Ruth Porat0:01
I have known Keith, as he said, for many years, since the late 90s in fact, when he founded Arba. It was one of the first business-to-business internet companies, and we had the privilege of taking Arba public. And it was nothing short of extraordinarily revolutionary, exciting, and extremely successful. And of course, he then went on to found DocuSign, which all of us use virtually every day. And what was clear then, and really defines Keith, is that he's early to see the transformative power of technology and optimistic about the implications for really driving the kind of change in society we want, and keeping freedom for everyone. I want to thank Keith for bringing his insight into service for this country and then giving birth to this extraordinary Institute. And as he said over and over and keeps reminding all of us, you can't have political diplomacy without economic diplomacy, and you can't have economic strength without technology. He once said technology is key to winning the 21st century, and at Google we completely agree. We absolutely agree that it is critical, and it has been throughout society. 85% of economic growth in the last 80 years is actually attributable to technology. I think we're all extremely privileged to be living at this time with AI, where the economic uplift, appropriately deployed, is in the trillions of GDP growth. It also gives us the opportunity to address profound social issues around education, around health care, and more. It helps us advance science, and very much to Keith's opening comments, it meaningfully enables us to fortify everything around cybersecurity. But importantly, that upside is not something that we can all take for granted. It needs to be cherished, nurtured, supported—all the work that Keith has devoted so much of his life to, and that we're very proud to be a part of. When I travel the globe, what I hear everywhere I go is that leaders, political leaders, want to be a part of this moment in history. They see that the opportunity that comes with technology is one that can transform their economies, that can uplift people. And very importantly, what they've said is they're not going to miss this opportunity. So if we in the West are not there, they will find another place to go. And as one leader of a country said to me, he said, 'I love America. I love the values. We want you here. And if you're not...' It really comes down to one line in one movie that we should all remember at all times. And as I was sitting at the edge of my seat, he said, 'Jerry Maguire.' Not quite what I expected to hear from a head of state, but he said it's really that one line: 'Show me the money.' If we in the West are not there, they will find alternatives. And so that's what I think is the collective imperative: ensuring that we're investing meaningfully, embracing and extending what we can do through the investments we make. As Keith said, we've invested meaningfully in technical infrastructure and subsea cables that enable us to light up countries around the globe and then bring the products and solutions that give people everywhere access to the information and markets that we oftentimes take for granted that we have here. But what motivates Googlers around the globe is the ability to see that transformative impact on society. And probably there was no more meaningful moment for us than in 2022 when Russian tanks went into Ukraine, and we were able to immediately show up and say, 'How can we help?' We can help with our cybersecurity shield, we can help with SOS alerts, we can help with Google Maps, where we were working very closely with the Ukrainian government to turn on and off maps depending on what was most helpful to Ukrainian citizens. And actually was a blocker for those Russian tanks. And we were awarded as a result the first Ukrainian Peace Prize that went to a private sector company. We were also noticed by Russia—in fact, they slammed us with... having a hard time seeing all of this, so I'm doing this from memory, but they slammed us with a fine. Let me get these numbers right: there was two undecillion rubles. I had to Google what two undecillion Googles actually meant. It is a two followed by 36 zeros. So they slammed us with that fine because they were upset that we were actually taking actions in support of democracy. And so again, very proud of this. None of this work would be possible without the passion and commitment of Googlers around the globe, and I'm just grateful and honored to be here on behalf of all of the work that we've been doing. As Keith said, this democracy is not something that one can take for granted. We need to fight for it every day. And we do believe that technology is an important part of the solution, and are greatly, greatly honored by being here with all of you and grateful to Keith and the work of the Institute. So thank you again for this incredible privilege to be here.
