[Music] um we're very honored to have Larry Culp here uh as many of you know as I said earlier Larry uh was an economic Club of Washington member and for many years he was the CEO of Daner he's now the CEO of GE Aerospace and in between he was CEO of GE and uh as we'll talk about the the turnaround from GE uh when he came over as CEO in October of 18 to the time that they uh ultimately split the company in three is one of the Great American corporate turnarounds I think if I have the numbers right at one point GE market cap total was went down as low as $60 billion to now the total combined companies that he created are 250 billion so it's gone up roughly five times so yeah so uh I wish I had invested but um make everything so um let to review for everybody what I was just talking about um we'll get back to your earlier career uh soon but you were invited to go on the GE board and you went on in April of 18 is that right roughly around that may of 18 May of 18 okay so you get on the board and G's a famous company and I guess you're honored to be on the board of it when did you real realized there were real problems there well we only have what an hour David first of all thank you for the invitation good good to be with you as always and good to be back in my hometown of Washington DC just a quick uh voice over by Canen relative to the video you just saw no one else has seen that outside of a small team at GE Aerospace that is a uh really our first post spin we SP we spawn gero Space 7 weeks ago today that's our new gro space commercial we call it emotional launch and what you basically see is the entire life cycle of a jet engine in this case the GE NX which is under wi with the Z and the Boeing teams 787 and you really see what we refer to as the future of flight from the from the conception to the invention all the way through the testing at our people's Ohio test facility and then heading out on that 747 and the beautiful thing about that video every every single person in it is a full-time employee at GE Aerospace so we're so proud of the team and uh we're really proud of that video and the opportunity to share that more publicly how many thees do you have now at gr we've got 52,000 employees somewhere around the world largely a US base okay and all of them are going to be shareholders later this year David okay we have an opportunity given the spend to uh rethink how we bring the team together and we recently announced what we call our takeoff Grant and all 52,000 of those GE Aerospace employees are going to receive geospace Equity so we're excited about that we're going to make them Founders we're going to make them shareholders and just another way to bring the team together wow okay they're going to make five times their money like people who invested in GE at the bottom well not everybody invested in GE at the bottom day I know so let's go back to that you get on the board a very prestigious company uh who started GE by the way who was the founder well we go back to the I think the 1890s and we really look at Thomas Edison is our spiritual founder three companies came together at that time to create what became known as the general electric company and we highlighted that in the last annual report because there was no small amount of irony that this corporate transformation that we announced three years ago resulted in three GE companies on a standalone basis okay so Thomas cison started and had some legendary CEOs there reg Jones Jack Welsh among others um when you get on the board do you say maybe there's some challenges here or when do you realize the challenges are more than maybe you had thought there would be well I think that a number of us joined the board early in 2018 because we knew it was challenging uh is is that year played out things became I think more more difficult for the company but I think one of the wonderful things about the GE board then and and now was it was made up of people who ran toward the challenge not away from it they were attracted not only because of the company's story history but they knew we had some issues to work through okay so around October you became of 18 you became the CEO it was quick yes and so presumably they invited you to do that before October of 18 yes so you get so you get on around April May you're going to be a board member you know go to four meetings a year and all of a sudden somebody comes to you and says how about being the CEO were you shocked that they wanted you to be the CEO or you were actually happy uh the first two times I was let's just say reluctant I didn't join the board uh to become a full-time executive when I retired from danaher back in the fall of 14 as uh some of you may know I was really happy I'd been there 25 years CEO for 14 I was done uh but as things played out through the course of the summer and into the fall the the board came back a third time and that's when I said yes right so you you agree to do it you start in October of 18 and when you got into to be the co did you realize the problems were even bigger than you had thought as a board member I know you like baseball right David the way I think about it take a 96 mph fastball I'm sure in the owner's box it looks fast when you're in the batter's box it looks a lot faster I know and that was I think the transition for me for me from the boardroom into the CEO role all right so you got transition you didn't have you didn't do three months of due diligence you basically agreed to do it so when you got in and you're the CEO did you have the choice of breaking up the company or keeping it together and how did you ultimately come