Thank you so much for speaking to bloomberg. Joe sure. Francine can you tell us a little bit about that first day you started at siemens . Joe its been a while, obviously, but i remember i was coming into siemens and i thought, oh, my god, they have abbreviations for everything. And i was thinking to myself, i dont know nothing anymore about what i studied. So it was quite an experience. Francine did you remember going into it, what did you think . Did you think this is a company i really want to work for for a long time . Joe i had multiple opportunities. I was interviewing a different places, but then i thought siemens at that time was still in the semiconductor business, the electronic business. I thought this is really cool. They were just about to develop this one megabit chip. One magabit, now we are at gigachips. So it felt pretty cool. So i said, yeah, siemens. That is where i want to be. Francine how has the Company Changed . Joe its like day and night, really is. I was coming into a manufacturing environment, it was about production and process and cost efficiency, and there was a very technologically focused company. Not so much about markets and customers. It was more inside out than outside in. A lot has changed i have to say. Really, a lot. Francine what was your favorite day . Joe there are many favorite days. Whenever my team comes up great and celebrates some big success. Because this is the best thing that can happen to you. You have a successful team, people who are happy, who appreciate what they do and they share the reward. Francine how do you measure success . Joe there are several ways to measure success. The first one obviously is that you promise something and you make good on what you say you would do. That is about accountability, it is kind of like the ground floor. The icing on the cake about success is what people talk about you to different people. I think that in the end is what really matters, because that is how you will be remembered over time. Whether you make the numbers or not, or your guidance good or bad or Something Else at the time, but then after a generation people say, hey, that guy, he made some mistakes, but actually he left us a Better Company behind. Francine talk to me about innovation. What will siemens look like in 170 years . I know its almost impossible, but how much do you have to innovate and how much do you have to stay close to your roots . Joe there will be in the next 170 years, the change will be about 170 times likely to accelerate products and solutions and what we sell will likely become more intangible. There will be much more integration necessary to put more bits and pieces and products together with platforms and solutions. So i hope the world will have become a much, much better world than we have today. Francine few companies have gone through as many technological and industrial revolutions as siemens, but rather than just survive them, it has helped lead them with the advent of electricity to wireless communications. But now now siemens is investing billions in making sure its future is digital. From giant gas turbines in asia that use Artificial Intelligence to reduce emissions, to train carriages in the u. S. That harness big data to find problems before they occur. Are you concerned or worried about the pace of change . If you look at the last 10 years, innovation has gone so fast that you cant possibly do that over 170 years. Joe well, thats probably what people thought 170 years ago also. People are just naturally concerned about the future, because the future is uncertain. So the question really is what concerns us in innovation, not so much the innovation. Not so much what technology can do because all those three industrial revolutions, which we have had so far, have made this a better planet, made this society a better society. We created wealth and imparted peace. That is the positive. But what is radically going to change is the speed of this change going forward. The Human Society may as well not be able to deal with that sort of speed. What i am really concerned about is if you dont make this Fourth Industrial Revolution inclusive to society, it may as well face a lot of challenges by unrest, by divided populations. A divided population leads to obviously populism, populism leads to nationalism, all the way down to where we used to be 100 years ago. Francine do you think there will be more problems to provide solutions for because of the rate of change . Joe the Fourth Industrial Revolution with the internet of things or whatever you call it, people believe it is only software, only a virtual type of things, high, sophisticated, invisible somewhere in clouds. The cloud. Terrible, terrible word. Thats not quite true. There will always be hard drives, there will always be trucks, something to drink, to eat. There will always be cars. Hardware, tangible things. Francine are people confusing innovation with globalization . Joe thats a good question, actually, honestly. Maybe. With the speed of technology, what they feel is that they believe the root cause is globalization, but it actually isnt, its the other way around. Technology actually makes it possible to have a Global Network together. That we have our smartphones. That we are always on at any point in time, no matter where we are, we can talk to almost anyone on the planet, realtime. So that connectivity is actually a benefit, and that is globalization as we speak. So we like it. If you are negatively affected by innovation or globalization, then we dont like it. That is what we need to do going forward. Francine it was pretty controversial when you went to see Vladimir Putin a couple of years ago. Are you ever concerned about being controversial . Joe dear customers, dear business partners, ladies and gentlemen. Over the past few days there has been a great deal of Media Coverage about siemens, about personnel, about the crisis, and other nonrelated business matters. That this is not siemens, and that is not what this stands for. Nor is it what we