:30that that I could do so many things,
and I was interested in so many things.
13:33And I really love my work at Vodafone,
for example, and
13:36that's completely different from
running a semiconductor company.
13:39And I find Citi very challenging and
Finn Tech and then what's going to happen,
13:43I'm really interested in that.
13:44So then I said, okay, but
13:45what are the things that really
I don't want to ever do again.
13:48The top of my list, my list right now
has three maybe four things on it.
13:53First, no bad boards,
because at the end of the day,
13:56when you're CEO, it's all about the board.
13:58If you have a dysfunctional board,
and a board that isn't supportive, or
14:02that has their own internal dynamic and
politics, life's too short for that.
14:07No bad boards, no bad bosses,
14:09well I actually don't really want a boss
ever again, [LAUGH] that's another topic.
14:15And I want to do something that matters.
14:18because there's lots of stuff that you can
do, there's lots of work in the world.
14:21But at this point for me, I want to do
something that really contributes and
14:25changes that matters.
14:27There are something big changes in front
of us that I think I could go work on.
14:34I have considered starting my own company.
14:38I'm a scale operator,
that's what I am, I know that.
14:41I've voluntarily advised start ups and
venture back,
14:44and I could give them advice but
I'm definitely a scale operator.
14:49So I've thought a lot
about starting my own, but
14:53that's 24/7, 365,
which I've done for 28 years.
14:58So I decided not to make
any of those decisions and
15:02to take a short break which
has been one week long.
15:06>> [LAUGH] And so far, what do you think?
15:09>> I think I should get a job.
15:14>> I woke up this morning, and I thought,
15:16thank God I have to go to Stanford today.
15:18At least I have a reason to get dressed.
15:20>> [LAUGH]
>> So, I wake up at 5:30, and
15:24I read my mail, which now only
takes me about 15 minutes, and
15:27then I read all the news,
and now it's 6:15.
15:29Then I work out, and
I have elementary school children.
15:31Yeah, that's a whole another topic.
15:33So I can drive them to school,
which I find fascinating.
15:36And I also learned something important,
you can make any job stressful.
15:41Okay, so apparently driving
the carpool can be very stressful.
15:45>> [LAUGH]
>> Not for me, but for others.
15:47[LAUGH] I'm like, seriously,
we're not solving here ladies,
15:50let's just move it along.
15:52[LAUGH]
>> So how is your family factoring into
15:55your decision to
>> One of the reasons that I decided I
15:58should take at least more than a week off
is My older son is looking at colleges so
16:03we're doing the college tour thing.
16:05And I'm getting him ready to go off to
college or apply to college next year.
16:10So it's factoring in,
but my kids are worried.
16:14They're like, mom seriously?
16:15You're really high energy.
16:17>> [LAUGH]
>> We don't want you around.
16:20So I have way too many boards.
16:22I have four boards right now.
16:24Everyone's like, are you going to
be a professional director?
16:25I'm like I want to say no I'm not, but
I think I am right now, but not forever,
16:30because I do want to stay active.
16:34And yeah, I'm just, most of the jobs
that are for CEOs, if you're not.
16:41I'm an entrepreneur, but
I'm a large scale entrepreneur.
16:45And midcap might not work for
me because like having one product and
16:49$600 billion of revenue is
like not my sweet spot, yeah.
16:55I'm more kind of in the 70 to 100 range.
16:58>> Yeah because when I started looking at
17:00the balance sheet of Citi, right?
17:03Those numbers when they talk about
things we're talking about you know
17:06multiple trillions dollars made in a day.
17:08And you know the billion dollars
this way and that way and
17:11that's the kind of a scale of Intel
it's kind of a scale of Vodafone phone.
17:14It's kind of a scale of Oracle.
17:16So that's kind of the mentality
that I operate in and
17:18I think what happens Even if you shift
jobs a lot you should kind of develop
17:22skills in certain areas and
you have a certain kind of capability.
17:29>> Talking about scale on the level
that you're talking about scale, and
17:33then talking about being an entrepreneur,
17:36a lot of times those things
are very much at odds.
17:41Or actually, I think I have a quote
from you right here that says,
17:45we have a tolerance for risk taking.
17:47We have a tolerance for
taking measured risks in betting.
17:50It's not a tolerance for failure.
17:53As an entrepreneur,
how do you think about that?
