Women do need role models. Still a small minority that run these companies. David in the stay fit category. I do box with a person. The difference is he does not get to hit me. Woman would you fix your tie, please . Dared well, people wouldntgnis fixed, but ok. Leave it this way. All right. David i dont consider myself a journalist, and nobody else consider myself a journalist. I began to take on the life of being an interviewer, even though i haveat day job of running e equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tic david so, when you wake up in the morni s, do you say, look at allihat ive achieved anincredibly proud of what ive done . Or do you say, geez, i gotta go deal every day with critics and other things . What a way to start. Ok [laughter] i think i had either of those thoughts on that first day. I think that first day i just thought about perhaps what an honor it was and what a responsibility it is. And isthink people forget ib06 years old. And so, you really doget t. You wake up that morning realizing youre a steward of something. So, a different feeling. And seventies, ibm was the dominant Technology Company in the world, and it just still is, david. [laughter] ok. All right. Ok. David do you think it has the same strength in the computer world that it had in the sixties . To me, i would answer thatbm is great, but for a reason that you didnt mention. I think the greatness of a Technology Company is if you and i say, well watch and see, cause its one thing to reinvent yourself once, then twice, but do it 3, 4, 5 times. Is a really competitive indust that were in, and i think we dothing very. Because its one thing to have technology. Another to have th knowhow on how to use it. Because its one thing to hall right . Logy. So i feel what has made us distinctive inwhile weve gone thr, gh all sorts of producthink the one kind of silver thread is that we really do help change the way the world and i go back to the beginning in time, ibm started it wasnt ibm actually at the time cheesemeat ers, then it was clocks, tabulating, and then is an era of, as you know, the mainframe, which was the backffice. And then it reinvented itself again into software and into services. And now we reinvent ourself again. D, to me, that art of reinvention and that dna is really what makes it unique. David lets talk about your background for a moment. You grew up 3 chicago. And you haisters . Ginni two sisters and a brother. David two sisters and a brother. Ok, three siblings. Yes, hes a brother. Urvid and at one point, ather left your mother, and your mother was not collegeeducated at the time, so how did she support 4 children . Ginni i continue to learn a lot from my mom, but i give my mom a lot of credit for all ur of us in this. And as david said, my mother had a highschool degr, but then quickly had us as children right afterhat. And i was in my early teens when my dad chose to leave. And it was sudden. And my mother found herself with 4 kids, no money, soon to be no home, soon to be no food. And she didas i said, i learnedyou know, she was so int not letting other people define who she was. And we had to do some things for a short time. She had to go on foohestamps. We had to ge. I mean, and thats what entitlement programs in this country are for in many ways. I had to help. I was the oldest. She went back to school at night and learned a profession. In fact, she became head of the administration for the sleep clinic at rush presbyterian in chicago. But, you know, a lot of people and family, like, i think, yones, they pitched in. And my mom, i think, really taught us. I would say the lesson i learned is nev let someone else define who you are. She was never gonna let that situation define who she was. David you were the babysitter for your 3 ginni i was. I was. Ive been to pta meetings, you kn, bugle lessons. All sorts of things. David did you get paid anything for the babysitting . Ginni no, no, i didnt get paid. I probably should go sum that up. David o ou had a scholarship to northwestern . Ginni i did. I did. Actually, im proud of my brothers and sisters all. We always said my mom never complained. She never said much, but we all watched by what she did. And theyvei sometimes say im the underachiever. My 3 brothers and blsters have been incredisuccessful, and that really is that work ethic my mom instilled in us. So when i went to northwestern, that was and i did ha a scholarship, because we ad looked for ways to do that and put ourselves through school. David now your mother is still alive. Does she call you and tell you how great youre doing, or she says your ojuer siblings are doin as well . [laughter] ginni actlklly, she calls me and about, you know, all things normal mothers talk about, right . David she doesnt ask about ibm . All things normal mothers nni her biggest thing this is a funny story about my mom. So this past easter, she was at my house, and i was having to leave in the middle of the day to get to the airport. Anom says, hey, before you leave, i have your annual reportive written you a little set of notes on it. Im like, gim even gonna get a report card from my mother on this annual report. [laughter] at the pictures, and then but says, look, i loved this annual report. She goes, this annual report, i understand what ibm does. And it was 50 vignettes, 50 short, little vignettes, about how the world and professions and Industries Change b of watson, about ai, about cloud computing, and hoit will makefe better . My mom goes, this is now i understand. And then she had some comments about the look and the paper type and other things, so she gave me a report card on it. David did you give any of these comments to your colleagues back at iga . Yeah, them all. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. [laughter] i have a large retail shareholder base. Yeah. David you graduated from northwestern. And then, although you had a scholarship from General Motors, you werent required to go work at General Motors, but you felt you should . Yeah. This isyou know, these were some schools. I mean, these onderful programs and from companies in that day and age. This was an effort to get men and minorities into businesses. And at that time, General Motors had a program which was reey went to some of what the , gee, if i can get you the deal was ill pay your tuition, your room and board, everything. And someone going through school themselvesit was a professor who said to me, hey, you ought to go look at this program. And in return, work there in the summe. Otherwise, no strings attached. So i had a wonderful set of internshipsith them. And then when i graduated, i did feel a sense, a real sense of obligation to first go to gm. I had lots of other offers, but. I was a Computer Science and engineering degree and david were there a lot of women taking those courses in those days at northwestern . What do you think . Not that many . In many of those classes, even then. David so youre at General Motors for a couple years. And then you hear of an opportunity to go to a Company Called ibm. So this wasnt, as people sometimes think, that you have eris long thoughtout calan. Im sorry to tell you it was i had been working at gener motors, and while i liked what i was doing, i really felt, becausasi liked technology, ithis idea to be able to apply it to lots different industries. D it was as simple as mygy, ihusband said, hey, look, i have a friend and his dad wos for ibm. Why dont you just call him . And actually i think it was my husband that actually set the inteup, to be honest with you. David did he get a finders fee or anything from you . Yeah, im still pang that finders fee [laughter] so i went to the interview, and i wahired. What area were you initially . Ginni i staut as a systems engineer. So i was a systems engineer, anrai worked in banking, ine, and i had many experiences through my years. And i remember i had gone into consulting, so i had learned a lot of things, and it was time to do another job. And the story i always tell is that i worked for a gentleman, very good mentor, and he said to me, heyanim gonna get a new job,y. But you gotta go for annterview. Go toyoure one of the candidates. Go to this interview. So i thought. So i go to the interview, and he tells me all about the job, and im sitting there and i think, boy my mindim not surew, im ready for this yet. This is a big job. Just a little more t and i said to him, i said, well, may i go home . I would like to it ove. Give me overnight to think about it. And i went home. So i get sitting there, and as usual, i always say, im talking, talking, hes like, mmhmm, mmhmm. [laughter] and i tell himlike, about this interview. And i said, but i said i wanted to go home and sleep on it. He goes, do you think a man would have answered that question that way . An i mean, i can remember ilike it. I said, no. And i went in the next day, and, of coursei took the job immediately. And the man, who had been my mentor, who suggesteit, he said to me, he goes, dont do that again. I said, i understand. And it is what formed this basis for me that i think has guided my whole career, which is growth and comfort never coexist. And you have got to get really comfortable with being uncomfortab. Its when you learn the most. U when you started doing these things, did you begin to think that there was a chance that you could be the ceo . Or did you think ibm, like many companies, thinwere never gonna a chance thatmake a woman a ceo . Eo . Ginni no, that never entered my mind that ibm would make a choice based on gender. Never fomy time there, has always been the most Inclusive Company ive known, so. When you interview others, do they feel like theyve id never thought about that. I always felt you do great in your current job, it earns your ght to the next job. David so lets talk about ibm for a moment. It is a hardware company, a software company, a consting company. What would you say it really is today . Keep going. Right. Its. Ginni and sobut i m when i say first off an enterprise company, right . We uniquely live at that intersection of tech and business. And then, as you said, we built, over time, hardware. Then, we layered it with software. We built bintegrated onto that, s and now, as i say, were becoming a cloud and a Cognitive Solutions company. And there will be another, you know, sort of reinvention of ibm one day in the future again, but today, it is about that. Its cloud. Its ai right now. Its the why. And as i say to all my colleagues, and i feel like the champion for business. Right . The champion for business, and ill tell you what i mean by that. Right now, if you ask me to pick one word what ibm is reinventing around, i would tell you its the word data. There is gold in that data. And of me, we are on the vergeoo use all that. And this, to me, is companies to go on the offense now against startups, against disruption. You do it with that data. And you will need new tool and thats where ai comes in. David one of the tools is what you call watson. Yep. Now, watson is named after. Ouder, thomas watson. Ok. David now, watson got some attention because of jeopardy the game show. Because of jeopardy ginni its funny how many people still remember that. And, in fact, that was i really give us credit, if i might, for having, sort of, relit the world of ai. Yoinasked what i did early career. I was an ai specialist at one time. So that would be a couple decades ago. So it isnt likei itself is brandnew. Theres a number of things that make it different at this point in time. D what we did back then was 20 wed been working ef ai for a good 5 yearse. And this gets back to this idea of if youre always moving to where you think theres value in tech, we believe thered be value in this data, and that you had to be prepor this world to do it costeffectively, and more imp have technoly that didnt get programmed. And thats the difference with what our thats what watson and ai is, meaning what watson does you dont say, if this, do that. Every device you have has o en programmed if this,at. Somebo to tell it what to do your smart phone, you name it. Watson takes data of all kinds, understands, reasons, and learns over that data, and that will help you make betr decisions. This is an interesting stat i think were sharing. World, we think theres a market of 2 trillion for making Better Business decisions. And some of its rooted in its plain, fundamental fact that when you and i make decisions you may be