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Peter Orszag · The David Rubenstein Show

0:02
Speaker 1: One of the most interesting and smartest people running an
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Speaker 1: investment bank today is Peter or Zag. He previously serves
0:08
Speaker 1: as head of the Congressional Budget Office, the office in
0:10
Speaker 1: a Management Budget, and has a PhD in economics from
0:12
Speaker 1: the London School of Economics. I sat down with him
0:15
Speaker 1: his offices at Lazard Freyer to talk about his career
0:18
Speaker 1: and also the future of investment banking as Lizard practices it. So,
0:22
Speaker 1: you have been in the financial service world as an
0:25
Speaker 1: advisor for quite some time, but you also served in government.
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Speaker 1: We'll talk about both aspects of your career. But right now,
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Speaker 1: one of the things that has held back and A
0:34
Speaker 1: people say is the regulatory environment.
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Speaker 2: In Washington.
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Speaker 1: There hasn't been as much M and A activity as
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Speaker 1: some people in the M and A advisory business like
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Speaker 1: Lazard would like. Do you think it's the regulatory environment
0:45
Speaker 1: where you think it's high interest rates? What has kept
0:47
Speaker 1: M and A from going forward at the pace that
0:49
Speaker 1: maybe some people think it should be going forward at.
0:51
Speaker 3: Well, let's start with what's driving it, sort of the tailwind,
0:55
Speaker 3: So the biotech revolution, ongoing technology. I mean, we're seeing
1:02
Speaker 3: a revolution in generative AI, de risking and changes in
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Speaker 3: supply chains and the energy transition.
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Speaker 2: I mean, there are some big.
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Speaker 3: Building blocks that propel deal activity forward. And then on
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Speaker 3: the headwinds, I think there have been a few. The
1:17
Speaker 3: rate at which interest rates went up meant that there
1:20
Speaker 3: was a disconnect between buyers and sellers on the value
1:24
Speaker 3: of the assets. It also meant that financing was challenging,
1:28
Speaker 3: the financing markets were a little bit more liquid. And
1:33
Speaker 3: then yes, regulatory, but all three of those headwinds have
1:36
Speaker 3: been abating. First as interest rates have topped out and
1:40
Speaker 3: now we're debating how quickly they'll come down. And then
1:43
Speaker 3: secondly on the regulatory front, the government has lost some
1:47
Speaker 3: important cases in court. And what that has meant, in
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Speaker 3: turn is that many more boards and C suites are
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Speaker 3: willing to say, you know what, we'll see you in court,
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Speaker 3: will litigate for those.
1:57
Speaker 1: People that are not really involved in the M and
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Speaker 1: A world of the financial service world. They may not
2:01
Speaker 1: know about Lazard. Tell us about the brothers that started Lazard.
2:05
Speaker 1: How did they convert themselves from dry goods sellers to
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Speaker 1: financial experts.
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Speaker 3: So the story of Lazard. We're one hundred and seventy
2:14
Speaker 3: six years old. We began in New Orleans three French
2:17
Speaker 3: brothers start a dry goods store like many other firms,
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Speaker 3: and this is documented in a great book called The
2:22
Speaker 3: Money Kings. So the Seligman's, the Schieffs and others follow
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Speaker 3: the gold rush out to California, realized that lending gold
2:30
Speaker 3: to your customers, or shipping the gold back to their
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Speaker 3: home countries and then lending on credit to your customers
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Speaker 3: was more attractive than selling the suits and the other
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Speaker 3: dry goods moved back to New York to set up
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Speaker 3: a bank, and then had correspondent banks in our case,
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Speaker 3: in Paris and London, and the rest is history. So
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Speaker 3: it is, And I would say out of all those
2:53
Speaker 3: firms that started that way were the only ones still standing.
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Speaker 1: Lazard today manages money. You have asset management, and you
3:00
Speaker 1: have an M and a advisory business.
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Speaker 3: Is that right?
3:03
Speaker 2: Yes?
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Speaker 1: And you're a leader in M and a advisory. Tell me,
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Speaker 1: when CEOs want to do deals, why do they need
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Speaker 1: an advisor? Because if they're smart CEOs, can't they get
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Speaker 1: together without an advisor? What does an advisor really do
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Speaker 1: for smart CEOs when they want to do an acquisition
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Speaker 1: or merger?
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Speaker 2: Well, I think there are several things.