17:56How do you sort of rectify and
what does that really mean?
18:00>> Well,
I think at the scale that we take risks,
18:05or I've taken risks, and I have failed.
18:09I mean, everybody who takes risks, fails.
18:11Failures part of taking risks, right?
18:13And you do have to have a tolerance for
failure,
18:15so that's probably not
really accurate that.
18:18I said that, I was wrong.
18:20>> [LAUGH]
>> I mean you really have to be
18:24You have to be measured though and I think
one of the things that I would say is that
18:29in a large entity you can
take bigger risks, but
18:33you have to ring fence.
18:37What's the downside?
18:38And so I do tend to understand like
how much are we going to really lose,
18:43how long could we really sustain this.
18:47You need to know those things because
large entities have very low tolerance for
18:52loss, very low tolerance in general.
18:55And so I think that's one of the things
that works against entrepreneurship.
18:58It's very unusual that you
end up in Google, right?
19:06I mean, they're transforming this
company to be a cloud company,
19:10at risk of a licensed business
that prints money, right?
19:15So, but that will make them a bigger and
greater company, and
19:20sustain them the next couple of decades,
so It's really one of these
19:24things where you have to
understand what your tolerance is.
19:28>> Mm-hm.
>> And large companies just don't have
19:30that much tolerance.
19:31And that's why they start stuff and
stop stuff and start stuff and stop.
19:34So my biggest criticism of Intel is
that we always quit stuff right before
19:39we could have made it, you know?
19:42>> Yeah.
>> You look at a company like Mellanox,
19:44a company you cannot even afford to buy.
19:48Many of you probably don't know this.
19:49It was a company that was ex Intel people
who took technology that Intel quit on.
19:56>> How are they doing that now?
19:58>> They're doing pretty good.
19:59They're doing just fine thanks.
20:01I mean there's tons of them.
20:02I mean they're all they're
littered throughout tech.
20:04>> Yeah.
>> Things that we gave up on.
20:06>> Yeah.
>> Even data center.
20:09What I hear a lot of in that
response is that you really knew
20:14Intel you had a 28-year career there,
you had gone through different divisions.
20:19You were sort of a subject
matter expert on Intel and
20:21its tolerance for
risk-taking among many other things.
20:24>> And its personality in the company.
20:26>> Right.
And its personality and its culture.
20:30Do you feel any insecurities about
stepping into a new role where
20:34you won't have 28 years
with the company and
20:36you won't be a subject matter
expert in that respect.
20:41>> You know, I think I did for
a long time.
20:44I don't now, but I did.
20:46And I think that kept me from
ever leaving for a long time.
20:49I think that's why people
stay at companies so long.
20:52They love the work,
they know the situation well.
20:55And all the things they don't like
they know what they're about, right?
20:59I don't have that fear anymore
because I think one of the things that
21:07if you step back from the day to day,
21:10either there's a lot of pattern
recognition in the behaviors of companies.
21:13Different sizes and irrespective of the
content, a lot of the same challenges and
21:19opportunities exist about
consolidations in the market,
21:24about whatever's going
on in the competitive.
21:28And you can actually apply, I mean working
at semiconductors has nothing to do with
21:32banking, and I've been at the bank for the
last couple weeks being indoctrinated and
21:36I realized, wow pattern recognition,
there are a lot of similarities.
21:40When you have 200,000 employees working
in a whole bunch of geographies,
21:44having a whole bunch of challenges,
you have a regulatory regime that
21:48overlays the competitive environment,
you're like, wow, I get this.
21:53I understand some of the, and
then actually it's been really exciting.
21:59Like wow I could do something
completely different.
22:02>> Yeah.
>> Although I think banking's actually
22:04a tech business now.
22:08You heard it here first.
22:09>> No I mean everybody knows that right.
22:11I mean the next billion people aren't
going to go open bank accounts.
22:16>> It's a tech business.
22:18And so
that makes it more appealing to you?
22:23I love it.
I think it's fascinating.
22:25I think that entire way
that economies work and
22:29the movement of money and
the concept of crypto-currencies.
22:33And I think fintech and
what's going to happen in
22:38digital economies is going to be one
of the most interesting things that
22:42are going to happen in the next ten years,
and that everything we've been doing.
22:46One of the things that I realized,
I've been realizing is I've
22:49been on this journey to what comes next is
that everything I've been working on for
22:53the last 30 years is
actually infrastructure.