the decision to make break it up into three pieces why did you do it that way David A lot of people think that that was the plan all along and I can assure you that that it wasn't you go back to the fall of 18 we had over a 100 billion of debt that we were really anxious about continuing to service reliably and well and the businesses a couple of the businesses were just not firing on all cylinders operationally so there was really little room for big strategic thoughts it was really all about job one the deleveraging and job two beginning the lean transformation the operational turnaround of GE okay so you began selling off things and was it hard to sell off things that have been so historically connected to GE for me it wasn't particularly hard because I was brand new right and I didn't have necessarily all of that history but a lot of excess debt focuses the mind and I think that's really where where we were uh during the course of 18 we had made a public announcement that we're were going to spin out our healthc care business and that was ultimately what we did of course but we were not in a position to give up any earnings any cash to that order of magnitude so what we did through the course of that fall and early into that next year was quietly pivot away from the healthcare IPO to selling off a small but valuable piece of that business in biofarma processing to ironically my old friends at Dan her for 21 billion dollar a check that cleared a week before covid put us all at home if that hadn't happened I probably wouldn't be here well you wouldn't telling this story at least but uh okay so uh so let me ask you during 060708 during the Great Recession before you were really involved uh ge came this close to going under because GE Capital um had let's say too much debt and did you ever get into the details of how close GE actually came to actually filing in that period of time David I have to admit I'm a poor student of of of recent history okay October 1 2018 forward that's really where I was fully focused right so when you start selling off companies as you're the CEO do people come to you and say you can't sell this off because it's historically connected to GE that any former GE people come to you and say you can't do this you can't do that or you just did what you thought you had to do David I think I got advice from just about everybody above ground okay um whether they had worked for the company at one point or or hadn't on on both sides uh I think what the board and I the senior leadership team really wanted to do again was just work through the deleveraging continue to drive the operational turnaround and get to a place where we could have degrees of strategic Freedom that we didn't enjoy back in 18 or 19 so GE historically was uh in New York and then Connecticut and then uh under one of your predecessors he moved it to Boston yes so that's where you were running uh ge from Boston is that right correct and I wouldn't have joined the board frankly if they hadn't moved to Boston because I was I was teaching at HBS I was doing a little bit of private Equity with a different firm and I was beginning to forge a a Boston life and I thought I could just go down to the office every once in a while and and help a a different firm uh okay so okay so you're in Boston you're teaching at HBS and so forth um and how long did you think it would take to effectuate the turnaround the turnaround which has now been completed you've exited the a lot of business you have three different companies how did you decide what the three companies were going to be and who was going to run each of them and why did you decide you want to be the CEO GE Aerospace and why not just retire having accomplished all the things you accomplished well lot of questions there there there's a lot there David I I I I think when we went in when I became CEO it was probably three three maybe four years we made a lot of progress we sold biofarm to Dan her one thing leads to another pandemic hits right so Ju Just as we were beginning I think to show progress on both fronts and that took us through 20 and uh 21 but it was in 21 when we knew we were going to close on the merger and thus exit of our aircraft leasing business we took our gcast business merged it with a company called airc CAP we were going to own 46% put the debt with uh with airc cap that we could see that deleveraging was going to be by and large complete and we really liked what we were seeing in terms of the operational turnaround that's when the board began in Earnest three years ago to think about what we want to do when we grow up what do we want to do with these degrees of strategic Freedom so much of what we had been doing operationally was geared toward centralizing the businesses moving away from a focus on synergies a focus more on the companies the businesses the customers so when it came time to think about divide by two divide by three it was frankly easy we saw the operational benefit of focus we also knew the capital markets were far Keener to own these businesses individually than together all right so you have three companies you're going to spin off and then there's no more GE um why didn't you keep the name GE in all three of these companies well there were again a lot of smart people who said leave that history behind this is your moment you're going to spin two companies you're going to launch Aerospace as the go forward GE here let's create some new names we went through that exercise and time and time again the market feedback was GE matters we still trust GE we still love GE the world over so when we got down to it it was