David one of the most powerful women in the Business World today is ruthporat. She rose to be the cfo of google and now alphabet. In that role she has enormous influence at that company and has done a terrific job in making certain that the Balance Sheet works well and that they betterare much organized. I have no doubt she will be a power at alphabet for a long time unless the next president says i would like her to be secretary of the treasury. She would be a terrific candidate for that position. During this period of time, google and alphabet have done quite well. Your stock is up more than 20 this year and from the time you became the cfo, the stock is up done quiteso its well under your leadership. Im curious, or more people looking at doing searches now during this covid19. Pop of time than ever before, or people not spending as much time searching . Ruth no, people are spending a lot of time searching. We have trillions of searches per year. Its really the nature of searches that changed. Early in the crisis, people shifting toted to information about the disease, that they need to know, all the information about covid. You then some people shifting to, how do i live my life during covid19 . How do i cook . What do i do on meditation and wellness . Now you are seeing people moving back into more commercial activities. I think one of the big surges that we saw was, how can i help in my community . How can i help others . Its always quieting quite inspiring to see how people move through search. We moved everybody to remote work at home, all 120,000 of us, but as companies are opening up, were starting to move back in. In places in europe been bringing some people back, but fundamentally we moved everyone to working from home. David when you started working remotely, did you worry it would be a problem because you have all these people, are technically savvy. Ruth at first it did seem daunting. We put together strong governor its on we were rinsing daily. That worked really well. What we were most concerned about what would be the debt what would be the impact on permittivity and wellness. Be affectedre would by Mental Health issues than the disease itself. We focused on that and that was really important. Google is really about our people and the ability to deliver for users and communities because of our capacity. One of the things we didnt have to worry about was our ability to really deal with the surge in online activity. That was because all the investments over the years and all the testing for what could happen in a crisis scenario. I think it is an important point, because you cannot solve the Risk Management issue in the middle of a crisis. You obviously need to solve it ahead of time. David Many Companies are saying now that ive learned mike people can work from home maybe i dont need all these people in the office, or i dont need all the people. Is that your view, you may not need all the people that you have . Ruth we believe in people all together, its a critical element for innovation. Collaboration within teams and across teams. We do look forward to having people back in the office. What we are looking at is the productivity lift you get it people have the ability to work from home some days, the in the office in particular when the rest of their team or teams are in the office. You have better access to talent because youre solving what people want in their personal life into actually sultan a better outcome. That means for real estate, we are still figuring out. David early on, google was well known for free food. And theyre working at home, do you give them free food, showing up by . . Delivery or Something Like that or how do you compensate for that . Ruth a lot of people focus on food, but really what were trying to create is a fun, quirky, magical campus. Its about more than just a free food. What we did when we moved everybody to home is we moved a lot of connecting the community to virtual delivery. So for food come as an example, you can do a oneonone session with a chef, you can do a cooking class. We moved our fitness classes to virtual fitness classes and even some goofy, google style ones like yoga with your dog. David what have you learned about yourself during this time . Ruth what i saw at google and about my colleagues, and its obvious li bin an extraordinarily successful stressful time its obviously been an extraordinarily stressful time. We really stepped up, and that was inspiring during this extraordinary time. What i learned about myself is, one of the positive elements of this has been sheltering in place and having my kids, who graduated from college, they are now back with us for at least a limited period of time, and thats been remarkable. Ive thoroughly enjoyed that. David some people say google, facebook, microsoft, apple, amazon, or too powerful. They have so much power in our economy that its not healthy. There have been congressional hearings recently where your ceo testified. What is your response to the view that the Technology Companies are becoming so dominant in our economy that its not healthy . Ruth we are very mindful of the fact that with the scale of the company come scrutiny, and it is incumbent on us to engage with regulators and help them understand what is it that we are doing that is of benefit, how are we providing Better Services at lower cost, which is really indicative of the competitive nature of the world in which we operate privet weve got intense competition competition within the u. S. And outside of the u. S. , and i think this covid experience, Many Companies and individuals not have been able to operate the way they did without the support and benefit from technology. But its a fair question, and we are engaged constructively around the world with regulators on it. David you have more than 