22:56Like everyone had to have computers to
be able to do any of this other stuff.
22:59We had to actually be able to
build computers at a cost that
23:03allowed them to be pervasive.
23:05And then all this,
I mean I can not begin to tell you,
23:08unless you work in semiconductors how
complicated it is to build semiconductors.
23:12It is so complex I mean it's mind
blowingly complex and dangerous.
23:18And we build these huge
chemical buildings, and
23:21they cost us 7 billion dollars, and
then we make these things that are so
23:24small no one can even see them, and
they want to pay us 20 bucks for them.
23:28And at the end of the day, it really does.
23:30It's a hard business.
23:32It is building the framework for
everything that's built on top of it.
23:36And everything that's built on top of
it now, computing is so powerful and so
23:42amazing, you can do like, I mean,
you do not need to go in a bank anymore.
23:49And I think security and
identities, the identity thing,
23:52I'm just super excited about that.
23:55There's so much green space of what's
going to happen in identity management.
24:00>> You mentioned wanting to
do something that matters.
24:04One of our application questions that we
all have to answer when we come here is,
24:09what matters most to us and why.
24:12What matters to you, what falls into
the category of something that matters?
24:18>> What matters to me is making
the world a safer place.
24:23So the things that I find myself
working on, my free jobs,
24:27my volunteer jobs [LAUGH] are for
the government and in cyber.
24:31And I think the,
even at Citigroup I started working
24:36on their anti-money laundering and
their cyber team.
24:42I think the ability to know what's safe
and good is going to become even more and
24:48more important to people in a world
that's less physical, right?
24:54And I think that's a very
important frontier
24:57because we have not made a lot of
not fundamental breakthroughs.
25:01We're really good in detection and repair.
25:04We're not really good in prevention,
and we're not really,
25:07really good in identity management.
25:12>> How do you think
about that in terms of,
25:14you said those have been volunteer roles.
25:17>> And you were appointed by
President Obama to help out with some of
25:21the critical infrastructure work.
25:22How do you make the decision between what
is going to be sort of a side service
25:28project, and what's going to be one
of the main tenants of your career?
25:33>> Well, I used to think
people would always say this,
25:36they say this all the time.
25:38You should follow your passion, the money
will fall and I was like that's just crap,
25:40that doesn't really happened.
25:41But it turns out it might be right,
I mean maybe I was wrong by that.
25:45Because I keep drifting towards the same
kind of projects and even as I got on to
25:49the board of Citi, that was the first
thing that I started to get involved in.
25:53So, I think that that's my passion.
25:55So I think it's going to'
become the primary, right?
25:59Because I really think it's important
work and it's not getting done.
26:04And there's a lot of small companies
doing bits and pieces of it.
26:08When the problem's in security and
26:10the problem I attempted to go after inside
of Intel, maybe that was a mistake and
26:15should of done it outside of Intel, is
to actually consolidate into a platform.
26:19There's no security platform.
26:21You know how, you guys are mostly,
well not everybody's tuned into those.
26:26But in the early days of computing right,
26:28there's all these little weird things,
different applications and
26:31then Microsoft, thank the Lord,
put it all together in a platform for us.
26:34And as much as we'd like to bitch and
complain about them,
26:36they changed the world.
26:37The same way that Google did for
application development in the cloud,
26:41right now Amazon's doing for services.
26:44So those platforms are quite important,
26:46because what they do is they move
the entire industry forward to a place
26:50where a whole bunch of
innovation comes on top of it.
26:52So that's what's happening in Amazon.
26:54Amazon is the new great infrastructure,
26:58kind of like Intel was in the 80s and 90s,
right, building the base infrastructure.
27:03So I think that security,
that hasn't happened.
27:07There's no galvanizing way to think about
how to put all this stuff together.
27:12There's different point solutions.
27:13So that's a piece of work
that needs to be done.
27:16>> So while you were at Intel, you were
the head of Intel's diversity initiative.
27:21The company pledged $300
million to recruiting and
27:24retaining more minorities and
women within the company.
27:29Was that something you drifted to or
was that something you sought out?
27:34>> That is a great question.
27:35The answer is I did not drift to it,
it reported to me and I embraced
27:40it wholeheartedly at a point
in my career where I thought
27:46that by me lending myself to it,
it would make it more viable.
