EVENT: Darren Walker and Hubert Joly discuss “The Heart of Business”

Darren, thank you so much for having me. I'm so delighted. So, everyone, I am originally from France. I'm a 61-year-old white man. I have a navy-blue Ralph Lauren sweater and a light-blue Ralph Lauren shirt—I'm an infomercial right, Darren. I'm in my office in midtown Manhattan, so you're seeing books behind me, including maybe "The Heart of Business," and then a picture of my beautiful, adorable wife, Hortense le Gentil, who is one of the most extraordinary executive leadership coaches in the world.

Yeah, and, Darren, I so look forward to our conversation. It's a treat. And, yes, we're friends and now neighbors now that I have moved to New York City. We have to rewind. On September 13, 1970, a certain Milton Friedman came up with this idea of shareholder primacy and essentially telling the world that the only responsibility of companies was to maximize shareholder value. And I think this is a dangerous idea. And, Darren, can we agree that the world we are in is facing a multifaceted crisis—health crisis, economic crisis, societal crisis, racial crisis, environmental crisis, geopolitical tension? That's the all-you-can-eat menu of challenges. And I think that this obsession about profits, together with— So I have two people on my most-wanted FBI list—Milton Friedman for shareholder primacy and Bob McNamara, the inventor of scientific top-down management. I think this is what has led us here. And what's the definition of madness, right? Doing the same thing and hoping for a different—

And, I think, Darren, yes, I do want to do this, and I think if the world— If we collectively had followed Peter Drucker as opposed to Milton Friedman in the last 50 years, we would have been better off. Why do I believe— why do I say that an excessive focus on poverty is wrong? Don't get me wrong, I believe shareholders are a very important stakeholder. Making money is an imperative in business. And at Best Buy, we did okay, right? The share price went from a low of $11 to now $120. It's an imperative. It's also an outcome. And I don't think it should be the goal. Now, first reason is, if you— For all of us who have studied, you know, generally accepted accounting principles, you know, gap profit is not even trying to represent economic reality. There's many limitations to gap. The other thing that's more fundamental is that— Let's imagine that your doctor would be purely focused on your temperature, right? You wouldn't like to see that doctor. You'd like a doctor that looks at your health and your wellness and encouraging you to— deals with the driver of your health. So for me— And this is something I learned 30 years ago from a client when I was at McKinsey. He told me, "In business"— and we all know this— "In business, there's three imperatives." There is the people imperative— having good people, well-equipped, well-trained; you have a business imperative, which is you need to have customers who like your products; and you do have a financial imperative. With excellence on the financial imperative is the result of excellence on the people imperative, which leads to excellence on business imperative, and then finally, the financial imperative. So when you lead, you have to focus first on people, then business, then financial. He gave me a very concrete example, Darren, that I've always followed. He said, "In a monthly business review, when you look at the performance of your business, do not start with the financial results. End with the financial results. Your CFO will make sure there is enough time." But start with people and organization, then customers, right, and then financial results.

So, several things. Again, shareholders are very important. They are in charge of our savings and our retirement, and they're actually people. And, by the way, shareholders today, like, you know, BlackRock with Larry Fink and State Street and Vanguard, they all recognize that a long-term strategy is important, that the environment is important, that embracing all stakeholders is important. So people who oppose stakeholder capitalism and shareholder capitalism I think are wrong. I think that if we step back— And that was so apparent last year, Darren. You know, Best Buy is headquartered in Minneapolis. When the city's on fire following the horrible murder of George Floyd, you know, cannot open your stores. You cannot run a business if the community is on fire, if the planet is on fire, cannot run a business. So what we need today is a declaration of interdependence. The old days where— And that applies to the— You know, talking about CEOs, I think CEOs see that today. If you had to do a survey— I'm a member of the Business Council. That's the top 200 CEOs in the country. And you and I on the Ralph Lauren board, Patrice Louvet believes that, as well. Now, the formula I lay out in the book is the idea that, at the heart of business, you have to pursue a noble purpose, make a positive difference in the world, put people at the center, and create an environment that can unleash human magic, as I say, embrace all stakeholders in a declaration of interdependence, and treat profit as an outcome. And I think the experience of this— multiple studies that show that— that, actually, if you're really interested in maximizing shareholder value, which is, again, a very important dimension, that's the way to do it, right? And today, employees demand that, right? They want to work for companies that are ethical, that are responsible. Customers demand this, right? And then society demands this, and shareholders demand this. We'll always remember, Darren, when Larry Fink, you know, started sending these letters to public company CEOs. I got my first one, I think it was in '17. And it was encouraging as to articulate, be clear about our long-term strategy and our purpose. And what I did is that I hand-delivered to him our shareholder letter, which was a direct response. Two weeks later, I went to his office, we had a wonderful chat, and I thanked him for providing air cover, because you're right, there is a myth that the way to maximize shareholder value is by being brutal and only focus on the short-term. Now, of course, you need to be focused on the short-term and you need to be focused on the long-term, need to focus on all of your stakeholders. And my view, Darren, is that most CEOs and most leaders understand this. Where we are today is no longer about convincing people that this is the shift we need to make. But we need to— We're all travelers on that journey to learn how to lead from a place of purpose and with humanity, learn what it really means to embrace all stakeholders while, at the same time, continue to perform well from an economic standpoint.