actually very easy because all three businesses right wanted to uh use the GE name and all three do today GE Healthcare GE vnova GE Aerospace but did you ever think if the name g was so great they wouldn't have had these problems it can't be that great because look at the problems they got into right never nobody mentioned so we're doing that okay okay all right okay all right so there three companies are GE uh Healthcare what is GE Healthcare think primarily Diagnostic Imaging of of every modality in a healthcare delivery system right we take those those images and increasingly are using software AI to read those images and determine the best care pathway for patients so like you do the um uh cat scan machines or is that what you do you bet you ultrasound C things I noticed from my own experience they're noisy uh why are they so noisy they have this big noise all the time can't you make them quieter uh we do okay so if you tell me where you go we can go sell them an upgrade and it will be a far quieter far more pleasant experience promise they have mufflers for uh the cat that's what I said okay all right so that's that's what they do then there's GE ver berova what is that g vova is the American leader at scale in the energy transition you think about electrification you think about decarbonization right GE GE vnova has the broadest array of power generation and grid technologies that uh are going to be invaluable what is the word venova I didn't know that word what does that mean I didn't know it either um we we have some investors who call it GE Villanova but uh it's one of those new new age words ver for green Nova for new okay and given that we're leading the energy transition we thought it captured the imagination well so did you pay a consultant a lot of name money to get that name or something next question so um I want to talk about G Aerospace uh for a moment before I want to do R do that let's go back to your background where were you born right down in Washington Circle the old GW Hospital okay and your parents were they in the GE Aerospace world or not uh no I don't think when I was born my parents had even been in in an airplane really what did your father do your mother my my grandfather founded a uh small welding and machine shop in silver spring back in 1938 so that was a business that my father and my mother ran and where did you go to school in the Washington area I went to Colonel zadok mcgruder's preparatory school for boys you probably think you know McGruder High School in Rockville Maryland right we used to call it colonel zadak mcgr school are you uh the head of the uh you know a Junior Achievement or something like that were you involved in business in those days or no no and were you a star athlete as well or not played basketball ran a little track but I wouldn't say star okay and so where did you go to college uh Washington College over on the Eastern Shore and why did you pick Washington College at an excellent school I got an enover degree there from yes when you were the chair of the board so uh uh but so it's an excellent school but I'm just curious how you happen to pick that paybacks are hell uh David I wanted to stay relatively close to home I grew up in Rockville um wanted to go to a small liberal arts College love the Eastern Shore grew up with my grandfather and my father on the on the bay uh over on the shore fishing hunting all sorts of things and they wanted me to play basketball okay did you play basketball I didn't oh I didn't I realize you're in the during the summer of ' 81 it might be time to study a little bit more okay so you presumably did pretty well there I assume I graduated okay and then what did you do after you graduated 16th in K Street Arthur Anderson in company Arthur Anderson any Arthur alumni here we're allowed to acknowledge ourselves uh and that was back when uh Arthur was still a big eight firm but beginning to get into IT consulting so I was in the management information Consulting at one point obviously and I'll tell you my Arthur Anderson story I went to meet with somebody once the a an pritzker who was the head of the pritzker family and he I I said you're a lawyer how did you get into business and he said well one of my clients had a company went under and I thought it was good I wanted to buite out of bankruptcy but I didn't know anything about accounting so I went down and figured I'd get an accounting account to help me and I I went and got Arthur Anderson I said really how big was the firm then he said no it was just Arthur Anderson himself it was a oneman firm then but obviously turned out to be a pretty big firm later yes all right so you did Arthur Anderson for a couple years and then what did you do I went to uh business school all right so you went to Harvard Business School so you must have done pretty well in college and good on your boards did well remember back in in ' 88 there was really only one business school that didn't require the GMAT that was HBS oh I see okay I'll let you draw your own conclusions okay all right so you got in there so when you get in there did you say these people were smarter than I thought or not as smart as I thought both okay and so you must have done reasonably well there I assume you graduated with honors or something I graduated graduated okay so where did you do after you had your HBS degree HBS was hard by the way so I I proud of that graduation uh I was really very keen David not to take the path that so many other people were taking back then that wasn't easy given that in 1990 we were in a a deep recession and I learned about this company called Daner