should be. Francine joe kaeser made the statement days after taking over as chief executive of siemens, after his colleague had been removed. It said a lot about his appeal as a leader, providing clarity during confusion, and stability in unrest. He spent the last four years trying to simplify the complex structure of the company. You have overhauled siemens. Are you pretty happy in the structure now, with where it is . Joe i am happy. Im happy with what i see in terms of how our people get into it, how they take ownership, literally, in what we do. That they take it on and say it is my company, my responsibility, its my job, which i own, so i am responsible. It takes a lot of confidence to give them the freedom to act. Francine do you think investors ever get confused, because you are such a big conglomerate . Joe they only get confused if i try to explain it in too much detail. [laughter] joe then i always know i better shut up, because i just went too deep. Dont confuse them with the details. Just tell them the way they want to be as the commitment and then deliver it over time, and they will be ok. Francine so what exactly drives you . Joe at the end of the day, business is there for society. A business which does not create value for society should not exist. You need to be more inclusive in society as leaders, and you cannot afford to further divide society into the haves and the havenots. Francine you seem to have very strong ideals. Is that also what you empower your employees through stock . Joe we call it ownership culture. There are two aspects to that. First of all, if youre a family business. Imagine you own a business. No matter what size it is, its your business, your personal business. It may be a Different Company from your parents. What is your natural desire . Your natural desire is very likely that you want to use that business for your children in a better shape. Very natural desire. There are exceptions, but this is probably what the natural desire is. So inherently, you build in a sustainable, element of longtermism. The second element of ownership culture, more importantly, i own the company. I am longterm oriented. I do the best because it is my company. No matter who you are, what you do, just always act as if it is your own company and you will be fine. And even in meeting rooms, we sat around the table and say, hey, what do you do with this company . They put so much pressure on a meaningful debate. Francine it focuses the mind. Joe yeah, because if someone says, i will do it anyway really . Is that what you want . It gives it a holy dynamic. Its pretty cool. Francine so does that mean you worry about shorttermism . In business overall, or more in america than everywhere else . Joe its only a matter of time. Many things are being invented and cultivated in america and they come over to other places. Francine how do we change that . You changed it, you are trying to change it from within the company. Joe that is a very good question. Very good question. You need to be successful in the short term, yet not lose in the longterm. This is the balance you need to strike. Its that simple. In essence you need to keep the difference between the shortterm aspect and the longterm aspect. You just need to keep the distance very close. Because the wider it gets, the more active it is to say hey, this is the performance cap i want now. Francine it was pretty controversial when you went to see Vladimir Putin a couple of years ago. Are you ever concerned about being controversial . Joe the intent was not to be controversial. Francine in march 2014, joe kaeser met with Vladimir Putin at his residence outside moscow. It was days after russia had annexed crimea and just as the west was launching its own showdown. President obama together, we have condemned russias invasion of ukraine and rejected the legitimacy of the crimean referendum. Joe the outcome was complicated, to put it positively. Because first of all, i didnt know that president obama and the european leaders at the same time i was meeting the president , i had just had a press conference in brussels about sanctions, since the american president didnt bother telling us about these appointments. It was unfortunate timing. Then later i gave an interview in german media, and i was asked, how the hell could you even go to see this person . [speaking german] joe [speaking german] joe i said, it is good to talk to each other and not about each other. I was committed to help these people. Yeah, but it was crimea, and it was territorial integrity matters, i said of course it matters. Honestly, given what we have been through with the russian people in two world wars, this is kind of a temporary issue. What happened was, and you know this will, but was in the news in the media was not about the two world wars. Crimea is maybe not as material. Obviously, if you only read this, you say what the hell is going on with that person saying such crap . So that was a bit unfortunate, but i said i made a commitment to the people to industrialize the country. That was the intent. The outcome was learning for me to be mindful of the broader aspect of responsibility. But i still do believe that talking to each other in any sort of crisis is more important than talking about each other. Thats never helped anybody in the world. Francine does making America Great again necessarily mean the rest of the world becomes worse . President trump chancellor, thank you very much. Such a great honor to get to know you, to be with you. I want to thank all the Business Leaders who have joined us. Francine siemens chief executive joe kaeser was one of those Business Leaders in Angela Merkels delegation to the white house in march. Siemens employs 50,000 people in america, and is one of its biggest foreign investors. But the visit came against the backdrop of uncertainty, after the new president had been less than complimentary about german trade. What do you think will come out of the Trump Administration . Joe i think the jury is out on this one, obviously, because