Yeah, everything has changed, you know, if I try to emphasize. First, the mission of the CEO has changed. It used to be only about maximizing shareholder value. Now it's being a force for good in the world. The scope has changed. You know, to paraphrase "Godfather," you know, "Tell Michael I actually liked him. Nothing personal. It was only business." Now, business is about, you know, of course, employees, but customers, community, planet, and shareholders. So the scope has changed. And then the leadership profile, or leadership model, has changed drastically. If we rewind to last century, and you and I probably know some of these people, you know, it was the leader as the superhero, smartest person in the room, is there to save the day, often— too often driven by power, fame, glory, or money. [imitates buzzer] It doesn't work. Nobody wants to follow somebody like this. And, frankly, somebody like me, I've had to change. You know, I started as a hard-charging, deeply unethical McKinsey consultant, and now I'm somebody who believes in human magic. So I'm the living proof that people can get better and change. And the leadership model today, I think, Darren, that I believe in is the purposeful leader, somebody who is clear about their purpose. How do they want to be remembered? Not so much because of their banking account, right, but because of the difference they've made in the world. They need to be vulnerable. The most frequent phrase I now use is, "My name is Hubert. I need help. I don't know."

Yeah, 'cause I— Back to this multifaceted crisis, right, we have a few— Let's agree we have a few ticking time bombs. And so, we need this urgent refoundation of business and capitalism around these principles of leading with purpose and humanity. And I think what's very— So what's exciting, in a way, now that we recognize what is the first step of the 12 steps, right, we have a crisis on our hands. We cannot continue. So let's agree with that, let's recognize this, And I think in the last 12 to 18 months, I think you'll agree with me, Darren, that we've seen so many great examples of great leadership. You know, my successor at Best Buy, Corie Barry— wonderful woman— you know, she puts the safety of the employees— many did, right, of the employees and of the customers first— and if she was going to, you know, adjust head-count, she was going to delay furloughing anyone for as long as humanly possible, until the federal programs kicked in and until she could really explain to the employees what it means to be furloughed and have the opportunity then to come back. And then she said, "I want to make sure that, 12 months from now, the place is in a better shape than now. So let's not do anything stupid." And so, same at— You know, you mentioned I'm on the board of Johnson & Johnson. That's a company that decided to invest in the vaccine, you know, on a non-for-profit basis, really mobilized all of their resources in support of that. So people are realizing that change is needed. And now it's not just the CEO, right? It's all of us, because all of us are leaders. At minimum, we're leaders of our lives, right? And so, you know, one of things I would say is that last year, when we couldn't go outside because of lockdown, you had to go inside and decide, "Pause, slow down," decide, "What kind of a leader do I want to be? How do I want to— When the pandemic is over, how do I want people to remember me?" One exercise we do, Darren, with the new CEOs at— There's a new CEO workshop at Harvard Business School. We ask them to write down their retirement speech, you know, and how do they want to be remembered? My wife, Hortense, this amazing coach, encourages her clients to think about their eulogy. What do you want people to say on that day? That anchors you, right? And then, you know, because of all of the challenges we're facing, as a leader, make sure you take care of yourself, right? Remember when we were flying on airplanes a long time ago, Darren? Remember that? If the oxygen mask would come down, we are told, put the mask on yourself first before we can help others. So if we're going to be great leaders, that means we need to learn to breathe, remember to exercise, maybe meditate, journal, have a personal board of director so that we can lead from the inside out.