they had just hired George Sherman from black and& Decker black and& Decker was a company that I knew and I just thought to myself drop George a letter back when you would actually mail people letters right and I I wrote George's letter and 3 days later he called me and said come down I'd like to meet you I was the first person he hired all right and so must have worked out what year was that that was uh 1990 all right and so you stored in 1990 and what year did you become the CEO uh 2001 all right so 11 years later so what did you do in the interim 11 years went to Connecticut worked for a company called V rout which was one of the businesses that Dan or her had bought back in the late 80s they basically make a a range of environmental instrumentation for retail petroleum stations and that was a business on the back of some EPA regulations that we grew compounded almost 20% took it Global and uh just continues to be a outstanding business today so what was the market capitalization of uh danur when you joined oh gosh we small was it public then oh it was public we did I think we didn't I think we did less than 800 million of Revenue okay back back then when you became the CEO what was the market cap that I think it was just under four four billion yeah and a lot higher now when you left yeah when I left it was just over 20 oh up five times yes so you like the five times increase always right took longer then okay all right so um you ran uh as the CEO Dan Herz people may not know it's a very accomplished company uh started by Mitch and Steve rails and um you were the CEO you quit in 2014 or retired how old were you when you retired was I 51 yeah how old 51 51 yeah 51 I had been C David I had been CEO for 14 years I know it's so young I mean you're 30 years away from being I want to be president United States at that point um all right so 51 all right so your wife say you know can can you get a job or something after 50 you're retiring at 51 does your wife really want you at home at 51 well let's not go there no I think we were ready after 25 intense years right 14 years as CEO two or three times the average tenure to figure out what was next okay so what did you do after you retired at 51 well I again went up to uh to Boston to begin to teach in the NBA program at Harvard right was working with Bane capital I was on the t- Rope board up in Baltimore and I was skiing a lot in Colorado and frankly catching a lot of marlin down in Costa Rica okay love and life wow okay so you were intending to not go back and when you get on the GE board and they ultimately ask you to be the co what did you say to your wife uh well I think she knew before I knew that this was going to happen oh because I remember VI I think it was August of of 18 I went to go make my first site visit to a GE operation down in Atlanta and when we were flying back I probably said out loud this is all fixable this is on us we can do this and she probably saw something in my eye that I didn't fully appreciate at that time so when you're negotiating your employment agreement I assume you didn't say it was fixable then you probably said hey this is going to be a tough turnaround right well I I I think the board was fully aware at that point what we were what we up for so for those people that aren't experts in um jet engines um how jet engine when was the jet engine really invented did GE invented or how did GE get into the Aerospace business of making jet engines gosh uh I'm probably not the person to go back all the way with the uh was that an acquisition or did g just noo start by making engines I I think the engine business really came came out of the gas turban business again because of that core combustion technology back so right now um you have how many employees there to doing that 52,000 52,000 soon to be 53,000 we're in the process of bringing on 900 new engineers in 2024 and we're really excited about this because when you think about everything that goes into the future of flight not just the NX but everything that we're doing in the next generation narrow body space and you may have seen our rise engine as you walked in that's a Next Generation engine technology that will come to Market in 20135 everything that we're doing in the uh the widebody space we've got a Z's got a great new plane called the triple 7x which is going to have our 9x engine on that and in addition everything we do for the Pentagon okay we need all of the best Engineers possible at G Aerospace and we'll get 900 more so we'll get close to 53 by the end of the year so why is GE Aerospace in Cincinnati I'm sure is a good reason but what is the reason well I think the business grew up really in just North of Boston and in in Lyon Massachusetts I think when they were looking to broaden the the footprint given the strong Aerospace history in Southern Ohio think they're right Brothers think NE Armstrong Cincinnati was a good place to go all right so move to Cincinnati and you now live in Cincinnati more or less yes okay so explain to me um I always think that jet engines are noisy when they're flying flying overhead why can't you put a muffler on them the way you can on a car make it quieter I we probably could David but what you're really trying to trade off in the design of a jet engine and frankly the engine in the plane are a host of things not the least of which is efficiency right that that the heavier the engine the the more drag there is if you were to put a a muffler of some sort I think the combination of the weight would make the plane heavier and thus less efficient so what plane that's commercial that you can talk about has the