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Speaker 3: I mean, Blizard bankers are known as bankers with convictions,
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Speaker 3: so a lot of content, a lot of backbone in
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Speaker 3: terms of saying no, I don't actually think that's a
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Speaker 3: good idea. So you know you've been in many of
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Speaker 3: these positions. It is very helpful to have well informed,
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Speaker 3: smart people who are willing to push back suggest this
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Speaker 3: versus that, etc. I think the role of an advisor
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Speaker 3: is not just the narrow you know, what's this thing worth?
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Speaker 3: But do you really want to do this? What's the
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Speaker 3: regulatory implications? How is this going to play from an
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Speaker 3: investor relations and a PR perspective, It's the multidimensionality and
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Speaker 3: having a thought partner or someone who's counsel you.
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Speaker 2: Could benefit from. That's one part.
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Speaker 3: The second part is in many negotiations, it's helpful to
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Speaker 3: have a intermediary. It's why often you don't want to
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Speaker 3: be your own lawyer. And so I think that's the
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Speaker 3: second part of the advisory role.
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Speaker 1: So when you call a CEO of a fortune fifty company,
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Speaker 1: I assume you can get a meeting with that person
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Speaker 1: not that hard. So do you always have an idea
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Speaker 1: of saying this is a good thing that you might
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Speaker 1: consider doing, or they come to ideas to you, they
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Speaker 1: bring them to you.
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Speaker 2: It works both ways.
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Speaker 3: But what I like to do with CEOs is to
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Speaker 3: have a broader discussion both about the world and then
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Speaker 3: about what their objectives are. And we present ideas and
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Speaker 3: then sometimes people will say, I'm thinking about this, could
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Speaker 3: you work on this with us?
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Speaker 1: Now, the m and a advisory business, you competing against
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Speaker 1: people that have or organizations have large balance sheets. So
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Speaker 1: if somebody wants to do it deal, they might say
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Speaker 1: to JP Morgan, can you be my advisor? But can
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Speaker 1: you also lend me money to do the deal? And
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Speaker 1: the same is true with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sacks.
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Speaker 1: You don't use your balance sheet for that purpose. You
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Speaker 1: just use your brain power to kind of say it's
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Speaker 1: a good deal or not a good deal. Is that
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Speaker 1: a competitive disadvantage or a competitive advantage?
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Speaker 3: I think it's well, let the market speak. What's happened
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Speaker 3: over the past fifteen or twenty years is massive share
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Speaker 3: that went to independent advisory firms like ours that don't
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Speaker 3: use their balance sheets to provide the advice, that only
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Speaker 3: provide the advice and don't use their balance sheets. And
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Speaker 3: I think to win in that kind of environment, you
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Speaker 3: need to have differentiated content, great ideas, insight into the players,
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Speaker 3: an ability to read between the lines on the regulatory
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Speaker 3: and other developments, and also deep relationships. You need to
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Speaker 3: be both trusted and discreet.
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Speaker 1: So you became the CEO in October of twenty three,
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Speaker 1: and I think shortly there after you said you one
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Speaker 1: of the double revenues.
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Speaker 2: Is that I actually said that right before I took
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Speaker 2: over it before.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so you want to double revenues by twenty thirty, right,
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Speaker 1: So is that realistic? Are you on the path to
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Speaker 1: do that?
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Speaker 3: We're a head of schedule on accomplishing that, and I
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Speaker 3: think I think that really reflects the power of Lizard's
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Speaker 3: standing in the world, our brand, and what we needed
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Speaker 3: to do is just up our ambition and increase from
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Speaker 3: a cultural perspective, our focus on working together.
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Speaker 2: And we're doing it.
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Speaker 3: And so you're seeing that in the results I mentioned
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Speaker 3: a record first half. We're really excited about the people
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Speaker 3: that we're bringing on, and we're really excited about most
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Speaker 3: importantly about what we're able to do on behalf of
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Speaker 3: our clients.
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Speaker 1: Now, you have an unit here, I guess it's called
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Speaker 1: a geopolitical Advisory unit. Do clients pay for that, and
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Speaker 1: are they happy to get that and pay for it
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Speaker 1: or you kind of give it as a service. And
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Speaker 1: do people really care about geopolitical events when they're doing it?
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Speaker 3: M and A deals Absolutely, so, I mean in today's world.
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Speaker 2: So let's stop back.