Yes, and you and I are living in the real world. Part of the reason why I wanted to write this book is because of the, you know, delightfully surprising turnaround and resurgence of Best Buy, right? That's a company in retail, right, that everybody thought we were going to die. And, you know, we've been able to effectuate this turnaround. And now there's a resurgence of Best Buy. And so, this would have been— In fact, when I started back in 2012, Darren, you know, when everybody thought we were going to die, people were telling me, "Hubert, you're going to have to cut, cut, cut— close stores, reduce head-count." So, the usual recipe for a turnaround. The way we did it is exactly the opposite. It was a human-centric turnaround, where you first start by listening to the frontliners, because that's where the knowledge of what's working and not working is. And I learned so much. I spent my first week on the job working in a store to listen to these wonderful frontliners in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Also, instead of starting with head-count reduction, see how you can grow the revenue. And then as it relates to cost, I have this whole, you know, turn-around manual. I'll show it to you next time we are together. On the cost side, first focus on reducing what I call non-salary expenses, which are all of the element of the cost structure that has nothing to do with people. So let me give you an example. At Best Buy, do we sell a lot of TVs? Yes, we do. They're large, they're thin, so they break. We used to break about $200 million worth of TVs every year. $200 million. If you can reduce that by 50 percent, that's $100 million saving, which is good for the customers, because we've surveyed the customers, Darren. Zero percent of customers want to buy a broken TV. Right? And it's good for the P&L. And out of the $2 billion of cost we've taken out in the last, you know, nine years at Best Buy— And listen how I'm still saying "we," right?

Seventy percent was nothing to do with people. And even if as a last resort, you have to reduce head count, then you see how you can redeploy people because you have turnover. And so people are not the problem. People are the solution. That's the philosophy I'm laying out, which I know works because I've seen it work at Best Buy, at many other companies. People are the source. So it completely flips the management philosophy. And by the way, one of the things I'm proud of is not only saving, you know, the 100,000 jobs-plus that we've had at Best Buy, but also increasing starting wage from $10 to now $15. Now, it's still hard to live on the basis of $15, but that's something you do gradually. Investing in benefits for the employees and developing a lot of these— Before retail, I was in the hospitality sector. These are wonderful industries because these are places where people can get into the workforce, learn skills, and then grow. Like Doug McMillon, the CEO of Walmart.

And so we really have to change the paradigm. And there's too many myths about you need to be, you know, harsh to succeed in business. There's many ways, I'm sure, to succeed in business. What I wanted to lay out and highlight is a human-centric, purposeful way to be successful, which I think is better for the soul, frankly.

Yes. And, by the way, it's not just about saying. It's also, importantly, about doing. So in the case of diversity and inclusion, let's be really clear. This is not only a moral and societal issue. It's a business issue. How stupid would it be for a business to only recruit from a quarter of the population in this country, people who look like me? That'd be stupid. One of the things I know from experience is—

Exactly. No, no. Exactly.

Yes. It doesn't work. And if it works, you can make it better. So one of the things I've learned—and I've been on this journey for a number of years, and Best Buy is not perfect, but I think we've done a few things, and Corie is continuing— as a business, you need your workforce and your leadership team to represent the customers in the community, right? Otherwise, you're going to miss, right? And so it's a very simple thing. The second thing is one of the ingredients of unleashing human magic is to make sure that every employee feels that they belong, that they're seen, that they're respected, and that they can give the best they have and they can be the biggest, most beautiful version of themselves. That's a business imperative to do this. And so what is very clear, Darren, is that on the racial issues, in particular—let's be very specific— the experience of Black men and women in corporate America has been ... What adjective would you like me to use? Not acceptable. And I saw that in 2016. We had seen that our employee-engagement scores at Best Buy were going up, but I could see differences across gender and race. So what I did is focus groups with our employees. And, you know, I used as an excuse the fact that I grew up in France, so I had a lot to learn. But I took what I was hearing from Black colleagues as a punch in the stomach, from the standpoint that I was really shocked. So that gave me the gut-level courage— not just the brain-level courage, but the gut-level courage— to start on a journey to move things. I got a wonderful reverse mentor, Laura Gladney, who is a young African American woman, to educate me, you know? One of the leadership traits that you need today is to be able to say, "My name is Hubert, and I don't know." So I went to see Mellody Hobson, who coached me. She also told me, "Hubert, you can't—"