27:53Up until the point that I was
the president of the company,
27:55I would say they had to beg
me to do women's initiatives.
28:00I do, I think a bunch of women
talking to themselves about
28:04how things are does nothing.
28:07So I think one of the things
that was my big achievement,
28:10was to get a whole bunch of men involved.
28:12The he for she thing that's going on,
Intel has kind of the version of that.
28:17Which is internal, the men involved in
having group dialogue about diversity.
28:22And diversity is beyond women,
it's everyone
28:28and we weren't doing a good job with that.
28:30So I think we were able to do
a broader job in diversity.
28:34I was able to lend my
position authority to
28:39make it really get legs inside the company
and to some extent, outside the company.
28:43And so, I was excited and
passionate about that.
28:47I have a very strong sense of justice,
which is probably why I'm so
28:50attracted to the defense of cyber crime,
right?
28:56And I don't like that prior to this year,
29:00we would publish data that would say that
women didn't make as much as men now.
29:04That's been fixed, so
that's a fabulous accomplishment.
29:08We just released the data last week.
29:11But there's so much work to be done.
29:14I'm happy that we're having a dialogue,
I'm happy to see that there's a dialogue
29:17about it at Citi,
there's a dialog about it at Vodafone,
29:19there's a dialogue about it everywhere,
that's great.
29:22But it's a lot of work,
it's not done in one year.
29:27>> So, I'll give you another quote from,
this time, your mentor Andy Grove.
29:33He said, that kind of puts hair on
your chest, to do that and survive.
29:39As a woman in software, in a company
that's a manufacturing company,
29:43to do that, you have to have strength.
29:46As a woman at Intel,
what was it that put hair on your chest?
29:51>> [LAUGH]
>> I'm trying to decide where to
29:58many think whoop,
showing up for work everyday.
30:03When I started Intel,
which was a complete fluke.
30:08I was working at a startup,
that Intel acquired.
30:12And my family,
I grew up in Silicon Valley.
30:13My dad worked at HP.
30:15All my friend's parents worked at Intel.
30:17I was like, yeah I am so
not working at that old man company.
30:20It is not happening.
30:22But then Intel bought us and then I was
like 22 years old and I had no money and
30:27I wanted to get my master's.
30:28So I'm like I'm going to have
to work there for a while.
30:32And I went into it with no idea,
30:35like I didn't apply to Intel and
want to work for Intel and
30:39build semiconductors, and I had no idea
what the semiconductor industry was like.
30:45So I was blissfully naive for
about ten years.
30:47>> [LAUGH]
>> And then one day I got this review, and
30:51you know how employees aren't supposed to
talk about their pay with other employees,
30:56like that's against the rules at all
companies except they all do it, right?
31:01So then I found out that I made
way less than all the guys,
31:03and I'm like, wait a minute.
31:05Woah, wait a minute.
31:07So I went and asked my boss.
31:09He was a legendary guy who works in this
valley and I said, why am I being paid
31:14less, because I have the same amount of
experience and I've got a master's degree
31:17and they don't, and I manage more people
and my projects are really successful?
31:20And he's like, you probably make as
much money as you deserve to make.
31:25Holy shit, so what did I do?
31:27What do you do when that happens?
31:29You call your mother.
31:30So I called my mother and I said,
what do you think he's saying?
31:33She says, I think he's saying
31:34because you're a girl you
don't get to make as much.
31:36And I said, that sounds wrong,
my mother's like, it is, do something.
31:39You know my mother, my mother was the
first Santa Clara County sheriff, a woman.
31:42>> [LAUGH]
>> So I called her and
31:45my gun toting sheriff mother.
31:47>> [LAUGH]
>> And she says,
31:48this is an outcry,
you should cry AFLCIO and I'm like, God.
31:52[LAUGH] We're not unionized, Mom.
31:53>> [LAUGH]
>> So I go to HR and I say,
31:57this is typical Renee I said, I think
there is something wrong with the data and
32:01they are like, no there is,
we can't show you that data.
32:04I'm like, but you have to.
32:05You have to prove to me that I
make the same amount as the men.
32:08And see this was the beginning of
a journey where I fought the system.
32:15I fought the whole time,
32:17and I didn't realize I fought
the whole time till the day I quit.
32:21And I was sitting there, and
I was thinking to myself.
32:26because I fought
the system the whole time.
