Latest / Rittener Reflections / 16: Special Edition: Doing the Difficult Things
Transcript
- I sat behind a microphone under the lights of a Senate hearing room. The chair called the hearing to order, cameras clicked, staffers leaned in. I was still with Intel, but I knew this moment wasn't about a company, it was about a responsibility. One year later, I'm telling the story. Not of what I said, but what I meant. Because sometimes, the most important things we do are the hardest. This is a story about showing up, about doing difficult things, especially when the outcome is uncertain. September 10th, one year later, let's talk about it. Welcome back to Ritner Reflections, episode 16. During my last episode, I spoke about doing wonderful things. We had a great conversation with three of my former colleagues, and we all talked about doing wonderful again. This week, I want to talk about doing the difficult things. Yes, the difficult things. What are they? Well, I think they are those things nobody else wants to do, or those things where you say to yourself, "I would or could never do that." Just some examples I was thinking of this, you probably have quite a number yourself, but for me, one of those that comes to my mind is running a marathon. I recall a day when somebody told me or suggested to me that I run a marathon, and I said, "I could never do that." Another one is recovering from an injury. Sometimes when you're injured, you just never think you'll get better. Difficult thing. How about putting off a medical procedure? Sometimes it's difficult, and we put it off. How about telling someone the truth? I have an example where a very difficult day happened to be my birthday, and I had to, after deciding who, I then had to communicate to employees, those employees that were going to be laid off, and like I said, this happened on my birthday. It was a difficult thing. Finally another example, setting a boundary with someone or holding a very difficult conversation. We all have examples in our lives. I'm sure you can think of many of them where you would say, "Those are the difficult things." Some of those difficult things are minor inconveniences. Some of them are major life decisions, but all of them, they really cause us to pause, and sometimes they even challenge us, even to our core. You know, how many of us, if you think about it, how many of us, including myself, how many of us are not where we could have been if we had chosen to do the difficult thing? Likewise, I ask myself, "How many lessons have I missed out because I didn't do the difficult thing?" Another question that I often ask on this is, "Why do I not do or why do I avoid those difficult things?" Well, for me, oftentimes it's because I don't think I can. Or sometimes I just don't want to go through what I know will be a painful process. Or sometimes it's just plain inconvenient, and sometimes maybe even terrifying. You know, today is September 10, 2025. It has been 365 days, or exactly one year, from an unforgettable day in my life, where I had to do one of those difficult things. I was asked by my company to testify before Congress, specifically to the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Now, testifying before Congress, this is one of those difficult things that not too many people have done, and one of those things that most everyone never wants to do. The testimony and the questioning by senators was not friendly and was intended to question large multinational semiconductor companies, like Intel, about a very sensitive topic on national security. Specifically, they wanted to know how U.S. manufactured semiconductors were ending up in Russian weapons that were being fired at Ukraine. Now, I will discuss more of this in a bit, but I can tell you it was a daunting but also an amazing experience, one that remains fresh in my mind even a year later. Since that day, I have yet to go back and watch or listen to a replay of the hearing, nor have I ever said anything about my experience in a public forum. But on this one year anniversary, and through this podcast, I would like to share with my senators the insider view of how this all worked and how I got through it. This discussion is not about Intel Corporation or any of its activities, but rather about me and my experience doing something very difficult. When I tell people that I had the opportunity to testify before Senate, I am always met with the words, "I don't know how you did that, I would never do something like this." Well, here's my attempt to answer those questions. You see, it was a warm September day in Washington D.C. and I found myself sitting behind a nameplate while senators shuffled papers and staffers whispered. I was not just representing a company, I was representing a principle. I was nervous, spellbound, but I was confident and ready. Now, before I go on any further with my story, let me give you some background as to what this was all about. The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is the chief investigative arm of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs. It's one of the most powerful and long-standing subcommittees in Congress. It was originally formed in 1948, but it traces its roots back to the famous World War II era Truman Committee, which exposed waste and corruption in war contracts. Now, PSI's mission is broad, but it's very impactful. They investigate government inefficiency and corruption, national security vulnerabilities, financial crimes and fraud, organized crime and lawlessness, and regulatory failures. Now, over the decades, the committee has tackled everything from Korean War atrocities to offshore tax havens and even cybersecurity threats. It's essentially the Senate's watchdog for deep systemic issues that cut across government and private sectors. Some examples, some recent examples of what this committee has worked on. They held hearings on COVID-19 vaccine safety and the federal health agencies. They've held hearings recently on ICE detainment and enforcement tactics. They've held hearing on FAA oversight of Boeing Corporation and Russia's use of U.S. technology in warfare. Now, this is exactly the reason for the hearing that I was asked to testify at as