Yes. She said, "Hubert, you cannot be who you cannot see. So don't forget to change the top." So when I stepped down from Best Buy, we had a majority of women on our board and three African American directors. And so this is something— So I'm actually optimistic. So this is not a political issue. This is something that, as a business, is, you know, rooting. And, of course, there's a societal issue, as well. I think our generation, if we stay with it, has the opportunity to, if not end, at least shrink systemic racism to a point where it's so marginal it doesn't matter. I was born in France, close to the German borders. Were the French and the German archenemies for two centuries? Did they kill collectively 50 million people in the last century? And today are they the closest allies? So I think we— That's the mind-set I think we need to have. So that's where it's a business issue. To your question about societal issues, one of the things we have to remember as a CEO, as a business leader, we're not an elected official, right? So we don't have a mandate to change society, and we're not going to get involved in everything, so we have to use filters on when and how to get involved. To me, criteria number one— Is the issue relevant to my business, to my employees, to my customers, to my values, right? So if I'm Walmart, guns is a real issue, because I'm selling guns. If I'm Microsoft, H-1B visas—That's a real issue. For me, racism, that's an issue for everybody because of what I said before. Then you have to make sure that you're authentic. And if you're going to say something, you have to follow through and be congruent. So, you know, Nike, which is a great company, when they did their Colin Kaepernick commercial, it backfired a little bit because people said, "Well, show me what you're doing internally, right, with your D&I policies." And at the time, like many companies, they were not as great as they could have been. Then you have to look at efficacy. So on the issue of the voting rights, on which you have been very vocal, for me, there is no doubt that whether you're a citizen or a CEO, of course you have to speak in favor of democracy. The question that I go beyond this— And I became a citizen, Darren, 18 months ago, so I'm very excited about this, okay? The question is, how do we restore our democracy in this country? And that's one I'm more perplexed. This is one where talking is one thing, but my dream would be for Congress in Washington to establish some norms that would be, you know, minimum norms that all of the states would have to comply with and that a party couldn't change. So I think there should be—I'm dreaming, okay? I'm a dreamer.

Yep.

So, I got a lot of help. Here's the scoop. Writing a book is actually not difficult. To your point, writing a good book is extremely difficult. So in the category of "My name is Hubert. I need help," I had this wonderful partner, Caroline Lambert. This is not a case of a ghostwriter, where I told her, "These are three ideas. Go write it." We worked on it together, and she made it significantly better. What I'm proud of in this book— It's easy to read, and it's almost like— You know, because how do people learn, right? It's through stories. Theories are interesting, but stories is what helps us learn as human beings. And I think in this book, without making it too long, we were able to capture this philosophy. We were able to capture this philosophy of, you know, putting a noble purpose as the North Star, people at the center, embracing all stakeholders, treating profit as an outcome. And then, importantly— I believe that I'm a bit more optimistic, I feel, than you are, but it's okay.

Yes. Exactly. Because coming from a Frenchman, yes, there's an entire backdrop around this. So people are eager to move in that direction, right, because we all know instinctively in our heart that if we can do this, this is better. And so the book is a very practical guide to how to move in that direction, how to rethink work—What is work for us? Why do we work?—how to rethink the corporation, how to motivate people in a way that truly unleashes human magic, and how to evolve our leadership. There's questions at the end of each chapter, which are self-reflective, you know, questions. So my hope is that, you know, it's really helpful to people. And if I've helped, you know, a few million people— I don't know how many books we'll sell. [laughs]

Yeah. And so if it can help all of us as leaders— And it helped me writing it, because I had to— You know how it is when you actually have to write it down. It forces you to crystallize and articulate and then provide not only the proof of why this makes sense but the how. So I'm proud. The last thing I would say is that my daughter, right, Agathe, wrote a wonderful review on Amazon where she said that "Yeah, the turnaround piece is interesting, but it's how my dad changed over time to become a more human-centric leader, showing that it's a better way to lead." That touched my heart.

