Decades, ive been an investor. The highest calling of mankind, ive often thought, was private equity. [laughter] and then i started interviewing. I watched your interviews, so i know how to do some interviewing. [laughter] ive learned from doing my interviews how leaders make it to the top. I asked him how much he wanted. He said 250,000. I said fine. I did not negotiate with him and i did no due diligence. David i have something i would like to sell. [laughter] and how they stay there. You dont feel inadequate now being only the second wealthiest man in the world, is that right . [laughter] for the past several decades, Andrew Liveris has been one of the most important figures in american business. For the last 14 years, he served as the ceo of manufacturing and now chairman of lucent motors. He also serves as an advisor to the saudi wealth fund. I sat down with him recently to discuss his accomplishments and future ambitions. Ive interviewed many Business People on the show, but very rarely anybody who has interest in so many continents. You are doing something in saudi arabia. Youre involved in things in europe, australia, you are the head of the olympic committee, is that right . Andrew the 2023 brisbane olympics. They won the bid last year. Im the president of that to put it in place. 2032 is 10 years, exciting project. David and the United States, you were for some time, more than a decade the ceo of dow chemical, you merged it before you stepped down. Andrew correct. David lets go back to your beginning. You grew up in australia. How did you get to dow and the United States . Andrew the gene that got me to have wanderlust, i grew up in a multicultural town in australia. Lots of asians, indigenous people, First Nations people, immigrants like greeks that came from poor areas. I had this desire to see where they were from and understand the places north of us, indonesia, china, asia as a whole. The american, if you like, knowledge that i got was listening over the radio to things like the jfk assassination, man on the moon. We did not have tv where i grew up. So, i was fascinated by america and what it offered the world. That combination, being recruited out of campus, i did not join an australian company. Or a british company. The ones that came by that were american were the ones that i was intrigued by. Dow had the best recruiting line offer for a 21yearold. Join us and we will show you the world. That combination of where i grew up in the dow recruiting line. David was your family a wealthy family . Andrew no, bluecollars, we would call them. Immigrants, my father, he lost his parents so he raised his two younger brothers when he was 12. He became an apprentice and a carpenter and he and his two brothers built a Small Business building in darwin. I was a first go to university in my family. David you go to work at dow, and hong kong initially . Andrew they sent me down to a very cold part of australia called melbourne, that had a lot of great people. I got cold redefined when i went to michigan. I thought it was cold at the time. I went there for six months. There was an accident in a factory in hong kong, they sent australian engineers. Four i went to work to help the locals adjust to a complex chemical environment. David dow was a very famous chemical company. It was for quite some time. How do you go from hong kong with this australian accent and then an American Company to the states . Andrew the recruitment in the 70s had this view to go international you had to hire local well before it was vogue. They went around the world looking for people willing to go to these farflung locations hong kong at the time was not the sophisticated city as it is today. What they did was they localized and grew talent locally, but kept the playbook. I was spotted early by the dow leaders and they started to move me around to test me different test me in different places, mostly asia, and eventually to the u. S. David were you trained as an engineer . What was your skill set . Andrew chemical engineer. When i look at todays world and i think about chemical engineering, the word chemical puts you into a different place. It is problemsolving, engineering. I learned how to be a Problem Solver by learning chemical engineering. David you eventually moved to dow headquarters in michigan. Andrew midland, where they founded the company, and we are still headquartered there. David you move there. How many years were you the ceo . Andrew just shy of 15. The last couple were in the merged entity which my successor set up the demerger. Certainly, the 15 years included the last two as executive chairman of the dupont entity. I led us into the merger and the rationale behind that was a 10 year remake. We put a strategy in place and in 2005 and executed it over 10 years to move us back to an innovation centric company. We had lost our way. We had commoditized of previous inventions. By the time the 1990s came around, our innovation chest was bear. Our cupboard was bare. We reconstituted innovation by changing the portfolio. David you took dow chemical, renamed it dow, and merged with dupont. And then you split into three companies, right . Andrew two amazing american, iconic companies. 