a rep from Intel and an expert witness. Now, this, I call it PSI, permanent subcommittee investigation, that it was initiated through an inquiry in September of 2023 to better understand efforts of American semiconductor manufacturers and how they were or were not preventing U.S. manufactured semiconductors from ending up in Russian weapons. The subcommittee focused its inquiry on four U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturers whose products reportedly appeared in Russian weapons. So some of the key findings I find really interesting, I ought to share them with you. They said that, again, U.S. chips were found in Russian weapons, and they found this from companies like Intel, like AMD, Texas Instruments, Analog Devices. And these microchips were consistently recovered from Russian drones, missiles, radios, armored vehicles on the battlefield in Ukraine. Senator Richard Blumenthal, who chairs this committee, stated, "I am ashamed and embarrassed to go to Ukraine and meet with President Zonsky and personally see the weapons of war built with U.S. technology." Another finding was that there were failures with export controls. So the committee in their December 2024 staff report, they revealed that the Bureau of Industry and Security, BIS, at the Department of Commerce has been chronically underfunded, leaving it unable to enforce export controls effectively. BIS reportedly relies on outdated technology and lacks resources for international and use checks, making it easy for chips to be diverted through third-party countries like Turkey or the UAE. Now in this hearing, there were four of us, all executives who testified and defended our compliance programs. You know, I've spent years navigating the maze of export controls, and when the committee called, it really wasn't just about the chips, it was also about accountability, transparency, and the unintended consequences of how global supply chains actually work. So with this as a background, let's discuss how in the world did I find myself in this situation. So let me just share with you, it was three weeks before the hearing that it was a Sunday afternoon, and I remember receiving a call from my boss at that time, who was the head of government affairs. And because the request from the Senate committee was about export controls, and I was responsible for export controls for the company, I was asked to testify. Now when you get that question, you know, the first thing that goes through your mind is what, why me? There must be somebody else. But it was pretty obvious that given my responsibility in the company, that this was probably the, I was probably the appropriate person to go ahead and do this. So difficult thing to be done. You know, I'll just describe for you a bit the preparation process, because I would say, and people told me this, that probably the preparation process was going to be way more difficult than the actual hearing itself. And I can say, after spending a little less than three weeks preparing, that that's probably a true statement. It was a lot of work. And it started with the first meeting, there was our government affairs team, along with our outside counsel and inside counsel, wanted to meet with me and let me know what this was all about and what I could expect. So what did they do? The very first thing they did is they showed me a video clip of a recent hearing where the CEO of Boeing was testifying, and he was completely, I'll say, ripped to shreds. I mean, it didn't go well. There were so many things that went wrong for that poor CEO as he testified, and they showed me that to just probably scare me, number one, but number two, maybe just to help me understand that things can go really awry if you're not properly prepared. And so it'd be good over the next few weeks to drop everything else and let's make sure we prepare. So that's what we did. So I found quickly, as we began to talk through the subject and started to look at what the advisors believed were going to be the questions, we started to work on answers. And immediately what I found was that I had spent much of my career talking with government officials, but this was a completely different event. And the way I would normally explain export controls was probably not the way that you prepare for something like this. And so we spent a lot of time helping me figure out how to change the way I would normally answer so that I could answer the questions more with more clarity and really honing in on the purpose of what the senators were looking for. So we spent a lot of time preparing. And once we had identified the many different types of questions that I could be asked, we began to formulate what we would call key talking points. Now the interesting thing that I learned was that this hearing, although it was focused on the issue, a national security issue around Russia, it was a forum for a senator, any senator, to raise pretty much any topic they wanted, as long as it was somewhat relevant. So not only did we have to prepare for questions that may come around this topic, we had to anticipate other areas that might be addressed. And fortunately, many of the government affairs folks on our team had good relationships with the staff of the senators and were able to get a better feel for where the senator was coming from, where the senator might go with their questions. So we had some ideas. But I can tell you at the end of the day, we created for me what we called a placemat. And the placemat had, I think, 12 different potential topics. And under each of those topics was two or three key points, just as a reminder to me when I was under the spotlights, in front of the cameras, being grilled but with a question, that I would be able to have a quick way to look down and remind myself, these are the key points. Because what was most important was making sure that you made the key points and you answered the senator's question in a way that hopefully caused the senator to move on to the next person. I think that was kind of the idea. So we worked on that for a couple of weeks. And I spent so much time, and there were so many different areas to address, and I spent so much time just really going over those key points