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Speaker 3: What's happened over the past three or four decades is
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Speaker 3: we've moved from an environment in which the oil and
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Speaker 3: gas companies that always operated globally and needed to have
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Speaker 3: geopolitical insight and maybe a few others had to take
7:12
Speaker 3: geopolitical considerations into account to a situation today in which
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Speaker 3: pretty much every important business decision that is made has
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Speaker 3: to take geopolitical issues into account or else you're going
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Speaker 3: to go You're going to go wrong. It's a fundamental
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Speaker 3: business need. And Lazard has always been known as a
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Speaker 3: banker plus so people that had the ability to provide
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Speaker 3: insight into not only what the other CEO was thinking,
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Speaker 3: but what the prime minister was thinking or the president.
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Speaker 3: So these are people who cross those boundaries between business
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Speaker 3: and government. So Lazard was always known as having that
7:51
Speaker 3: skill set, and we thought we could professionalize it by
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Speaker 3: bringing in people who have done that for a living
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Speaker 3: in different settings. So The short answer is it's very
8:02
Speaker 3: much part of Blizard's DNA. We now have a unit
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Speaker 3: that's dedicated to it in addition to just the bankers,
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Speaker 3: and it is a revenue generating activity, but it's also
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Speaker 3: something that is a great entree into boardrooms and c
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Speaker 3: suites for our bankers also. So this has been a
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Speaker 3: resounding success.
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Speaker 1: What is the biggest geopolitical risk that you think now
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Speaker 1: faces the world in certainly the United States.
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Speaker 3: I think the fact of the matter is the biggest
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Speaker 3: risk is that the world is changing and we don't
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Speaker 3: yet have an intellectual framework that matches this new reality.
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Speaker 3: So we have a splintering that's occurring between the major
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Speaker 3: blocks of the US and Europe on the one hand, China,
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Speaker 3: Russia and others on the other, and then some countries
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Speaker 3: that are in between the two, and we have not
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Speaker 3: adapted to that new world quite yet. Beyond that, there
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Speaker 3: are flashpoints. There are two hot wars going on in
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Speaker 3: Europe and the Middle East with uncle your trajectories on both.
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Speaker 3: So there is obviously elevated risk even before you get
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Speaker 3: to the traditional well, China invade Taiwan and other things
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Speaker 3: that people.
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Speaker 2: Often talk about.
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Speaker 1: Many people who are running investment banks, come from Wall Street.
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Speaker 1: Their whole career, you've been in government. Is there an
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Speaker 1: advantage or a disadvantage in having served in government when
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Speaker 1: you're doing the job you currently have.
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Speaker 3: I view it as a significant advantage, and the reason
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Speaker 3: is that it brings a perspective having served in government
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Speaker 3: that is useful in lots of different settings. And it's
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Speaker 3: that multidimensionality, the ability to stitch together pieces from different
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Speaker 3: worlds that I think is very helpful. The other advantage
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Speaker 3: that it gives, I believe, is that I have a
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Speaker 3: lot of respect and admiration for our senior bankers at Lazard,
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Speaker 3: and so I view it as my job to do
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Speaker 3: part of the work, but then to hand things off
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Speaker 3: to our senior bankers. And I think people who have
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Speaker 3: spent their entire careers doing one thing, the natural inclination
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Speaker 3: is to then go do it yourself, and then the
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Speaker 3: problem becomes that you're not providing enough upward movement and
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Speaker 3: ability to grow to the senior people. So this is
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Speaker 3: a fantastic job, but I think, I hope and I
10:16
Speaker 3: believe that I'm better at it because of what I've
10:18
Speaker 3: done before.
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Speaker 1: Let's talk about your own background as opposed to Azard's background.
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Speaker 1: So where were you born.
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Speaker 2: I was born in Lexington, Massachusetts, outside of the Boss.
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Speaker 1: What did your parents do?
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Speaker 3: My dad was a MIT math professor at the time,
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Speaker 3: and he also ran a consulting firm that my mother managed.
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Speaker 1: So if your father is teaching math at MIT, I
10:40
Speaker 1: presume you're pretty good at math and.
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Speaker 2: Not by his standards. Oh no, but I was.
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Speaker 1: You were good?
10:46
Speaker 2: I was. Okay.
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Speaker 1: Did you get eight hundred year math SAT?
10:49
Speaker 2: I did very well on my math sat?