300 or so years of corporate between them. Dupont founded on explosive, dow founded on chlorine. You think about the corporate history in both. The portfolios they had were assembled by the time we had this century come across a range of different applications. There were many things to many markets. What the premise of the case was working on the dupont side, was we put the two together and separated them into more purer plays. Dow materials, the agricultural products, and of course, the new Dupont Company Specialty Chemicals and plastics. David you step stepped down as ceo of dow a number of years ago, did your wife say it is time for you to stay home . Now youre running around the world. Is she disappointed . Or is she happy to have you out of the house . Andrew did she expect me to retire . No, she knows me better. The story on the olympics is a classic. That call came two months ago on a saturday. We are in sydney in our living room. I got a call from the premier of queensland and he said, we would like to offer you the president presidency of the olympics. I said, excuse me . I did not want to embarrass myself. I said, can i get back to you . Yeah, but we want to announce it on monday. Stop. [laughter] my wife said, who is that . I told her. She looked me in the face and said, you have got to take it. I said, you know how busy i am and she said, you have got to take it. You are the right person to get it done. And if it means you drop some things, drop some things. But you have to take it. That is the type of partner i want. Oh, oh, oh. Ill be the judge of that. Oh, thats nice. Oh searchable, verified reviews. Thats better than the ham, and ive never said that. Booking. Com booking. Yeah he snores like an angry rhino. Youve never heard an angry rhino. Booking. Com baby i hear one every night. Every night. Okay. Ill work on that. Save 50 on the sleep Number Limited Edition smart bed. Plus, free Home Delivery when you add a base. Shop now only at sleep number. David how did you wind up being the chairman of an Automobile Company when you had not been in that industry . Andrew i think the manufacturing thematic i had throughout my career, wrote a book on it, made me an attractive candidate to a host of Different Companies around the world, whether it be board or advisory. The lucid experience was something i did not predict, but it came through my association with the kingdom of saudi arabia who were the major investor in the predecessor. I got asked by the pif to help rebuild the company and create what you see here, which is a fullfledged ev company. First greenfield site evs tested, we built a greenfield site. Manufacturing was a big piece of my expertise that was attracted attractive to joining the lucid experience. David saudi aramco is now the most expensive company in the world . Andrew yes. David and you are on the board. Andrew yes. David do you see Energy Prices or oil prices coming down anytime in the near future . Or do they go be over 100 a barrel for quite some time . Andrew the commodity markets, as you might know, it is impossible to give you an answer. Other than, the most important dynamic of them all is Climate Change and co2 emissions, how can we make oil and gas, for that matter colby for her, i think coal is destined to be phased out. It will eventually dampen demand, evs will come soon, ev is the future. It is impossible to predict, how do you predict a war in russia and ukraine and the effect it had on commodity prices. Legal we will go through periods of pricing for some years to come. I cant tell you whether it will be high or low. No one can. David saudi arabia has an enormous amount of oil. They are interested in finding ways to do things not related to oil. Electric vehicles is one of andrew them . Andrew the vision of 2030 put in place by the crown prince has a big piece of it to diversify from oil and go into other businesses and activities. That might be related. So, chemicals, plastics, downstream, creating a circular carbon economy, hydrogen, the green economy, solar, renewables, wind, nuclear power. This diversification on energy is a big part of the vision 2030 plan. That is what aramco and others are looking to do. David lets talk about lucid. You are the chairman. Andrew yes. David it is an electric vehicle company. Tesla seems far ahead of everybody. How do you compete with tesla when they have a large share of the market . Andrew this is a technology business. In your earlier question about, how did i get involved . Manufacturing. Manufacturing is an interesting word being used for a couple of hundred years as we went up the technology ladder. Humans are inventive and innovative because of Technology Advantage. Lucid offers the Technology Advantage and beats everyone right now and is being recognized for it. Mostly, it is the distance we for we