to make sure I could articulate them in a very clear way. In fact, the weekend before the hearing, I remember it was a Sunday afternoon, or maybe it was a Monday, it was Labor Day weekend. And I remember I called my daughter, who lives close by, and I said, "What are you doing? Are you doing anything?" And she was at this point about eight and a half months pregnant. And so she wasn't going anywhere. And she was at home and I said, "Well, would you mind helping me? If you could take this paper and if you could ask me the questions, then I could practice responding and we could kind of see how I'm doing." So we spent an afternoon together and she was great. She would work with me patiently and we would go over something, "No, no, that's not really what the key points were." Okay. And we'd go back over it. So it was a lot of work to get to a place where I felt comfortable that I knew the key points. All right. Now, the next thing is that following weekend, which was a few days before the hearing, I was asked to spend the weekend in Washington, D.C., where we would spend time going over in great detail over and over the possible questions. What it ended up being was we would do what would be called mock hearings. So what would happen, just to give you a flavor for this, is they set up a stage and they had attorneys sit up there and play the part of different senators. And then they had me sitting down as if I was sitting just like at the hearing and had me with a microphone so I could practice turning it on and turning it off. And then we pretended it was a hearing. And so I can tell you the very first mock trial that I did, I failed miserably afterwards. We sat down and we went over all the areas that I had basically led the company down this path or said something over here, that so on. So I quickly learned, I quickly had to adjust and had to get work not only on knowing what the key points were, but knowing how to say them in a way that was effective. So that was an entire weekend of trying to get ready for that. And then finally we got to, you know, the day before and, you know, we continued to have sessions where we'd kind of, and what happened often was I would be practicing. So we would take an hour. Okay, let's go. Let's go in this section here and we'd go. So we spent a lot of time preparing and finally it was the day. It was time for the actual event. So that led us to the day of the hearing. And I can only tell you, you know, that I slept pretty good the night before. I felt fairly prepared and, but got up the next morning and of course you begin to imagine all the things that could happen. So we showed up early to the Senate hall where the hearing would be held and, you know, you had to be dressed for the occasion, nice suit. And then you're early and you just kind of stand around and you get a sense of what the room looks like. A few senators walk in, I think I met one or two. You see the people for the first time who are on the other companies that will be testifying and you look at the clock and you know the time is ticking and it won't be long before you have to, you know, settle down. So the lights are on, the cameras are there, you see them right in front of you. They put a placard on the desk with your name. There's this kind of quiet hum in the room, a buzz, people talking, you know, people coming in seeing each other and everybody knows something important is going to happen here. And then all of a sudden the chair calls the hearing to order and you sit down, the cameras are clicking and the gavel is dropped and it all begins just like that. And so what happens, I'll just walk you through a little bit and if you ever watched this hearing you can kind of see it, but the committee's made up, I forget the total number of senators, but not all of them come and we knew which ones weren't coming and which ones were. Some of them were only going to be there for a bit. So when they come, they sit at the front and they put down their name tag and the person who records all the goings on records that that senator was present. Sometimes the senator gets up and leaves and I know there was one senator who got up right away and left and didn't come back till almost the end when it was time to question me. But it was just kind of fascinating to watch what went on from the senators. They're sitting up there and behind them they have their staff and they clearly came prepared with questions and you know some of the senators came in swinging. I mean they had an agenda and they had some very important questions they wanted to ask and they wanted ultimately to get those of us testifying to commit to do certain things. Others were a bit more fair, I mean their questions were more just matter of fact and wanted information. Others were generally curious and wanted to understand a bit more how these things really work from a corporate's perspective. But you realize pretty quickly that this is not just a hearing, it's theater with real stakes. I mean people told me that this would be political theater and I can attest to the fact that it certainly was. And that was one of the hardest things was to try to anticipate where this was going and how do you adjust and react. You know at one point I had one of the senators and you can see on social media video clips of this interchange I had with the senator and it was very intense, extremely intense. And I got through it but then as the rest of the hearing went on I felt a tap on my shoulder and I looked down and there was a little sticky note being passed to me. And so my sherpa, the one that was organizing the whole thing was sitting behind me wanted me to raise a few things to clarify because it was a very huge exchange and wanted me to clarify a few things. And so now my next challenge I had to figure out was how am I going to get the chair's attention to be able to raise these points. And we got asked another question and I went to each person and it wasn't really appropriate for me to jump in. And when that was done I could tell we were almost they were almost getting ready to close this thing. And I raised my hand I said I have some clarifying information and yes Mr. Ritter please. So I was able to clarify and