David well, people would not recognize if my tie was fixed. But ok. Leave it this way. I do not consider myself a journalist. And nobody else would consider myself a journalist. I began to take on the life of being an interviewer, even though i have a day job of running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tick . We are here today with his excellency, yasir alrumayyan, who is both the chairman of saudi aramco and also the head of the pif, the saudi sovereign wealth fund. So you have both jobs. How do you allocate your time between running the sovereign wealth fund, pif, and being the chair of saudi aramco . Doesnt that taking 80 or 100 hours a week to do . Yasir pif is an executive role. While the aramco is a chairmanship, i do not have executive chairmanship role. In aramco, i focus on four things. Basically, the strategy, the targets, the annual targets that we have. Monitoring of the performance. And managing the actual board. While in pif, i am the governor there. Although, im a board member. But my role is different. It is an executive role. And i am there every day, for a number of hours, looking after our investment opportunities. I am looking after our portfolio companies. David in august 2015, you became the head of pif. What size was pif then, in terms of assets and management . Was totally different from what it is today. In 2015, the board was changed. It became chaired by the crown prince, Prince Mohammed bin salman. So we changed the strategy. The assets and management then was Something Like 150 billion. Today, it is more than 330 billion, 325 billion. David you said the crown prince appointed you to the position. How well did you know the crown prince before he appointed you . Did he know you well . Yasir actually, i did not know him at all. I heard of him. No. I heard of him. I received a call. Before i took the post, i was the ceo of saudi forensic capital, and that one, i turned around this company from a losing company to one of the most Profitable Companies in saudi arabia. And the middle east in Investment Banking. At one stage, we had 41 of all Investment Banking activities. So i think the crown prince heard of me and i got the call. David you got a call to meet with him . Yasir yes. David was it like an interview . He said, guess what, we picked you, and you have to leave your job . Yasir i thought it would be an interview, but it was like, here is what i want you to do. 1, 2, 3, 4 these kind of things. Even when i said when he told me, when can you start . I said maybe three months. They said, no, its one month, and you will do it. And then next week, i got a call saying you have to come in immediately. David so what did you tell your family . You got a new job . Something like that . Yasir you see, we are all very proud to be saudis and to participate in the changes, the positive changes that the country is living and doing right now. My wife and my kids, my kids who were younger then, they all felt maybe this is the right thing to do. David you have said, i think publicly, you would like it to be the Largest Sovereign Wealth Fund in the world, and you would like to get it to 1 trillion. Yasir 2 trillion. David 2 trillion. When do you think you will get to 2 trillion . Yasir the number looks big. The Largest Sovereign Wealth Fund now, today, it is about 1 trillion. We think that it is very much achievable by 2030. I will tell you where the growth will be coming from. Number one is the performance. We are doing extremely good performance. Number two is the assets that we are getting from the government, like Different Companies we have also become a land bank for the government. Number three, cash injections we are getting from the government, and we have been getting some. And number four is the recycling of our profits. David all those Different Things require a big staff to manage. How big is the pif staff today . Yasir when we started, it was 40 people. Today, we are more than 700. By yearend, our target is to have more than 1,000 fulltime employees in pif. David and they will all be in saudi arabia . Yasir the bulk of them will be in saudi, but now we are opening up in the financial capitals of the world. So, hopefully in the second half of this year, we will have our first office is going to be in new york. And potentially london, also, will be in the second half. We are also considering some in asia, so most likely we will have an office either in china or hong kong or potentially even singapore. David some sovereign wealth funds say their goal is to get the highest rate of return, whatever they can do legally to the highest rate of return, invest in the country, invest out of the country. Is your mission to get the highest rate of return, or do you want certain goals like improving Energy Diversification in the kingdom or getting people to invest some money in the kingdom . What is your principal goal . Yasir believe it or not, it is all of the above. We need to have higher returns, economic impact, positive economic impact, changes in the diversity, improving the diversity of revenues, also being one of the you know, the engine of Economic Growth in saudi. Even we are looking to renewables and how we lower the emission and all of these things. David as i understand, the principal goal of the crown prince is to make the kingdom less dependent on oil . Yasir absolutely. David so right now, i assume a very large part of your budget comes from oil. Yasir yes, it is. David you would like to get it below 50 . Or some number you have . Yasir currently, it is like 70 . The nonoil revenue increased tremendously in the last three years or so. So eventually, we want to be less dependent on oil, the reason being the volatility in oil prices. And the last thing you want to have is a volatile economy, right . So the more nonoil revenue you have in the economy, the better sustainable and less volatile economy you have. David one of the very visible investments you made early on in your tenure was a 3. 