biggest engine who has the biggest engines is it a uh an Airbus gigantic Airbus or biggest big Boeing or what well I think the biggest engine that we would look to today is the the ge90 which would be on a widebody platform most of the engines that you would see be it ours or competitors on a narrow body plane they're more or less the same physical size who are the principal competitors to you in making jet engines Pratt and Whitney here in the US and Rolls-Royce in the UK okay and whose engines are better well I think we all know the answer to that question I don't want to offend anybody but David think about this there are probably 900,000 people in the air as we speak with GE technology under wi so we we power 2third of the commercial aircraft in the world uh probably in that same Zone with respect to military aircraft both Jets and uh rotorcraft so this is a business that has led technically for for decades in both uh both sectors and the metal where do you get the metal is it made in the United States or where do you get the metal for the engines well it's a very there a whole host of metals and they they are sophisticated highly engineered metals that are sourced effectively all over the world and it's metal it's steel or is it some other kind of met oh it it it it every metal possible is probably somewhere on that that engine or that aircraft all right there is a a private plane uh called a falcon when they for a lot of times they would advertise they have three engines they would say if you fly across the ocean and one of them breaks down you still have two engines left the implication is if you have two engines and one of them breaks down you have some problems can you fly across the ocean with just one engine yes so you really need three engines or you don't see too many planes with three engines today um do planes ever have engines that actually break down when they're going across the ocean or something like that that sure and then that's why you have two engines right even though flight is the safest mode of transportation we've heard the FAA administrator say that just recently again just to make sure everyone is is comfortable with that the reason you've got two engines is so that in the event the unlikely event something happens you're still good to go sometimes times I've read that birds get into engines and they uh mess up the engine is that a big problem uh it's an issue we call it a bird strike and it's not uncommon to see an ingestion of of a bird and typically well the engine is engineered the engine is tested so that it can continue to run in that instance but I think most Pilots tend to bring that plane back safely to uh to to to the ground okay so in terms of um uh fuel efficiency engin are I guess now reasonably fuel efficient but people say why don't you make them environmentally safer what are you doing to make them environmentally safer or better well just when everybody walks out you're going to see our our our rise open fan engine that's really what you're going to see in our view on the Next Generation narrowbody single aisle uh planes that engine will drive a 20% Improvement in fuel efficiency and Emissions reductions so we we we've done this generation after generation we'll continue to do that in addition the industry is highly committed to the deployment of sustainable Aviation fuels or what you might here referred to as saff so that's using basically Blends that will allow us to use existing propulsion existing engine technology to lower the overall emission footprint so for major uh aircraft uh civilian aircraft you basically only have in the world two manufacturers there's a third You could argue Embraer and maybe Bombardier but in terms of major Jets it's air buus and um Boeing and there's one in China so they would they would have a slightly okay they want to be mentioned there why do you think it is that there's only two major um aircraft manufacturers in a world as big as ours would you not think that there would be more and and there only three major air aircraft engine manufacturers is that surprising to you there so few relatively speaking or is it it's so hard to build that business and it's expensive to get it underway well I again I'm not sure I have a command of all the history David but the barriers to entry here are enormous you think about the the capital required the product development life cycles the risks that are taken on be it in an aircraft be it in an engine this is not for the Fain of heart I think one reason that GE Aerospace is the recognize as an industry leader is that we have been able to build that cumulative experience and that expertise over multiple product platforms and that's just that's hard to replicate now recently I saw a picture on a on television of a covering I guess it's called an a cell of an engine that kind of blew off a little bit do you make the Nels attached to the engines or is that not your business we we we typically don't put the the Nel around you just make the engine and you make how many engines are year can you make I mean how what kind of facilities do you have to make do you make 100,000 50,000 20,000 engines a year no it's it's it's it's a low thousands number okay these are not high these are not high volume products in the way a typical manufacturer would think about it so if I wanted to buy an engine for a 747 I wanted to buy what does it actually cost to buy an engine is it cheap or you have discounts or what well I like the fact you're thinking big uh we we we need to put a more modern platform than the 747 okay Z will set you up maybe with a tri 7 uh but if you were to