32:28A system that was resurrected in an old
model that Bryan and I, and I think
32:36Bryan's doing an outstanding job here
has revolutionized the culture of Intel.
32:40I was working so hard on that.
32:42And I give him a lot of credit for
that because that was really hard.
32:46But my God, 28 years ago can you imagine?
32:50And I was the only one.
32:52So then I got into this habit.
32:53This came out of this dumb review.
32:55Every meeting for like a decade I'd write
in the corner how the men to one ratio.
32:58So it'd be like 28 to one.
33:0125 to one, so this went on for a really
long time and so I think what really made
33:06me the person I am today is I fought for
equality from the day I got there.
33:10And every single year, HR be like,
God, here she comes again.
33:14I make them show me the data.
33:15And if anyone inked ahead of me and
they didn't get as good of a review as me,
33:20I laid down the law.
33:21>> [LAUGH]
>> [LAUGH] I'm, and
33:23I never got a promotion I did not ask for.
33:25>> Like mother, like daughter?
33:29>> Well, so
you mentioned Bryan in that comment, and
33:32you guys were touted when you came on,
you as president, he as CEO,
33:37management team as having
complementary skill sets.
33:41But that was a first for
Intel, the dual team.
33:45>> Well, as the first to appoint
the dual team together but
33:48it wasn't the first dual team.
33:51Appoint them.
>> Because, well, yeah, that's right.
33:53>> Yeah.
>> Because well,
33:54I want to correct that because Gordon and
Andy were a team for 17, 18 years.
33:59Andy was president and CEO and
Gordon was the CEO and chairman.
34:03And then Andy and
Craig were In the same set.
34:06Paul did not have a partner for eight
years, there was an eight year gap, and
34:10then they appointed both of us
at the same time which was.
34:14>> So
how'd the board come to that decision, and
34:16what are some of the advantages and
disadvantages of the co-leadership team.
34:24>> Well, I'm a fan of co-leadership.
34:26I still am, and even though I decided
I wanted to go lead on my own,
34:29I'm a fan of co-leadership.
34:31And I would have a co-leader.
34:35I think it works really well at Oracle,
it's working very well there.
34:38These jobs are too big for one person.
34:42When you have 200 plus thousand people,
I mean by city has a co-leadership.
34:46They have a CEO and they have a president.
34:49You just need someone to be doing
some of the other stuff, right?
34:52I mean, these are just big jobs.
34:54So I'm a fan of that.
34:57I think that when you have complementary
skills, that's fabulous, right, and I do.
35:04I think the complexity between Brian and
35:07I was that I have always been a strategist
and a market facing externally,
35:13doing partnerships,
building business, running PNLs.
35:18And Brian had been very
internally facing as COO, and
35:21we really were in role reversal.
35:24And I think that was one of
the more complex dynamics for
35:28us because Brian needed to learn how to
develop and lead a corporate strategy.
35:33And, that's an uncomfortable thing for
the CEO to have the president
35:37be more adept at that which is
the primary job of the CEO.
35:41I do think, to be fair to Brian,
he was extraordinarily,
35:48gracious and letting me settle out
of the strategy and do things.
35:51But a certain point in his tenure
he needs to run the company,
35:53he is the CEO and
that's the decision the board made.
35:56That was the point at which I said look,
this is your job Brian,
36:00you're the one who's going to die or
live on the decisions.
36:04If you want to go this direction go but
I don't agree.
36:07But you get to decide.
36:08You're CEO, so
I shouldn't work here anymore.
36:11And as painful as that conversation
was it was the right one and
36:14I think very adult, right?
36:17because he needed to set the strategy.
36:18It was time for him to do that and
36:20I that was the complexity of
our particular situation.
36:24Is that I was more skilled
to be a CEO in a second.
36:29>> Is that a conversation you wish you
had had earlier in your partnership?
36:34>> No, I actually think it went
exactly as it should of gone.
36:37Because I think at the point we were at,
Intel had been led by an external person.
36:42For the first time in history
the company would have hit sudden death.
36:45Company was a huge inflection, there was a
lot of unrest about what direction to do,
36:50we had to do a lot of changes that
aren't really apparent to you guys, but
36:55we had to do a lot of cultural
changes around comp and
36:58benefits and just a lot of stuff that
hadn't been dealt with for a while.
37:04So, I think the right thing for
the company was stability.