5 billion investment in uber. Yasir yes. David and you are on the uber board . Yasir yes. David how does a deal like that, about . Did the uber call you up . Or did you say i think this is a Good Opportunity . How did that deal come about . Yasir it came from an app that i used, uber, and it was an amazing app. And i liked the service. It was an amazing disruptor. They came in, provided Better Service for the same customers for lesser prices. So it is just an Amazing Company and an amazing formula. There was one of the uber executives visiting the country, and he was visiting me for something else. And i knew about uber and asked him all about it. And he said, yes, we are considering a capital raise. I asked to look into it. Loved it. Went through the whole governance structure that we had, and we have lairs and lairs of investment diligence and what have you. And we came to our Investment Community and then to the board, and they all loved it. David so do you use uber yourself when you are in the United States or in the kingdom . Yasir i usually use it, yes, a lot. David they must know who you are when you show up. [laughter] yasir maybe they do. David i think so. Another very visible investment that you made was a very large investment, i think about 45 billion into the socalled first vision fund. So what brought that about, and are you happy with that investment . Yasir the alignment of the thinking that is what brought it. I remember sitting down with the crown prince, trying to strategize what exactly would be like to be invested in. Of course, it is the future. So we said artificial intelligence, robotics, internet of things. So these were the main things that we would like to be in. Remember, 70 of our population is under the age of 30. So we need to have something sustainable for them and for longerterm. And when i met with masasan for the first time, he was talking about the exact same things that we were looking for. So the alignment of the thinking is what drove us to have us make a party ship with softbank. David so today you are happy with the investment . Yasir it is so far, after 2. 5 years, about 9. 5 billion. That is fine. David so after you made a 45 billion commitment, did you have people saying what about 45 billion for me . Yasir not a lot of people came in with a 45 billion proposition, but we have access to everyone. David you are the chairman of saudi aramco, which is the largest publicly traded company in the world, also the Largest Oil Company in the world. Is that right . Yasir absolutely. It is the Largest Company from different levels, market cap, the profit that we are generating is second to none. David let me ask you about another job you have. You are the chairman of saudi aramco, which is the largest publicly traded company in the world, also the Largest Oil Company in the world. Is that right . Yasir absolutely. It is the Largest Company from different levels, market cap, the profits that we are generating is second to none. And the ipo we had was the largest ipo in the world. David so you went public not too long ago, if i recall, or roughly 1. 8 trillion. Yasir the valuation was 1. 7 trillion, and went above 2 trillion for a couple of weeks, and now is about 1. 8 trillion. David so no company is as valuable as that company. Yasir none. David it is traded on the local Stock Exchange in saudi arabia. Have you thought about listing it in london, new york, or tokyo . Yasir remember, we only offered 2 of the company. So 98 of the company is owned by the shareholder, which is the government of saudi arabia. Our program is to have a multiple number of listings over the years. So we are looking into it, to have more offerings, and these offerings could continue to be in saudi. And if we have any good Stock Exchange that we think can bring value and investors to us, we will definitely consider it. David now, Many Organizations say they want to be Carbon Neutral by a certain period of time, because carbon contributes to Global Climate change. What is a position in saudi arabia . Do you want to be Carbon Neutral by a certain period of time . Yasir saudi aramco has been working on their mission for decades. So we have one of the largest, if not the largest, production, but at the same time we have, as a country and as a company, one of the lowest emissions for a good reason. We started early on to have more efficiency. We have been working in aramco for the past 40 years or 80 years. The concession we have from the government today is about 60 years. Unlike most of the other oil and Gas Companies their concessions are between 5 years and 10 years. Whenever we go to a well, we want to make sure this well is big enough to produce more, and at the same time, our depletion rates of these wells is very small. So some of the wells that we have 86 years ago or 84 years ago are still uptodate operations. However, having said that, oil is very much important. It is the cheapest fossil fuel, generally, it is the Cheapest Energy source. Today, you have over 1 billion people in the world who do not have access to electricity. So you have to catch up for those people. And that is why we think we should be more efficient, but, at the same time, we should not get who we are and what we do. David historically, saudi arabia was the biggest producer of oil in the world. Now i think maybe the United States may be or maybe russia is bigger. But saudi arabia could produce more oil given the reserves you have, but you are comfortable with the level you are producing. Is it about 9 billion barrels a day or 10 billion barrels a day . Yasir about 10 billion barrels a day. David it is often said in the oil world that saudi has the lowest or cheapest lifting cost, meaning you can extract oil more cheaply than anyone else because it is closer to the surface or Something Like that. Is that accurate . Yasir it is true. It is less than 3 or 4 while other companies cost between 20 and 50. David in terms of saudi aramco, what are the Biggest Challenges . In terms of ipo and things like that . Yasir i have been with aramco for the past five years. Then i was part of the ipo committee. And things were not going as i thought they should be going, so i had a number of discussions with the committee members, and i told them we have to do it this way. And i have the same discussions with the government and the crown prince. And after a while, i was appointed as the chairman of that committee, the ipo committee. That was last summer. So we said we have to get the ipo done before