And, of course, shareholders, right? Let's not forget—Shareholders are a very important group of stakeholders. They take care of our savings, our 401(k), and so forth. So I'm not opposing stakeholders. But having said that, four very practical thoughts. One—Be very explicit if you're a leader. And again, I don't care whether it's a small team or, you know, you have Doug McMillon's job at Walmart with—I don't know—1.5 million people. Be clear that you believe that it's people that leads to business success, that leads to financial success. That's the first job— be articulate about your point of view. Second, as I was saying earlier, change the way you lead your meetings, because people will hear your words, but they'll watch your behaviors, right? So how you conduct meetings, how you— When I would visit a store, do I first ask to see the financial results or I connect with the general manager, and I ask her, "Tell me about you and your team. And then tell me how about, you know, how is it going." So the questions we ask make a big difference. The third idea is think about— So, maybe, Darren, one of the most important decisions we make in an organization— it's the same for a nonprofit and for-profit— is who we put in positions of power, right? I used to place a lot of emphasis on experience and expertise. And we had the best e-commerce person or the best supply-chain person. Now, increasingly, I look at who is this person. What kind of a leader is this? I had once an interview question when I was being interviewed for the CEO job at Carlson Companies by Marilyn Carlson Nelson, the daughter of the founder. She asked me, "Hubert, tell me about your soul." So ask people, "What drives you? What's important to you," right? So that's another one. In fact, you know, one of things I waited way too long for in my career is be curious about the individual purpose in life of people around us and then see how we can connect that purpose with their work and with the purpose of the company. There's many examples in the book that talks about how you do this. So I think it's doable. And again, that's why I was excited to write this book, is I know it can be done.

Yes.

Yes. It sounds really soft. And you're absolutely right. It's hard to do— in part because that's not how we've been wired through our business education and the dominant norm, and so that's why I'm excited about spreading the word that there's a better, more human way to do it, which also happens to work better. Because, you know, I think at companies in general— Gallup says that only 20 percent of people are engaged, all right? Imagine. Maybe at Ford Foundation, 120 percent of people are engaged. But if you could go in the world from 20 percent engaged to 80 percent engaged, imagine the unleashing of human magic, the ingenuity, you know, what we could come up with to solve all of our problems. So I think it's worth it. Again, there's many different ways to skin a cat. I apologize for all of the cat owners for saying this, but you know what I'm saying. There's different ways to solve problems. I think this formula that's in the heart of business, I think is one that really works well and for the benefit of all stakeholders. But to your point, it's hard, which is why I wanted to provide the manual, the how-to manual on how to get this done, you know?

Yeah. Let's unpack this. These questions, by the way, apply not just to CEOs, right? I think it applies to all leaders. And again, I repeat— Everyone is at least a leader of their life. And so the leadership expectations that I think are important— And I talk about the five B's of being a purposeful leader. Be clear about your own purpose. How do you want to be remembered? Be clear about the purpose of people around you and how it all connects with the purpose of the company. Be clear about your role as a leader, right? Is it to be the smartest person in the room or is it to create an environment where others can be successful? Be clear about who you serve. I told the officers, Darren, at Best Buy, "If you are here to serve yourself or your boss or me as the CEO of the company—" I told them, "It's okay. I don't have a problem with that. Except you cannot work here. We're going to promote you to customer, which is a very— You know, we'll take good care of you. But on the other hand, if you're here to serve, you know, the front-liners, the organization, then we're good." Then it's about being a value-driven leader— integrity. Then it's about being an authentic leader, somebody who's vulnerable. It's okay to say, "I don't know." For me personally, that was the biggest journey, right? From the know-it-all to the learn-it-all. I'm quoting Satya Nadella, a great leader and CEO of Microsoft. There's a chapter in the book about the quest for perfection is evil. This is such a fundamental idea. And I think that today—I mean, in the boards I'm involved in where we've had CEO searches or when we look at, you know, appointing senior leaders, these dimensions, I think today, they're included because people know that this is what's expected. And so that's where I believe that we've moved forward. And I think then it's all about "How do I become a better leader in that direction?" That's where all of us, self included, need help. On executive compensation, I think that's an area where we need to make more progress, because when the proxy advisers like ISS and Glass Lewis advise investors for the say-on-pay votes, they really only look at, I think, the correlation between the pay of the CEO and the financial performance of the CEO. And I think if we truly believe in the broader responsibilities of CEOs, then we should put in place, you know, more factors. Like boards don't only look at— When we evaluate a CEO, we don't only look at the financial. So I think around say-on-pay, it could be an interesting debate to see how do we evolve say-on-pay assessment and how do we evolve long-term incentives for senior executives at companies so that they better reflect this new formula? I think we have work to do in this area, frankly.

Thank you for that question. And Darren and I love the not-for-profit sector. In fact, we love a certain Kaywin Feldman, who is the director at the National Gallery.