37:07I think the right thing for
the company was continuity.
37:12And Brian's brought a lot of change and
he's on his path with
37:17what he wants to do with IOT,
and I think that's fabulous.
37:22So I think we have time now for questions.
37:25We'll start with one question from Twitter
and then we'll head out to the audience.
37:28So please.
>> Twitter.
37:29>> Please be sure to raise your
hands if you have a question, and
37:32they'll find you up and down the aisles.
37:34>> So thank you both for
37:35wonderful insights and
great banter which I always a fan of.
37:38So the first question that comes
through is asking you know
37:41you've been in Silicone Valley
your whole life.
37:43If you could change one thing about it,
37:45be its culture, attitude, interest,
whatever what would it be?
37:50First of all I should say I love it here.
37:53There's not a lot I would
change except I would
37:58like it to be a little bit,
I'd like the diversity
38:04discussion to be more serious,
in the sense that we got more traction.
38:09It's one thing for big public companies to
do work on diversity, but the predominance
38:14of the employment around this valley
is not big, huge companies anymore.
38:18It's midcaps and entrepreneurial.
38:21People like to move around a lot, and
38:23I still think the diversity
issue plagues Silicone Valley.
38:27I cannot tell you how much
time I spent advising or
38:31spending time with really wonderful
companies still largely led and financed.
38:43>> Hi there, thanks so
much for taking my question.
38:46You mentioned briefly that you've never
received a promotion that you didn't
38:51Can you just elaborate on that a bit?
38:53>> Well, so this is fascinating and
it turns out, has been through,
38:59and I'm on a lot of
compensation committees, so
39:03in addition to Intel, right, and
see this over and over again.
39:08I am, as I admitted,
not the kind of big women's person.
39:13But I'm going to sound like I am
with these comments, but anyway.
39:17Women tend to not apply for jobs unless
they can hit every single criteria and
39:21they think they're perfect at it.
39:23So what happens is in interviews,
women will come in and
39:25they will tell us that 10% of
the things that they are not good at so
39:28therefore they're not good enough for
the job.
39:30Their male counterparts will come in and
they'll be 10% qualified of the job and
39:34they'll tell us all the reasons
we should hire them anyway.
39:37And this happens in every company
that I'm involved with and
39:40they're all big multinational companies.
39:43And so,
the same thing happens with promotions.
39:47I managed in a company of men,
I managed men.
39:51For 28 years, and some women, thankfully
but not that many, and they always ask for
39:56Every year at their review, you're not
going to get promoted every year, but
40:01every year I got asked for.
40:02And I never,
women never ask for promotion.
40:05Now I am an outlier,
I just behaved like my peers.
40:08All I did was behave like all
the guys that I worked with, and
40:11it worked out really great, but I don't
know what that is, it's a cultural thing.
40:17We see it everywhere,
it's in all of the diversity data.
40:20If you read anything online,
it'll tell you about this phenomena.
40:24So, I think one of the things you just
have to get comfortable with is that
40:28people ask to be promoted.
40:30They do, and then asking to be
promoted you get an idea about
40:34what their aspirations are, and you tell
them what they need to do to be promoted,
40:37and then if they actually do it, you're
better off as a leader in a company,
40:40because you got a whole bunch of output
and then you get to promote them.
40:44You don't get that same dialog usually so,
40:47I think that's the thing
that I always did.
40:49I'm sure I was super annoying.
40:52I'm really sure I was, but
>> Thank you Rene for taking my question.
40:57I would like to thank
you because I work for
40:59Soft Resolutions Group at
Intel under your leadership.
41:02>> Thank you.
>> I came through the diversity
41:05that I just loved Intel,
so thank you so much.
41:08My question is how many more decades
would the Moore's law still be true,
41:14how fast do you think it?
41:16>> Moore's law is well alive and
well and as I no longer work at Intel,
41:21I'm not in a position to comment
beyond that, but I will say that it
41:25is absolutely fine, that is the least
of the worries of things that.
41:29>> Not everyone know what Moore's law is.
41:30>> So, Moore's law is the ability
to create more performance
41:36every couple of years more in a,
in a smaller transistor package and, and
41:40or in a denser lithography, so
41:43people talk about going 28 nanometers
to 10 nanometers or this or that,
41:50it's very technical and exciting but the
fact is what it's done is it's allowed us
41:55to sequence the human genome
in a few days versus a year.