can travel without needing to charge, and that is over 500 miles certified. Second is our charging time. We can recharge up to 300 miles in 22 minutes. That is technology. Those two topics are about technology. The car is aesthetically beautiful, it drives fantastically, it is totally a luxury car, and clearly an experience. The software that supports it is also technology. But what we have been doing is homing in on the Technology Side of differentiation. Is there room for a tesla or lucid or a bunch of others . Of course. We are going to see evs as the primary mode of transportation in our lifetime. David where does lucid manufacture its cars . Andriy casagrande andrew casagrande, arizona just outside phoenix. David if i wanted to go by one, where do i get one . Do you buy them online or come to a showroom like this . They cost about 5,000 a piece, or Something Like that . Andrew you are in the right place to buy one. Maybe we can sell you one as you leave. We have a retail strategy. We go directly to retail and Service Centers around the country. We are opening Retail Centers as we speak in europe. But we have them in the United States, and this is an example of one. The price point is not 5,000. We have a price point at the high end, luxury end, our competition is porsche, bmw. David you are the electric vehicle for high end car enthusiasts. Andrew that is our strategy. We have the dream, the grand touring, the gravity. These price points are north of 100,000 with the dream at 160,000, 170,000. But that is the luxury end. The massmarket end, when General Motors and ford are pointing themselves, that is a big opportunity. We will eventually get there but we have made no announcements. David do you have one of these cars . Andrew i do. I was an early buyer at full price. I thought it was important i demonstrate my support. I will never forget the amazing drive i had. I have it down in florida where my residence is. I drove to palm beach and drove around and every time i stopped, i had people looking at me. I knew it wasnt me. It was clearly the car. I parked it and i kid you not, it was like a mob scene. I think it was the second car in florida. I valet parked it at this hotel where i was having dinner and the gentleman wanted to compete with the other gentlemen to valet park. Can i drive it . I said, maybe i should park it myself. It is an attractive car and it really drives supremely well. David lets talk about the roads on which they drive. You have been a advisor on infrastructure and manufacturing. You were involved in the legislation passed not long ago. Why is the United States infrastructure so much worse than other countries . Andrew i have been around u. S. Politics like you for decades. I have served a variety of president s from different parties. The attitude in the United States is to keep taxes low and keep the public spend under control. The word control is interesting. But that stops forward thinking in terms of planning, and therefore, shortterm around fiscal policy has hit us. In essence, infrastructure is a long time return. Putting that into private hands is one way to do it it, but the public side of life has to be willing to move the forward spend. Airports, roads, ev charging stations has to come from the public domain. Raising taxes to spend money on infrastructure means you have got to trust the people doing the spending. I think the publicprivate model is the way to go. Which is to create an Infrastructure Bank that the u. S. Public Company Owned with privatesector matching funds. I think that breakthrough has yet to occur in the u. S. The way we go is tax and spend, which one side of the aisle disagrees on. David manufacturing is something the United States, by many people, is thought not to be as good at. Is that true . Andrew there is the perception that manufacturing is last yesterday sector and that is so erroneous because pretty much everyone everything in modern life is made. Let Innovation Refunds help with your erc tax refund so you can improve your business however you see fit. Rosie used part of her refund to build an outdoor patio. Clink dr. Marshall used part of his refund to give his practice a facelift. Emily used part of her refund to buy. I run a wax museum. Let Innovation Refunds help you get started on your erc tax refund. Stop waiting. Go to innovationrefunds. Com you really got the brows. 