And opining on the best CEO in America. Wonderful. Kaywin used to be the museum director in Minneapolis, where I was on the board. I've been on the board of trustees for a long time. And Kaywin and I had been talking about this. Leadership in the not-for-profit world is actually, if you embrace the philosophy I describe, very similar to the for-profit world, because, you know, a museum— And Kaywin and I had a wonderful conversation when she was in Minneapolis. You know, you start with "What's the mission of the organization?" And, of course, arts can be such an enabler of wonder and learning and human connections. And then you get into "What's going to drive a better outcome?" So how do you mobilize all of the employees in support of that mission? And, of course, you know, there is an economic reality, whether it's for-profit or not-for-profit. We all need to balance, right, things. And so how do you drive efficiencies? Because one of the things we did at Best Buy is we would drive efficiencies every year so that we could reinvest in the growth and in the future and then give some of it to the shareholders. If we had told the shareholders, "No, no, no. We're going to reduce the margins, and in five years, we're going to increase the margins," you know, they would have said, "You guys can do better than this, right?" So I think a lot of the same principles apply. And, of course, in the nonprofit world, you know that the financial outcome is not the goal. But that's also what I'm arguing for in the for-profit world. So a lot of similarities. And, you know, one of the things that I really emphasize at Best Buy—Sometimes at companies, every so often they do a big restructure and it creates drama, and it's so bad. I think it's like in our lives, right? Let's try to be, you know, healthy every year, right? Let's lose some weight, let's exercise, let's see how we can get better, how we can innovate on an ongoing basis. And if you can turn it like this, then it becomes a very joyous, you know, activity of making things better, which I think is a very human thing to do.

Darren, the mission of Harvard Business School, like many other business schools, is to educate leaders who can make a positive difference in the world. And the reason why I got interested in business education, starting with my alma mater in France, HEC Paris, where I endowed a chair on purposeful leadership, and the reason why I joined the faculty at HBS— because I think historically business education has been too focused on teaching techniques. So in the "know, do, be," too much—a lot of emphasis on the "know" and maybe the "do," not enough on the "be." And my view is that, you know, the best leaders I've seen— we're not going to say "the best leaders" because they were the best at spelling out the four P's of marketing or calculating a net present value but because they had this je ne sais quoi, as the French would say, that's called leadership. Now, to be specific, at Harvard, there's a lot of good stuff taking place. A good friend, Bill George, who was my neighbor in Minneapolis, you know, established this Authentic Leader Development Program many years ago. I think the way we structured the new CEO program is along the same lines. So there's a lot of good stuff. I have amazing colleagues, like Rebecca Henderson, who wrote this book, "Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire," and she's in charge of one of the key required courses in the first year of the MBA program, Leadership and Corporate Accountability. Dean Nitin Nohria, when he was the dean— He's one of the foremost experts on leadership. He's a great soul. And the new dean, Srikant Datar, has made business in society one of his top-three priorities. Now, is there work to be done? I think if Srikant was on this call, he would be the first one to say, I think in particular on one of the topics we are talking about, which is race, you know, they've launched a significant set of activities around this. I've had the opportunity— At Harvard, I'm just a young Padawan. I'm at the bottom of the ladder. But I've had the opportunity to try to help in this area, because I think it's the mission of the school to contribute. And way I see it is that we're at the beginning of a new era. And so, you know, Darren, when I started at Best Buy, on day one, I told all of the executives, "Everybody today starts with an 'A'. I don't care what happened before. I cannot change it. It's all about what we, all of us, are going to do going forward. And every one of us is going to decide how long they keep the 'A', self included." Some of them, you know, not only kept the 'A' but got an 'A'-plus—others, not so much. So my view is that we—all of us— leaders at all levels, boards, investors, rating agencies, proxy advisers, business education, regulators— we all have to—and I think we are— look at the situation as it is and then decide— and that's a call for action for all of us, right— What kind of a leader do I want to be in the next 10 or 20 years? What's going to be my contribution to creating a future that does not exist yet but that certainly needs to be more sustainable than what we have now? And so that's the call for action for everybody. There's a lot of work to do, but I think it's exciting, because I have three beautiful, amazing, very young granddaughters. I think they're going to hold me accountable if I don't do my part. And so I want to do my part. That's all.

And, Darren, thank you. You're such a friend, and I look forward to continue learning from you. You have such a unique place in the world. So my life is so much better because I know you. Thank you.