100 billion dollars of cash on your Balance Sheet, a lot of cash. Why do you need all that . . Cash are you going to use it why do you need all that cash . Are you going to use it for investments . Ruth when i got to google, there had been a longstanding view that it was helpful to have cash because of the optionality it provided. Was comeion i posed how much is too much and how much is too little, and can we try and dimension that analytically . And put together the data that lead to a conversation about a Share Repurchase program. It started small, but weve increased it five times in the last number of years. The last one we just did in the second quarter, 20 billion authorization privet so it has been a journey. We been increasing the turn to capital. I spent a big chunk of my career covering firms like carlisle private equity firms, this is trying to get the balance. David is it hard to break into the Technology World or the financial world, as a woman . Ruth its a more collaborative environment, in tech, i would say, but it can be pretty rough. David lets talk about your ground, how you came to be the ceo of google, alphabet, and before that, Morgan Stanley. Where did you grow up . Ruth i was born in england, mostly grew up in Silicon Valley. My father was a helicopter refugee. He escaped from vienna when he was 16. He had no high school or college education. And essen palestine as he could, he he enlisted in the british army under montgomery. His view was that the only way to find peace in a Peaceful Place was to have the skill that people needed. So he decided to teach himself physics while he was in the army. His fellow soldiers would tease him and say he would die before he ever mastered physics. His answer was, if i die, i want to die an educated man. After the war, he was one of the lucky ones. He got a masters degree and a phd. Thats where i was born. He was given a position at harvard. We moved eventually to Silicon Valley, and thats where i grew up. David you went to stanford undergrad, and did you major in finance . Ruth i majored in economics and International Relations and thought i would go off to be a lawyer. From you got an mba wharton, and you went to wall street . Ruth i went from stanford to the London School of economics to wharton. I started in business school, i was convinced that what i wanted to do was work with companies and help them understand their problems. Then i took a fascinating course with a great teacher and he opened my eyes to this thing called wall street mergers and acquisitions. I went from completely convinced i was doing one thing to completely convinced the only thing a wanted to do was mergers. David when you went to Morgan Stanley, was it 50 women . Ruth far from it. It was 1987, so it was sort of the stone age for any sort of sense of what was the world of women in banking. I think the general attitude was that those of us who were there we get married, have kids and leave him a we didnt have the stamina, it was just a question of time. And i loved Morgan Stanley, it was the best of the best. That was sort of the ether on wall street. A couple of years into my career, i was working on the deal and i was out with a partner and a client, i was pregnant with our first child, and the partner actually turned said, they maynd come back after the first child, but theres no way they will come back after the second child. The client basically told him it was in idiot, and that made an impression on me. The thing that was inspiring and critical in my career was there were so many extraordinary men who really bet on me, helped open doors. I didnt know at the time those were sponsors, but thats what they were. Andd you became the cfo, at some point you were one of the most important people at Morgan Stanley, and u. S. Government calls up and said why dont you come and work at the Treasury Department in a senior position. Have you seriously consider doing that . The 2000 eight crisis when secretary paulson asked me to lead a team to help him with , and spent crisis the entire period working on fannie mae and freddie mac and not evolved into work on aig, and i thought it was extraordinary to be able to use skills i developed over decades at Morgan Stanley for something so important for the country. So that remains one of the most meaningful times for me. Morgan stanley also went through a crisis during that time, im sure you remember it, where Morgan Stanley was close to maybe not being able to survive, and then a japanese investor said we will put in some money. It turned out that money was that three times the stock price you were trading at, and people werent sure if the japanese company, mitsubishi would show up. Were you ever in doubt they would show put that money . Ruth that was a terrifying period of time. The series of events was, there was the Lehman Brothers famous weekend, followed by a call i got from the Federal Reserve saying we collectively had worked on the wrong thing, we need to focus on aig, and asked me to get back down to the Federal Reserve that monday evening. They said aig would be out of money by wednesday, and in fact it was tuesday and they were out of monday out of money. Thats the point at which Morgan Stanley was running into its own very severe liquidity crisis. Obviouslygan stanley prospered through that time and survived and did quite well. Then somebody called you up, was it a headhunter or somebody from google, saying we would like you to reconsider being the cfo. Were you surprised at that offer because you were wall street person and not a Technology Person . Ruth it was a very different path to the question. I was on the stanford board and had the opportunity to spend some time with bill campbell, who was an iconic coach to so many people. I left the Board Meeting and went to his home and sat down