3andme Health Customers surveyed reported taking healthier actions. More exercise. Eating healthier. And simply getting more sleep. Because they know health isnt just a future state. Health happens now. With over 150 personalized genetic reports from 23andme you can start your dnapowered Health Journey today. David your first book was about manufacturing, it is something that the u. S. Was thought not to be as good as 40 or 50 years ago, is that fair . Or the perception at least . Andrew thats fair and i address that in the book. We think smokestacks and rivers on fire when we use the word. Branding is everything. Today everything is branded in a heartbeat through instagram and you name it. As a result, there is a perception that manufacturing is yesterdays sector. That is so erroneous. Pretty much everything in modern life is made. I used to say at dow, we only have three functions to invent, make and sell. The rest is overhead. The make part is actually connected to the invent part. China was brilliant in its strategy through the 30 years. It attracted assembly and then insisted on r d. There were only 10 labs in china in 1990. By 2010 there were 40,000. Why . Because they wanted to know not just how to make and assemble, they wanted to invent all the way back to the material, to the actual battery, the products. And to do that they needed r d. Manufacturing and r d lived together. They live together through prototyping and scaling. The topics of invention and innovation are in manufacturing. You actually learn what you make. And then when you digitize, you learn more. Digitizing manufacturing is a massive innovation opportunity. Frankly, one of the things the United States is phenomenal at his we know how to innovate and be entrepreneurs and how to scale. But we have lost the ability to actually make and then we start to atrophy the invasion side. David conventional wisdom is that the United States cannot manufacture things. That is why we have outsourced. Do you think that is unfair . Andrew it was fair during what i call the loss of industry, such as textile and footwear and clothing, which were very laborintensive. It is completely not the case with things like the iphone and all of the circuitry and semiconductors and High End Technology content parts, evs. This is where the United States is actually the best. It is not labor cost driven. Outsourcing and moving things for labor costs, fine, they went to countries that had lower labor costs. But the high end manufacturing, the quality manufacturing, two days and tomorrow innovations, we should be the epicenter in this country because the labor cost is not the relevant cost. The relevant cost is the raw material, the supply chain, and we have the market. This is one of the few countries in the world that can say, i am one country, i have a massive market, and by the way, i have a lot of people in natural resources. That is manufacturing. David you are an immigrant to the United States in your grandparents were immigrants to australia. Immigrants, it is often said, have the capacity to work hard to prove themselves and move up the ladder. Do you feel you have an immigrant mindset that has pushed you to do these things . Andrew i think my story growing up in an immigrant family where english was not the first language, it was greek. David you speak greek . Andrew i do. David do you speak that a lot when you speak to the committees . Andrew it is probably useful for that. [laughter] i think the immigrant back story drove me to work hard. But also, to make a difference. A very american trait. What attracted me to america this very day and i will not embarrass you because you are a great example is the amazing getting back that occurs in this country giving back that occurs in this country. A lot of us do not know about it. I talked about the taxandspend thing, but on the opposite side, americans are charitable and give and care about making a difference in their community. That is what dow showed me and that is what i and my wife live by today. That american way to an immigrant means, for the next immigrants, we can make their life better. David for somebody watching this and wants to be a successful Global Business leader, one of the skill sets . Is it hard work . Learning how to read well . Continuously reading . Be a good speaker . What of the skill sets summary really needs . Andrew one of the things i would add to that list i agree with all of that is that i would do and i still do to this day. I would prepare well before i got the job or was given the nod. I would know about as much as i good about what i was to be offered before i did it. I would read, i would talk well before the days of the iphone, i would go to the library. I remember my father knocking on the door as a britannica salesman remember those books . I would beg him to buy them and he would say, only if you read them all. I read them all and i was 12. I think preparing so when you get the right to talk, you have the podium, when you have the right to say something, you actually have the knowledge to speak to it. I think people have gotten bored with facts. You have got to blend that with interest. But personalize the facts, show examples, and then demonstrate it yourself. I think that cycle of Teaching Needs to be introduced in the education system, but also reallife. David what did your parents say to the neighbors, we have an unusual 12yearold reading the Encyclopedia Britannica . Andrew these days parenting is forcing kids to get off the tv and reading. But, no, it was not seen as odd. Emily ive been covering this industry a long time,
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.