buy a a commercial airplane today you're probably looking at 2030 2031 as to the earliest delivery really you can't get them new ones sooner you might be able to but I I I don't think I could so uh okay so that's how the demand is still pretty backlog is pretty we have it really is a golden moment for the industry you think about the airlines coming out of the pandemic just a couple of years ago we were basically at zero and we've got people uh traveling all over the world departures today are 6% up over last year so we're well past the 2019 level and there is there's there's barely an airline in the world David that isn't looking to expand their fleets and modernize them again with efficiency and Emissions very much in mind so that's why you have this tremendous backlog well if an engine is goes on let's say a seven 37 or 767 or 777 how long do you keep that engine on before you rotate it off and get another engine or is it it's there for the body of the lifetime of the of the plane well PE people will swap those engines out but by and large those engines can operate 20 plus years oh really yes and and we part part of the beauty of our business fun fact 70% of our Revenue comes in the aftermarket so we will we will stay close to the product we'll stay close to the customer 15 20 25 years making sure that engine is not only operating safely and well but we inject new technologies to allow that that engine to perform okay so um right now what is the most important issue when people buy uh jet engines is it safety cost or fuel efficiency safety safety safety uh and that's really the way it has been because again the engines make the mission in uh in our view I I see John blank here from GE Aerospace John uh runs uh helps us run our safety management system which is really the way that we make sure that what we do delivers a safe product to the airlines every time out and we had our own challenge back in the late 80s with United 232 where we we had a plane that had an engine problem that didn't make all the way safely to uh to the airport and that was really an incident that galvanized our commitment to safety David so that we ended up being the first company that designs and or manufactures jet engines to be recognized by the FAA for its safety management system so you'll hear a lot of talk about that today this is something we've been doing for decades you say didn't get all the way to the airport what does that mean it mean it it it means that landed in a corn oh they land sa and uh not everybody got out safely oh okay so uh today the engines ever get catch on fire is that not a big issue uh it can happen but it happens infrequently so as the CEO of a large publicly traded company with a market cap today your market cap is roughly hundred billion doll today I think we're well well north of that is GE Aerospace today GE Aerospace but I mean G space market cap is over 100 billion yeah so so you must get uh concerns about it and get questions about the economy is your view on the Glo on the US economy that it's reasonably good shape are you worried about interest rates can it staying higher for much longer or what are your biggest concerns about the economy well I think like most CEOs between the pressure on the economy from from the uh the rate rate hikes and just the geopolitical environment we're we're concerned about that of course but again back to demand on the airline currently around the world being strong and these backlogs that we have not only from the uh the airlines themselves but with the military we're going to be busy for the rest of this decade how do you deal with Dei how do you deal with those issues do you have a Dei program of some type and are you're you have a fair number of uh women and minorities on your employee Force we we do and and one of the we talk a lot about ge's history one of the things that that I've come to really appreciate David is how strong GE has been as a leader in this regard you know well well before the last the last few years I think about our employee resource groups for example I think we've got almost a dozen of them now that really serve to make sure that uh wherever you come from you feel at home at GE and that's really something that we want to make sure that we continue as we go from 52 to 53,000 and Beyond we want to make sure that we are attractive as a place to work for engineers and and others now the acronym ESG has is in some disfavor in some corporate circles how do you look at ESG and what is your ESG activity well I I think that people are looking at that acronym right for for what it is it's a it's a broad umbrella over a whole host of things I think for us sustainability has always been Central to what we do right after safety every jet engine that we put forward has to deliver a step function Improvement in efficiency and thus emissions so ESG You could argue very much at the core of our our strategy I'd also say from a from a governance perspective you've got to give the GE board uh real real credit I the people I've had the opportunity to serve with really do I think deserve the uh the recognition for what we've been able to do and now we have three boards uh that are that are stock full of people who are committed to the mission understand the governance role well and are making sure they represent shareholders now are your engines safer than the engines on private planes you think depends what private plane you're flying on David no I'm just joking uh but why don't you make engines on private planes are those too small it it it's a smaller market and we've been fortunate to lead in the narrow body and the