the end of 2019. We got it done. That was a huge challenge. The valuation was amazing. The demand that we got was really great, almost five times the offer price. So that was the initial challenge. David what would you like people to know about saudi arabia . Yasir saudi arabia is progressing every day, and the progress that we are witnessing is amazing. Welcome to riyadh. Welcome to the future Investment Initiative 2019. David in recent years, you have instituted a conference in riyadh, which is an annual event not unlike davos or the milken conference where it is a gathering of the elites of the investment world, and they come to the conference that you sponsor. Why do you do that conference . Are you going to continue to do that . Yasir we will definitely continue to do it. In fact, now, the conference has transformed into an institution. So now it is the fii institution. And we have done it for the third year in a row, and we will continue doing it every year. David now the crown prince announced a project i assume you are investing in, which is to build a new city. Yasir yes. David is that something you are involved with as well, or people you invest with are involved with . Yasir it is part of pifs portfolio companies. We have six pools of investments. One of these is the giga project. We have another three giga projects, the red sea and neom and amaala, in addition to the other pool of the real estate and infrastructure. David people who have never been to saudi arabia, you would say that what they should know about saudi arabia that they might not know is what . That it is different than what they might think . The image of saudi arabia may be different from what they might think . What would you like people to know about saudi arabia . Yasir saudi arabia is progressing every day. The progress that we are witnessing is amazing. We are opening up tourism. The tourism sites in saudi arabia it is like one of the best in the world. My last vacation with the family, we were debating between skiing or doing something else, and we ended up in alula during the holidays, and it was an amazing location. David when you are the head of the family, and you want to go a certain place, you say i am the head of saudi aramco and pif, and this is where we go, or does the children get the vote . Yasir that does not work with my wife and children. [laughter] david saudi arabia is a kingdom, there is a king and the crown prince and the royal family, just as in other countries is saudi arabia governed differently from other countries in the gulf . Yasir if you look at the middle east, and the world, actually, we have the same system since the 1930s, when the third saudi kingdom came into existence. The good thing about the regime we have in saudi, it is progressing and developing over the years. The latest reforms that we have are really good. They started in the economic and social, and now its going to the security and political reform. So it is the same system that has been there for the past 89 years. David so today, if you were looking at the future of saudi arabia, you would like it to be much less dependent on oil in 20 or 30 years than it is today, i assume. Is that right . Yasir yes. David and your other goals are to make saudi arabia, for citizens, is to make it more comparable to western countries in terms of the Business Community . Diversifying . Yasir we are opening up saudi. Absolutely. We are opening up the saudi economy, and saudi is open for business. David you are the chairman of saudi aramco, that must take some time. Yasir yes. David and you are the chief executive of the pif. That must take some time. But you must have time for some of your other hobbies, golf. You are the chairman of the yasir saudi golf federation. David are there a lot of golf courses in saudi arabia . Yasir not yet. We have, like, four or five of them, the grass golf courses. But, historically speaking, aramco had, i do not know, maybe 14 to 20 desert golf courses. Actually, golf started in the kingdom long ago, in the 1930s, when aramco started and most of the American Engineers who came in, they started playing golf, and it was just in the desert. David i assume that sand traps were big. You do not have to get sand out for the traps. [laughter] yasir i am really good at bunkers. I can get the ball out. David you are a 12 handicap golfer . Yasir yes. David are you going to get the scratch . [laughter] yasir i do not think i have the time to do it. David but you played in major tournaments . Yasir we had the second Saudi International tournament, which is part of the european pga tour. Last year, we had four out of the top five players in the world. This year, we had, also, three out of the top five players in the world. Next month, we will have the first ladies European Tour in march in jeddah, and it will be an amazing experience for us. David if you are the head chairman of saudi aramco and pif, if you have a putt three feet or four feet, do they actually give it to you . Or do they make you putt it out . [laughter] yasir no comment. David from my standpoint, you are a teenager, presumably young, more energy than i have. Are you happy with these jobs and will you do it for the foreseeable future . Youre not going to say, im out of here, in a year or two or five. You love what you are doing, presumably . Yasir i am so excited about this job. The good thing about it is the impact that you are creating. And the impact that we are creating not only in saudi arabia but in the region and in the whole world. David ultimately, you built a development that became the Biggest Development in new york at that time, which is a timewarner development. Stephen i was motivated. Like most people, you want to do something impactful in life. David you decided to build something even bigger, which became the biggest Real Estate Development in the history of our country, hudson yards. Stephen hudson yards, by building a liveworkplay environment in the middle of new york, you know, there was a real need for it. David how come your team is not in the super bowl . [laughter] stephen that is a good question. Hey, you know. Will you fix your tie, please . David people wouldnt recognize me if my tie was fixed, but ok. Just leave it this way