42:01And it's allowed us to
find unique treatments for
42:05cancer at the Knight Cancer Institute
in Oregon.
42:08As a result of being able
to build basically what it,
42:12ten years ago would have been a room full
of super computers on a single chip and
42:16that's the benefit of Moore's Law and
42:19it's what fuels the entire you know
kind of digital economy including
42:24self driving cars which require
massive amounts of compute power and
42:31some of the bigger breakthroughs, I mean
even in cyber and personal identity and
42:35there's a lot about algorithmic profiling,
so a lot of that requires just tremendous
42:39amount to compute that we
didn't have available to us and
42:42the Moore's Law has delivered that to us
in the last decade and will continue.
42:47And that's why I say Intel has been a
fundamental infrastructure company, right?
42:51because what they're doing is building
kind of the blocks upon which
42:56Tesla will make a self-driving car,
or Google, or whomever.
43:03>> Hello Rene,
as a former Intel employee working at LTD.
43:07Thanks for-
>> Look at all these adult people.
43:08>> [LAUGH] Yeah, all these people.
43:11My question will be but
culture I see there in
43:15Oregon the Logic Technology
Development Department for
43:20a few years and
I found this hardware culture.
43:24You know about chip manufacturing
we value creativity but
43:29at same time we value more or
at least equally disciplined in execution.
43:34Do you find that culture is somehow,
separated from this
43:41more of a software culture like Google,
Facebook, Uber,
43:46we totally evaluate person our
individual individual creativity.
43:52Do you find that art is part
of Intel's current situation?
44:00>> So, I don't think that any company that
gets to the scale of Google doesn't value
44:05discipline in execution.
44:07I think, at a certain point in
the life cycle of any company,
44:11you get to the point where it doesn't
matter what you're doing, discipline and
44:15execution is critical to the results.
44:17And so, I think Intel is not unique,
I mean if you were building
44:23car batteries, you'd be in the same
situation as semiconductors, right?
44:27Very similar technology,
and that discipline and
44:30execution comes from health and safety.
44:33I find a very similar culture
discipline execution over content
44:37excitement about new innovation,
I'd say Vodafone.
44:42Because health and safety kind of
overrules sometimes innovation.
44:49So you get excited about something but
it might inject some kind of risk in to
44:53the health and safety, so when you build
things that people die building, right?
44:57Which when you are putting
up a mobile tower,
44:59people fall off them unfortunately or
they electrocute themselves.
45:04So when you're in that kind of a business,
health and safety tends to
45:08put a process regime or if you're in
a highly regulated business like the bank.
45:13It puts a process regime over innovation
and I think that's a difficulty and
45:18I think as a leader you have to
actually create a avenue for
45:23innovation, that's why you see so many
big companies creating these innovations.
45:27And you kind of wonder like if innovation
on this side doesn't really help, so
45:33You have to be able to have a process
where the innovation occurs and
45:35you pull it back in, right?,
45:39because this companies you get to
certain point and you just have process.
45:45It's unfortunate, that is part of scale.
45:51Thanks for joining us.
45:52You spoke about the importance of
having good mentors in your career.
45:57For many of us, we'll be going out to
the real world, again, and then hopefully-
46:01>> I'll be with you.
46:03[LAUGH]
>> Yes, so I'd like to hear from you,
46:06best practices on finding
those good mentors and
46:10setting the stage such that
they want to invest in you.
46:14>> I think a mentorship
is a two-way street.
46:17So, I think finding a great mentor
isn't so much about finding the person,
46:20it's also what can you add
to that person as well.
46:25And so, for a great mentor,
or I'll give you an example.
46:29One of the people that is
in my Little Mentor circle
46:34is this wonderful guy who works at Google,
but he is bidirectional mentorship right?
46:40Like he's like you're I am
like LinkedIn seriously?
46:45Like I have a LinkedIn site.
46:46He's like your LinkedIn
sucks I'm redoing it.
46:49So I mean so it's like bidirectional, I'm
coaching him about you know from a career
46:53evolution perspective and
he's moving into management.
46:55He's never been a big manager,
that kind of thing.
46:58So I think it has to be bidirectional,
so you have to find someone that
47:01you not only can advise you, but
that you can actually help them either by
47:05bringing them forward in technology or
your interests or whatever.