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Speaker 1: Yes, right, So you chose not to go to MIT
10:54
Speaker 1: or another school up there called Harvard, but you went
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Speaker 1: to Princeton I did, and you got a PhD at
10:59
Speaker 1: the London School of that's correct. Yeah, okay, So when
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Speaker 1: you got your PhD, what did you decide to do
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Speaker 1: with the PhD in economics? You want to go teach her?
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Speaker 1: What did you do when you came back to the
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Speaker 1: States with your PhD?
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Speaker 3: Well, actually, I had in the meanwhile, in the middle
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Speaker 3: of graduate school, and I think it reflects the fact
11:14
Speaker 3: that I clearly did not yearn to be a pure academic.
11:17
Speaker 3: I had spent a year, not quite a year, but
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Speaker 3: a year in Moscow with a team of advisors to
11:23
Speaker 3: the government there. And then when President Clinton was elected,
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Speaker 3: one of my undergraduate professors, Alan Blinder, called me up
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Speaker 3: and said.
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Speaker 2: Isn't it kind of cold in Moscow?
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Speaker 3: Would you like to come join the new Clinton administration
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Speaker 3: at the Council of Economic Advisors?
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Speaker 2: Which I did?
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Speaker 1: And how long were you in the Clinton administration?
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Speaker 3: I did a couple stints, so I did a couple
11:42
Speaker 3: of years. I went back and quickly finished my PhD.
11:44
Speaker 3: I went back in for about a year or two,
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Speaker 3: So it must have been accumulatively maybe four or five years.
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Speaker 1: In the Clinton administration. You eventually left and you went
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Speaker 1: to Brookings? Is that true?
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Speaker 3: So I left the Clinton administration, I then have the
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Speaker 3: shortest tenure of anyone who voluntarily left McKenzie. I went
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Speaker 3: to McKinsey in San Francisco. After three weeks I decided
12:06
Speaker 3: that was not for me. My younger brother and I
12:08
Speaker 3: then founded an economic consulting firm, which subsequently grew. I
12:13
Speaker 3: taught at Berkeley. I then moved to Brookings in two
12:17
Speaker 3: thousand and one.
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Speaker 1: So eventually the Congressional Budget Office people called you and said,
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Speaker 1: can you come up and run the Congressional Budget Office?
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Speaker 1: Right the Congressional Budget Office was set up under the
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Speaker 1: Budget Act of nineteen seventy four. Correct, since the Budget
12:29
Speaker 1: Act of nineteen seventy four, deficits have been going this way.
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Speaker 1: Budgets had been going with not balanced. Was the Budget
12:37
Speaker 1: Act a good idea because we were doing pretty well
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Speaker 1: without it?
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Speaker 3: Well, first I didn't deficits having quick They went up, down,
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Speaker 3: and now they're backup. But I think what the Budget
12:46
Speaker 3: Act did is it gave Congress better tools. But ultimately,
12:50
Speaker 3: these decisions are not going to be up to an
12:53
Speaker 3: agency like the Congression Budget Office.
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Speaker 2: They're up to our elected representatives.
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Speaker 3: Soew the Congression Budget Office as empowering the legislature to
13:04
Speaker 3: make decisions, but those decisions are not you know, they're
13:07
Speaker 3: driven by.
13:08
Speaker 2: Other factors too.
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Speaker 1: Okay, So you're doing that for a number of years,
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Speaker 1: and then President Obama is elected and he asked you
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Speaker 1: to be the head of the Office of Management Budget. So,
13:16
Speaker 1: for those who aren't familiar with that, what does that
13:18
Speaker 1: office do?
13:19
Speaker 2: So that's slightly different.
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Speaker 3: It sounds similar to the Congression Budget Office, but think
13:23
Speaker 3: of the Congression Budget Office as an independent entity who's
13:27
Speaker 3: really analytical. In his job it is to evaluate the
13:30
Speaker 3: costs and implications of legislation and then to testify on
13:33
Speaker 3: those to Congress. The Office Management and Budget does some
13:37
Speaker 3: of that, but it also implements the president's policies. It's
13:42
Speaker 3: think of it as like a COO type role for
13:45
Speaker 3: a lot of the government. So the role is complex
13:48
Speaker 3: because you're, remember the of the Cabinet, but also a
13:53
Speaker 3: member of the White House staff effectively, and the organization
13:57
Speaker 3: is partly analytical but also quite operation. So it's an
14:01
Speaker 3: unusual organization.