we hardly made the beginning of the first year, it could all the way be up to eight years. I honestly do believe he is trying to do the right thing for his country. The style is different as to what we have been used to in the past. And i think that the europeans are also well advised to look into what matters to them and what doesnt. And if he has these issues with any sort of russian collusion or any other things, you need to deal with it. Its his business. Its the United States business. The other topic is about global trade, and how do we interact together in a modern world of manufacturing and specializing on certain tasks in the global world. That one matters, i believe, to europe, especially to germany, with all this trade deficit and people underestimate the desire of the customers. Francine which is what . Joe the desire of the customer is to buy what they like to have. Every customer is not a consumer, and every consumer is not every voter. So we had better be mindful about what peoples desires are. No one forces our goods and products to any american customers. They want to buy it because they believe its good. So in the end, global competitiveness, we believe, is about innovation and it is also about a fair sort of dealing with it. So i guess that is where we need to sort out a few misunderstandings on that front. How global trade actually starts and how it develops. And then we will find a way to make it work. Francine does making America Great again necessarily mean the rest of the world becomes worse . Joe i think thats the point. President trump millions of hardworking u. S. Citizens have been left behind by international commerce, and together we can shape the future where all of our citizens have a path to financial security. Joe he is the president , and you respect the office, but america is great. Its a pretty darn great country. Its the leading economy in terms of next generation manufacturing even, you know . The googles and microsofts of the world are global leaders. Dow chemical, among others. The Car Manufacturers have been catching up pretty well, from a devastating situation a few years ago. So this is a great country by any means, and obviously the greatest of it has always been that it was a free country. There is nothing wrong with America First. The thing that would be wrong is if we go from America First to america only. That will be complicated, because there are still 7. 2 billion people around the 300 million in this greatest country. Thats i guess where we have a bit of confusion. Not everyone has understood you what is really meant. Francine is europe great . Joe it has its challenges, because there is no fiscal union, there is nothing that holds them together from a policy standpoint. At least not much. But i believe europe has seen the worst in terms of being pulled into different directions. It seems the sentiment is more integrating. Francine so you dont think we can come back, that we dont somehow forget the concerns of populism, and that it comes back uglier in five years . Joe i am very encouraged that when people saw this is not going my way, this right wing populism, that people stood up and went to vote. There were more people going to elections to vote than there used to be in the past. So, this was what was the most encouraging topic to me, that people said, hey, we are the people. Now its time to take that into our hands because things seem to be going wrong. Thats quite positive honestly. Francine how do you see china . Joe oh, china. The chinese way is typically sit down and smile. Francine and behind closed doors . Joe and look what happens. Today, with the western world, having not yet fully straightened out what we mean by what we say. Kind of. China says, hey, if there is no western lead anymore on global trade and things like that, then why dont we do this job for them . Because we have 1. 3 billion people, so we are more than europe and the United States together anyways. So why bother . Just a couple months ago, i was at the one belt, one road summit and president xi was the keynote speaker. It was his summit. He said were going to build the old silk road. 65 nations signed up, 100 state leaders there. So there might be more than the 65, but they are going to bring about 200 billion in financing to build this. He said, you know, the silk road in ancient times has brought peace and trade and all that good stuff, so why not build it again . Well, if you take this one step further, think about it. 65 to 100 nations in the western world doesnt exactly know how to deal with global trade and things like that, what fair trade is all about. They are going to be, this one belt, one road, it might as well be the new wto. Francine its such a big economy. They are trying to move a supertanker, right . Are we going to see a bump as china tries to become a more consumption led economy . Joe well, i think china is not exactly a Democratic State under western standards in a way so the government is very clear to direct it and where we are going. There is very little multiple opinions about what could be done or what should be done and things like that. They are very effective in what they do. Francine so they have a good handle on it . Joe they have a very clear direction and execution forces is strong. Im not saying if it is good and bad, because there are human rights, this and that, challenges associated with that but so far they have been very effective in doing what they said they would do. Francine joe kaeser, thank you so much. Joe my pleasure. Emily he was tapped to be heir to the softbank empire. Nikesh arora was raised the son of an Indian Air Force officer then came to the u. S. For grad school. In 2004, he got the job of a lifetime. Larry page and sergey brin hired arora to help build google into an online ad powerhouse, making him one of the most sought after tech execs in the world. A decade later, he was named softbank president with a plan to eventually make him ceo. But as sons retirement approached, arora said it became