47:08When they're not bi directional,
they're a bummer and it's really hard.
47:11Like the person never wants
to get time with you,
47:15you'll find they're like busy always and
it's like a burden, right?
47:18Like they want to say yes to you but
47:20it's like what are they getting out of it,
kind of thing.
47:24So also, if you're an entrepreneur, a lot
of people who may mentor you, sometimes
47:27would invest with you and then it get very
involve in helping you be successful.
47:32>> Well I'm going to
take the last question.
47:37>> And it has to do with your MBA.
47:41Sheryl Sandberg recently
put out an article
47:44saying that MBAs are not really
needed in the tech industry.
47:49I promise we will not take offense,
but do you agree?
47:53>> Okay, tell us why?
47:54>> [LAUGH]
>> Well, not because I have one I mean, or
47:57that I love to go to the MBA
program here that I beg just for
48:00them to put the program together for
Intel people or that.
48:04I think, that education in general and
I think this undergraduate and
48:10graduate Teaches you not only
frameworks but tools to think.
48:17And I think the MBA gives
you an opportunity for
48:21having had some experience in the world,
right?
48:24And being out there, to then come back and
get frameworks and, I talk
48:30a lot about pattern recognition, because
leadership is about pattern recognition.
48:34It's about seeing multiple
patterns occurring,
48:37understanding what that
competitive move might be, or
48:40recognizing that you've seen this
before and what happened the last time.
48:43And only through, I think,
48:45you know, understanding the frameworks
of competitive strategy,
48:49you know, economics, those kinds
of things, you need to know that.
48:53And by the way, CEOs should be able
to read a freaking balance sheet and
48:57an income statement and
know the difference.
48:59And if they can't, that's a problem.
49:02And there are those that the first time
they ever have to deal with corporate
49:05finances when they become the CEO,
and you're like, really?
49:09because now it's complicated,
because the world is flat.
49:11And you have to deal with FX, and
you have to deal with hedging.
49:15And you might be like,
what are you talking about Renee?
49:17I'm going to run like a 100 million dollar
company, or a 10 million dollar company.
49:20Yeah, good luck with that.
49:21I mean, the economy, you're going to
sell to people all over the world.
49:25Guess what?
You're going to have to deal
49:26because you have to deal with the tax
issues when you sell in all these places.
49:29An online tax, that's super complicated.
49:31How about safe harbor?
49:33So this is the stuff you learn
when you're in an MBA program.
49:36You learn about the kind of
environment of doing business and
49:42then you have contacts and
even if you don't know something,
49:46you know, I should probably call
a lawyer about that, you know, right?
49:50Or how to set up an entity
in a foreign place.
49:53So, I don't agree with that.
49:55I think we need, we have a whole
generation right now of super smart people
50:00who are at 10 year mark in their career,
10 to 12 year mark in their career,
50:05who want to be leaders, who have
absolutely no skills to be leaders.
50:11They should all come in the MBA program,
because they don't know anything.
50:14They all grow up in unicorns,
and they make tons of money, and
50:16they are like,
well I've done these like 5,000 projects.
50:19And you're like, that's great, but
you know nothing about all this other
50:22stuff because, see, the problem is,
once you get out of running a project or
50:26being in engineering or being in sales or
being in marketing, you have to actually
50:30then just do the boring stuff,
which is running the corporation.
50:33And that stuff is like a whole different
level of stuff, it's not that other stuff.
50:38It's the, gee, I wish people
wouldn't sue me for anti-trust.
50:42>> [LAUGH]
>> Well it'd be good if you actually knew
50:45what anti-trust law was, right?
50:46So [LAUGH] and I taught it,
just at another business school,
50:49where some students didn't understand that
some of the things they were proposing
50:54were against the law.
50:56And then you learn that, right?
50:58You're in a business school class and
they say,
50:59that's great, except that there's
an anti-trust law against that, right?
51:02You can't combine with those people.
51:04So, Cheryl and I,
I guess we'll have to disagree on that.
51:07>> [LAUGH]
>> [LAUGH]
51:08>> If everyone would join me in thanking
51:11>> [APPLAUSE]
>> Thank you.
51:13>> [APPLAUSE]
>> Thanks.
![Welp, Here's what the Fed *Just* Said [Fed FOMC Minutes]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Fl8u23oq1E9E%2Fhqdefault.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