better at this, david. David not likely,ut 1 3 are right, 1 3 are not optimal, and 1 3 are wrong. It transcends everything. David some people are afid of ai. They think it will lead to things tha tare not good, and youre not as worried about that. Ginni well, its not thim. I feel very strongly that it is gonna solve more good than bad. Its partly why i said we called it cognitive. Its also, though, why we felt really strongly and at davos this yeip published a set of pris for ai. Because as one of thf makers and the foundersis, i feel its important we guide technology safely into the world. One is being clear on its purpose. It is to augment what people do. And let me justto be sure everybody understands. So, as an example, weve come so far since the game show of watson and jeopardy but today, its about, as you know, all the work weve done on. We will nowwatson will have been trained to diagnose and treat what causes 80 of cancers by the endf this year. Well be up to, by the end of the year, 100,000 patients. It is rollininout in china. It is roout in india. It is rolling out in close to 20 other countries around theorld. Hackensack, in new jersey here, is going to start. Jupiter medical in florida already. We already have many results about bringing worldclass health care we helped builthis with memori sloan kettering, the Cancer Center around the world. And not just though. We announced watson for Financial Services, and one of the big elements is risk and compliance. And so we have been training watson on regulatory compliance, projected to be 300 million pages by 2020, even with deregulation. And so, its abilitybelie, people who work on relatory compliance only get to spend 25 of their time on decisionmaking. The rest is trying to figurout everything. So its perfect examples of augmenting what people do. And this point, when i say are people afraid . Ait matters the purpose. And i think we these principles. Secondi think what matters is your traparency around this. Yoneed to tell people when youre using ai. You need to tell them who trained it and what data . And ill come back to what it means for companies. And then the thirdit leads to the whole area of skills, mae well talk about. David what about robotics . Is that some wing youre in, and are you afraid of robotics or ginnty yeah, we work with plf Companies Helping them with robotics. And so one of the great examples abb, one of the big industals think of this. Watsons helping with their robotics, as cars inted, spraypainted pieces. Better job of seeing what are t impurities and imperfections in the painting, as an example. David lets tout the life of a ceof a large company. How much time are you on the roadraveling now . Ginni oh, iyou know, probably 50 . David and customers, theyre mostly interested in what . Y when you meet with there trying to tell them why ibm is better than somebody else or. N no. Well no, you t do that . Of course, always, in some way. Bu ai think many clients lous as a bit of a mimage. I mean, i hear this from them, right . Theyre like wow, its a lot of change. And i can remember saying, be careful. I think thiis coming to a theater near you. Right. And so this idea believe our transformatirrors wy is going through. Ndyou rebuild yourself arata and cloud. Youre gon have to change how you do the work, anre gonna havto work on who the people are that do the work. David how do you measure your scess as ceo . It share price . Is it earnings, earningsper share, Revenue Growth . Ginni what i am most focused on, the ards most focused on, is transforming ibm for this next era, this next cognitive era. Mi is and so,rming ibm for the sort opost that wes next put out there is, as i said paui of the portfolio is we new products and services, which is now 42 of ibm, which is 34 billion. It had doubledigit growth. That is a very important set of new offerin that that team created. At the same time, theres other things we for clients. I mean, david, i think people forget we run the bankss f the world, the railro the world, the airlines of the world. You know, its 9 out of 10,0 out of 10. And thats why i both mirror and help them transition to. And that is a really serious obligation. Some of thsnt grow as fast as other pieces, and the new grows fast, but we, if anything, it is to help people transition era to era. So the measurement is as we build the new businesses and that we keep moving to higher valu that is our distinct value prop. David does it bother you ever that you have more emploes, more revenue, more customers all over the world than companies like, i as apple or amazon or facebook, but they have higher market capitalizations . Does that strike you as unfair in some ways t something you have to live with . Ginni i always want to work on higher market capitalization, so the unfair part i dont feel these things are, as you say, sort of a burden in that way because what we do is dierent. Right . It is this combination of having technology and then knowhow, which means you have both of those things together. David every country you visit around the world, i assume, if you wt to meet ide Prime Minister or prt, you have no problem getting in to do that . Ginni yeah, but you dont abuse that. I mean are some really important issues around the world. Almost every government we talk to around cybersecurity, very important issues around things le digital trade. And then the other one, its been about workforce and skills. When you look at why is there divisions between people d why is there inequalitery tims back, and it will be about skills and opportuty. So thats what weve been working on. David wn youre meeting with President Trump or other president s, do you see that ceos are willing to say, mr. President , thats not a good idea, or let me give you myht and it might be different than yours . Or people theyre kind of quiet when any president s around . Ginni no, my experience is that people are respectfully honest and give their opinions. And so, just as there are times with every whether its a president , a Prime Minister, where we agree, and therell be times we dont agree. And in our case, here, as an example, with the paris agreement, we be seved that america shouy in there. And so we shared our view