widebody space that's kept us busy there are some smaller Regional Jet Business Jet applications where you'll find a g Aerospace engine but it's not necessarily a sector where we uh we we lead as we do elsewhere okay so if you're flying a commercial plane I don't know if you fly that much commercial but would you ever fly with somebody that's got a roseo engine or you want to make sure you're flying on a GE engine um my my family will fly any commercial airliner uh required and and we don't I mean in all seriousness we don't compete on safety right is is an industry one of the things that when when I mentioned our SMS we work very hard with the FAA with with the airlines the airframers and competitors to make sure that we keep this industry as safe as we possibly can that is a shared vested interest we take seriously you mention your family do you have children yes and are they in aircraft engine world or no no uh three uh three two two sons and a daughter all out of college all off the payroll so to speak uh they off the payroll trust so um and you're happily married after how many years uh it let's see should know this 36 36 okay so that's pretty good for a CEO 36 years marriage pretty good so um what are you doing now to relax do you uh you ever have any time off you ski you play basketball what do you do to refresh yourself yeah I I'd say I probably fish more than anything else I I haven't been able to get out to a lot relaxation and oh yeah exercise I wouldn't say exercise but relax if I'm on the if I'm on the water David if I'm over on the shore trying to catch a bass like I did on Sunday or down in Costa Rica my mind can be wholly focused on that mission is every time I've gone fishing in the Chesapeake Bay which is like three times the people say oh this is the one day the fish aren't biting you ever had that David I've been a 100 miles into the Pacific off Costa Rica when they've said that really It's a Long Way Home yeah okay so um all right and so you have no current plans to um well there's been rumored that you're interested not you're interested but it's rumored that people at Boeing would say you're the pect perfect person be the next CEO of Boeing and your response to that is I'm flattered but my my home's in Cincinnati now at GE Aerospace so and I can serve Boeing is an incredibly important company to our country okay critical customer for us but I think I can serve Boeing in its uh in the near to medium term best from uh from Cincinnati so we'll take that as you're not that interested okay so let's suppose um the president of the United States calls you up and says you did an incredible job turning around GE and you also helped grow danaher you should be Secretary of something or another in the federal government president of either party would you have any interest in going to the government I think if you got a call like that you'd have to consider it oh okay all right so um oh I think the GE Aerospace stock just went down but okay no no because I I think our I I said consider consider okay David I I'm you're happy where you are I'm I'm I'm happy and I'm constitu usually I'm far better wired okay for the private sector somebody is watching this and says I want to be Larry C uh what is it that it takes to be a successful CEO of two different companies um is it hard work intelligence good marriage supportive kids what is it fishing skills what do you think it is yeah well there's a lot to fishing but I don't I I digress David I think I was very fortunate to uh have a number of experiences prior to getting my first p&l at at Daner U but I got that first p&l I was president at vout three years after I joined the company uh back in 93 and what I tell young people is if you want to run a business the best preparation is running a business right I went to a company no one had ever heard of I was running a a division that no one has probably yet heard of but I got the opportunity to really understand what that means what general management is all about and we had success I had another opportunity I got another began running a portfolio of companies and then when George Sherman decided to retire back in 2001 I replaced the guy who hired me right so this is It's a Wonderful story GE doesn't happen without that Dan or her experience so you if you want to be an operator you got to operate okay so you're in Washington today your company's based in Cincinnati are you here to see any government officials that kind of tell them what they should be doing better I would never be so presumptuous but we do have some important visits elsewhere but the highlight of the day of course was lunch with you that's a very low bar I mean I'm sure you I'm sure you've got some other more important people so look Larry um you obviously uh done an incredible job at danur increasing its market cap by five times and five times uh for GE and really I think helping save the company because honestly um before you took over I didn't I wasn't sure it was going to survive and um so it's incredible story and we're very proud that you are from the Washington uh area and you're member of the economic Club of Washington so uh congratulations on what you've done and thank you for making the economic Club of Washington um such a uh good place to be from right okay so um any new worlds you want to conquer after the corporate world and the government world that you might go into someday you don't want to be a a private Equity person or something important like that I've got my work head out for me as far as I can see okay so thank you very much I think we have a gift for you okay we do there it is great