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Speaker 1: When I worked in the Carter administration, there were two
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Speaker 1: budget directors. One the first one was Burt Lance, and
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Speaker 1: he was a very good friend of Jimmy Carter's, and
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Speaker 1: sometimes he would sit at the cabinet room where we're
14:14
Speaker 1: going through budget appeals and he would say, mister President,
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Speaker 1: that's Omb's position. Let me tell you my view.
14:19
Speaker 2: I never did that.
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Speaker 1: You never did that. Now, so before the administration was over,
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Speaker 1: you decided to get it back into the private sector,
14:26
Speaker 1: and you left OMB to go to City Corp. And
14:30
Speaker 1: can you explain why you go to City Corp? A
14:31
Speaker 1: nice bank and everything, but how did you happen to
14:34
Speaker 1: pick City Corp as a place to go to?
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Speaker 3: Well, actually, I spent a little bit of time at
14:38
Speaker 3: the council and form relations, which you know well, just
14:40
Speaker 3: to figure out what I wanted to do next. I
14:42
Speaker 3: was about to sign with one of Lizard's actually competitors,
14:47
Speaker 3: when I got a call from City, which I had
14:48
Speaker 3: not really been considering. And the argument was which I
14:53
Speaker 3: found some merit in, you've done other things, including consulting, etc.
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Speaker 3: But you've never done bank. If you go to this
15:02
Speaker 3: other firm, you're only doing M and A. If you
15:05
Speaker 3: come to us, we've got ten different things you could try.
15:08
Speaker 3: If you're bad at all of them, that's your fault.
15:11
Speaker 3: And why don't you kind of get trained and get
15:15
Speaker 3: experience across a variety of things and see what you
15:18
Speaker 3: really like.
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Speaker 2: And that logic made sense to me.
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Speaker 1: So you eventually went to Lazard about I think two
15:22
Speaker 1: thousand and sixteen sixteen. Yes, So how did you rise
15:26
Speaker 1: up to be the CEO and a relatively short period
15:29
Speaker 1: of time? Were you really good at M and A advisory?
15:31
Speaker 1: And to be good at M and A advisory? Do
15:33
Speaker 1: you have to come up with ideas that clients want
15:36
Speaker 1: or do you have to kind of just execute the
15:37
Speaker 1: things that they say they want to do?
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Speaker 3: All of the above on M and a advisory And
15:41
Speaker 3: with regard to my role Atlizard, I think Lizard is
15:46
Speaker 3: a special place. It's a place that has always valued
15:49
Speaker 3: people that are useful to their colleagues. So when I
15:52
Speaker 3: came here, my whole goal was, how can I be
15:55
Speaker 3: useful to you? You banker in industrials, you the banker
16:00
Speaker 3: in healthcare, you the banker in technology, And that's what
16:04
Speaker 3: I tried to do.
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Speaker 1: So let's suppose that next president of the United States
16:08
Speaker 1: is a Democrat, and you've served in two Democratic administrations,
16:11
Speaker 1: on the Clinton administration the Obama administration. Suppose the next
16:14
Speaker 1: president is President Harris, and she calls you up and says,
16:17
Speaker 1: I need a Secretary of Treasury who knows Wall Street,
16:20
Speaker 1: also knows Washington. You're one of the few people who've
16:22
Speaker 1: worked in Wall Street and also worked in Washington. What
16:25
Speaker 1: would you say if she offered you that job.
16:27
Speaker 3: I think with regard to the question of returning to government,
16:30
Speaker 3: there's neither supply nor to band, So I don't think
16:33
Speaker 3: you're hypothetical is going to happen. But more importantly, I'm
16:36
Speaker 3: really excited about what we're doing here at Lazard. We've
16:39
Speaker 3: got a lot of momentum, and Lazard is a special place.
16:44
Speaker 3: It's an important place, and I have a vision of
16:48
Speaker 3: what we'd like to accomplish here that I'd like to
16:50
Speaker 3: see through.
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Speaker 1: So I'll take that you're not interested in being Secretary
16:54
Speaker 1: to the Treasury for the time being.
16:55
Speaker 2: I have a great, unbelievably great job.
16:58
Speaker 1: Is ESG seen at high water mark in the United States,
17:01
Speaker 1: and there's a pushback against it, And do you see
17:04
Speaker 1: clients not as interested in pursuing ESG as before.
17:08
Speaker 3: I think there's a big difference between the United States
17:11
Speaker 3: and Europe where there are probably the pendulum is swinging
17:17
Speaker 3: back more in the United States, including among investors, than
17:21
Speaker 3: is the case in Europe.