clarify the record because everything that is said during this hearing is recorded, documented and and by the way it's also happening live on C-SPAN. Another interesting story while it was going on live you know there were lots of people watching you know looking watching intently to see how it would go and one of those happened to me my daughter who helped me prepare and talking to her afterwards about that experience she will tell you it was one of the most stressful moments of her life as she's sitting there watching her dad in this environment and just being peppered with very difficult questions and having to be able to answer those and so she remembers this day quite well herself. So all of a sudden you know it's over you know it just ends the hearing is over and you're it's done and you just you're sitting there like oh my gosh what just happened three weeks of intense preparation you know two hours of uncomfortable questioning and all of a sudden it stops and you're done and I found myself left with a million thoughts going through my mind how did I do did I say something I shouldn't have oh I wish I would have said this or maybe I shouldn't have said that and fortunately the people that were with me you know encouraged me and told me that it went very well if they thought it was an excellent job and so I felt encouraged by that but you still have those questions and those questions continue to haunt you for days for weeks and I have to say even still now sometimes I will go back and think of things ah wish I would have maybe said it this way but that's that's how anything like that when you do something very difficult works so I asked I always ask myself and people ask me as well you know what what were kind of your your learnings or your take what your key takeaways from that experience you know I can say I walked out of that room with a much deeper respect for the complexity of oversight you know it's really easy to criticize from the outside but it's much much more difficult to sit in the hot seat and speak truth to power the whole experience gave me a much greater appreciation of what happens all the time in Washington DC in Congress in fact this last spring many of you I'm sure probably watched or maybe you didn't care but during the spring after the inauguration and and the beginning of the Trump administration there were just dozens and dozens and dozens of hearings for you know confirming certain positions secretary level and other positions and I found myself watching those with such a different lens and I knew what was happening from the senator's side and what they were trying to accomplish and of course that was obviously very very different purpose you were trying to decide if you were going to confirm somebody but I also could really you know find myself in the shoes of the person sitting there having to answer those questions and some of those hearings if you remember if you recall if you watch were pretty intense and so I have a much better appreciation of what goes on you know I'm often asked you know would you ever do that again and I I even said this I think even that after that was over I said to people and I say it today yes I would do this again in fact I wish I could do it over yes I would probably do a lot better but I think yes I would do it again because now that I've been through this I have actually I actually understand what happens I have I've lived it I know what to expect and I think if I had to do this again obviously my preparation would be much different and my performance would probably be much different so yes I would definitely do this again will I do it again probably not but I would do it again another thing I think I would just share with you that I've took away from this is the importance of preparation I can't say that enough that you know had the team not if I hadn't spent the time with the team and they had not done the amazing work they did to help prepare me I would not have been able to have been as successful in how I handled the hearing the preparation was so critical and as I started off saying to you all people told me the preparation would be worse than the actual hearing and in many ways it's good that it's worse because the hearing doesn't seem quite as bad as going through those mock trials so definitely the importance of proper preparation the third I would say to you is teamwork you all have heard the phrase teamwork makes the dream work I have to say I could never have done that by myself absolutely not and I think having an amazing team of lawyers of government of air officials of trade experts working with me helping me prepare getting me ready for things I never would have imagined made it work and so I would just highlight the importance of teamwork and then I think finally I would just say this the satisfaction that comes from doing that difficult thing when you've done something really difficult and it's over you have this sense of satisfaction I did it I accomplished it I made it and with that I think your confidence grows because you've done something difficult and that just helps you the next time you have one of those difficult things to do so as I conclude here I would just want to encourage all of you out there listening you all have difficult things in your lives every one of you and I just encourage you hopefully what I've said today encourage you as you do those difficult things one year ago you know I sat in a room where every word I said mattered I didn't know what would come next I just knew I had to show up doing the difficult things isn't about being fearless it's about being willing willing to speak when it's uncomfortable willing to stand in the midst of tension willing to trust that clarity matters more than control so if you are facing something hard something uncertain something that asks more of you than you feel ready to give don't wait for it to get easier step in because the difficult things are where we grow where we lead and where we find out who we really are and one day you'll look back not with regret but with respect for the version of you who you chose to show up thank you for listening today I hope this has been helpful I will talk to you again real soon.