with him to talk about life, generally. He started probing what next, what would i want to do . My comment to him was, i didnt know, at some point i would want another chapter, but one thing i knew for certain is that i would not leave Morgan Stanley as cfo to be a cfo anywhere else. For two hours, he kept coming back to that strong assertion. At the end of two hours, he said, so you wouldnt need to be a cfo anywhere else, and i was adamant. He said i have the perfect job for you, you should be the cfo of google. Of course i burst into laughter, and said, that one, i would do. I could believe i left his home and didnt actually believe it was real or that it would happen. Within a couple of hours he called and said go over to larry pages house and spend some time with him and see if this works. David so you went over to see larry page and he said guess what, i want you to be the cfo. Had different interactions through the stanford board. We spent two hours and eight fascinating conversation, as larry page always is. I laughed again, not believing it would happen, and quickly it came together. David so you took the position, but now youre breaking into another world where women are not that prominent. Is it harder to break into the Technology World as a woman, or to the financial world as a woman . Ruth when i broke into the financial world, i was a junior. Its harder when youre junior as dust then when youre coming in someone with credentials. If youre asking which was tougher, wall street or tech, both have evolved meaningfully since those days of the boys club on wall street that were so painful. There is a much greater awareness that is not just the right thing to do to have diversity in the senior ranks throughout an organization, but at least a better outcome. Its a more collaborative environment. In tech, i would say, and wall street can be pretty rough. Testosteronere filled places wall street or Silicon Valley . Ruth theres enough to go around. David so youre a buttondown cfo of Morgan Stanley, google is probably less precise place when you get there. Youre making they are making so much money they dont have to worry about every little dollar. Did you say we want to change things and people said dont want to change because were doing well, or did they want to change . Ruth my view is that if you anchor your points in data, it becomes very easy to engage people in what is the issue and what is the proper path forward. One of the extraordinary things that google is we have very smart and very inquisitive people. As i laid out whatever issue it is, anchored in data, it engaged the conversations. So i actually didnt find it to be discordant. Ofas impressed with the view lets understand what and why. It has been a journey. David what is the secret to having it all . Ruth the most important thing is to find a mix in life that works for you. I would say its a hallmark of the culture to be very adaptive. No one waits for me to tell them what to do. When youve built a culture as we have, everybody pitches in and figures out what they need to do. An example would be our animation group. I cannot take the credit, but they moved hundreds of workstations out of the office into the home over a weekend and have been able to continue to produce great animated films and series from the house in a way that was remarkable and not centrally directed. David many ceos say offcamera they are not going to be hiring back everybody they once had. They realize they can get by with fewer people and they do not need as much of a space because people are happy to work from home. Will that be true in your case . Reed the virus has been so tragic for people, the economy and unemployment. And certainly hotels and other businesses like that are down. As an internet business, we are up, so we have continued to hire through this crisis. We are adding new buildings. We are incredibly fortunate. So alphabet is the parent company, you are the cfo of that and also google, who is a search engine, and that is still massively profitable by anyones standard. What about Cloud Computing . Your number three in that business, but catching up to number one is amazon and number two is microsoft. Ruth its a very important one. , thea sizable Market Opportunity for businesses to migrate to the cloud provided them with extraordinary edit capabilities and they are looking to us, whether for security or Data Analytics or ai. Thats what we are able to do working with customers and you really see the important migration to the cloud, so we are investing meaningfully in and we see it as a sizable opportunity. David one of your areas of focus is health care. Why is that such an important focus of the founders and you in terms of health care . Why is that so important to you . Ruth we have the opportunity to make a fundamental difference in health care, in particular with ai in host of areas. For me, personally, im a Breast Cancer survivor. Ive had Breast Cancer twice, of gone through chemo, radiation, more surgery than one can imagine. I view myself as one of the really lucky ones. I lived here in new york city when i was first diagnosed. I had the best care, and here i am as healthy as ive ever been. Not everybody gets that kind of break. Remember two ago, i when our ai engineers had a breakthrough in earlystage detection of metastatic rest cancer with ai, which struck me as precisely the kind of thing that is transformative. There was so much debate about whether ai is a positive or not. I wanted to make sure i got an objective, nontech view of this. I called my oncologist to ask whether i was reading this the right way, and it really had the impact i expected. His answer was, you cannot democratize Health Care Without ai. So we look at this as this opportunity to democratize health care, to provide service, to identify