17:22
Speaker 2: On some of these topics.
17:24
Speaker 3: And again, what we're trying to do at Lizard is
17:26
Speaker 3: see through that and kind of have an underlying north
17:30
Speaker 3: star in terms of where we're going.
17:32
Speaker 1: Another acronym is DEI, which is a lot of pushback. So,
17:35
Speaker 1: for example, do you try to get women African America
17:39
Speaker 1: and Latino investment bankers here? Is it hard to do?
17:42
Speaker 1: Investment bank is largely still a male dominated profession. I
17:45
Speaker 1: soon is that fair to say?
17:46
Speaker 3: More diverse teams produce better outcomes when the problems are
17:50
Speaker 3: not routine. So when you're dealing with a novel issue,
17:53
Speaker 3: something that's different out of people's wheelboxes, having multiple different
17:58
Speaker 3: perspectives where people are coming at it from angles, produces
18:01
Speaker 3: better outcomes. That's the only kind of scenario where Lizard
18:04
Speaker 3: is getting hired. And so from our perspective, having more
18:08
Speaker 3: diverse teams, it's not just better work environment and a
18:11
Speaker 3: more interesting dynamic and the ability to tap untapped labor
18:17
Speaker 3: pools of people that are highly talented, but also the
18:20
Speaker 3: thought that we're going to be better on behalf of
18:22
Speaker 3: our clients as a result.
18:24
Speaker 1: What's the difference between advising a president of the United
18:26
Speaker 1: States and advising a CEO. Do you ever say to
18:29
Speaker 1: a CEO, Look, I've advised presidents and you're not a president,
18:32
Speaker 1: but I'll give you my advice, or you don't mention
18:34
Speaker 1: that you've been an advisor to president.
18:36
Speaker 3: I think perhaps the most important thing in providing good
18:39
Speaker 3: advice to either a president or a CEO is first,
18:43
Speaker 3: do your homework, don't you know it is too easy
18:46
Speaker 3: to make things up that never works. And the second
18:49
Speaker 3: thing is to have conviction. The number of times I've
18:51
Speaker 3: seen people who say, I'm going to tell the president,
18:56
Speaker 3: you know, put them in his place or put maybe
18:58
Speaker 3: her in her place. And then they get into the
19:00
Speaker 3: Oval Office and they say, and I one episode really
19:06
Speaker 3: sticks out in my mind on this front, and it's
19:08
Speaker 3: something I try to remember in this job. And it
19:11
Speaker 3: was something that I definitely remember when I was in Washington,
19:14
Speaker 3: which is I was in my mid twenties and I
19:17
Speaker 3: happened to be in the Oval Office, which, as you
19:19
Speaker 3: know in your mid twenties, is quite a thrill. And
19:22
Speaker 3: there was a discussion with Bob Ruben and President Clinton.
19:26
Speaker 3: President Clinton said something like, well, we're going to go
19:28
Speaker 3: out and say X and Bob you'll give this speech.
19:31
Speaker 3: And there are a lot of people nodding their head yes,
19:34
Speaker 3: like yes, mister President. And Bob said something like, well,
19:37
Speaker 3: that's terrific, mister President.
19:38
Speaker 2: We only have one problem. I can't give that speech.
19:41
Speaker 3: And President kind of looks out but him quite stunned,
19:43
Speaker 3: and said, well why not, And he said because I
19:45
Speaker 3: don't think it's true. And it was a moment when
19:49
Speaker 3: he did it in a way that wasn't offensive sort of,
19:52
Speaker 3: but he had backbone, he had conviction, and I think
19:56
Speaker 3: those that is what many CEOs. That's what many presidentdence either.
20:02
Speaker 2: Should want or do want. In an advisor, you have
20:05
Speaker 2: a point of view.
20:06
Speaker 3: You're respectful, but you're not just riding the wave of
20:10
Speaker 3: what everyone else is say.
20:12
Speaker 1: So your goal for Lazard is to grow the revenue
20:15
Speaker 1: and to keep it as an independent, publicly traded company.
20:18
Speaker 1: Is there an advantage of being a publicly traded company
20:20
Speaker 1: in the business you do because some of your competitors
20:23
Speaker 1: are not publicly traded.
20:25
Speaker 3: I think the goal is to make Lazard far and
20:28
Speaker 3: away I already think it's the best place to work
20:30
Speaker 3: on Wall Street, but far and away the pre eminent
20:32
Speaker 3: both financial advisory and in the part of asset management
20:36
Speaker 3: that we do firm.
20:38
Speaker 2: And you could do that either.
20:40
Speaker 3: As a public company or a private company. As you mentioned,
20:44
Speaker 3: some of our competitors or public, some are private. So
20:46
Speaker 3: I don't really view that as the key determinant. Instead,
20:50
Speaker 3: it is about that ambition to win. It's about conviction
20:57
Speaker 3: and about the content.
20:58
Speaker 1: So today, if somebody says, I want to want to
21:00
Speaker 1: work at one of these kind of firms, a small,
21:02
Speaker 1: not JP Morgan sized organization, I want to use these
21:06
Speaker 1: skills that I developed to work at a place like
21:08
Speaker 1: those are How does one get hired here? If you're
21:11
Speaker 1: in college or business school? What are you looking for
21:13
Speaker 1: when you hire somebody?
21:14
Speaker 2: Well?
21:14
Speaker 3: I talk a lot about succeeding Atlizard and our people
21:17
Speaker 3: being commercial and collegial.
21:19
Speaker 2: So what do I mean by that? Commercial?
21:21
Speaker 3: The ability to go out and act on behalf of
21:24
Speaker 3: our clients effectively. Collegial in terms of being able to
21:27
Speaker 3: work together as a team in delivering the best possible
21:31
Speaker 3: outcomes for our clients. But beyond that, I think the
21:35
Speaker 3: attributes that we look for and that I seek out
21:38
Speaker 3: in our colleagues, it would be curiosity. You've talked a
21:41
Speaker 3: lot about that, resilience and a work ethic and the
21:46
Speaker 3: ability to have conviction around your ideas so that you're
21:50
Speaker 3: not just going with the conventional wisdom and playing five
21:54
Speaker 3: year old soccer.
21:55
Speaker 1: Young investment bankers have often said work eighty hours a week,
21:58
Speaker 1: ninety hours a week. Why do they do that? Why
22:00
Speaker 1: can't they work nine to five and not come in
22:02
Speaker 1: a weekends and just say, look, I got to have
22:04
Speaker 1: a balanced life and I'm just not going to come
22:06
Speaker 1: in at night or on weekends. Why don't they do that?
22:09
Speaker 3: Teddy Roosevelt once said that the greatest gift in life
22:12
Speaker 3: is the opportunity to do work worth doing. So I
22:17
Speaker 3: think the point here is there are many professions where
22:22
Speaker 3: you can't get around the.
22:23
Speaker 2: Effort part of it.
22:25
Speaker 3: But what I think our firm requires or o's are
22:29
Speaker 3: people who are putting in.
22:30
Speaker 2: That effort is three things.
22:32
Speaker 3: The first is the opportunity I talk about practicing at
22:36
Speaker 3: the top of your license to run as far and
22:38
Speaker 3: as fast as you can. One of the exciting things,
22:40
Speaker 3: for example, about being in government at a relatively young age,
22:43
Speaker 3: is you have this sense that, oh my goodness, I'm
22:46
Speaker 3: this aged, I'm doing that. And to create that same
22:49
Speaker 3: sense of excitement for people entering financial services I think
22:53
Speaker 3: is characteristic of bizarre and it's very important.
22:56
Speaker 2: So that's part one.
22:57
Speaker 3: Part two is, even if you're working hard, you need
23:00
Speaker 3: to have some degree of agency and the ability to
23:05
Speaker 3: if something else is important in your life, to take
23:08
Speaker 3: time off to go do that. It's one of the
23:10
Speaker 3: reasons why here in New York, for example, we still
23:13
Speaker 3: have three days a week in the office and two
23:15
Speaker 3: days remote because it eases those trade offs for many people.
23:21
Speaker 3: And then the third really important part of this compact
23:27
Speaker 3: is the feeling that you're part of something, you know,
23:30
Speaker 3: you're working on important things.
23:32
Speaker 2: It's not just make work.
23:33
Speaker 3: And I think if you put all those elements together,
23:35
Speaker 3: there are many many people who would rather work, you know,
23:40
Speaker 3: whatever number of hours per week on interesting, important things
23:44
Speaker 3: rather than fewer hours on things that are not that interesting.
23:48
Speaker 2: And that's what we're looking for. That's the trade off.
23:52
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
23:54
Speaker 1: can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
23:58
Speaker 1: wherever you listen