U. N. Sanctions an act of war and said countries involved would pay dearly. The Security Council approved a range of measures aimed at reducing north koreas imports of Refined Oil Products such as diesel and kerosene by as much as 90 . The sanctions also tightened restrictions on shipping and imposed a 24month deadline on workers returning home. It is not much a Merry Christmas for apple. Analysts lowered iphone 10 projections in the First Quarter because of weaker demand at the end of the Holiday Shopping season. Sales may be as low as 35 million, 10 million fewer than its previous estimates, while j. L. Warren capital says shipments will drop to 25 million units. Now a quick check of apple suppliers in taiwan and korea. Pretty much a mixed picture. Hon hai down by 0. 1 . Quantitya computer down by 0. 10 and samsung heavy down at the moment by 0. 3 . Shanghai exchange making adjustment for some futures, trading copper and aluminum and tin futures from 8 to 7 . Its also making similar adjustments for gold and silver futures. The changes will take effect on january 2. Global news 24 hours a day powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. This is bloomberg. And trading getting under way here in the lion city. Malaysia as well as taiwan. Joining in japan and korea. Lets take a look. Asian markets currently a sea of red. Own by 0. 1 , and as far as the nikkei concerned weighed down by the data out of japan, inflation not gaining as much as expected. Now i want to take you to the chart. If youre wondering how vix has been doing, well the index is not doing too well after surging back in 2008, nine years later, this is the way it is. Its having one of the most muted years so far. At one point your father left your mother. It was sudden and my mother found herself with four kids. No money. David lets talk about ibm for the moment. Ms. Rometty we are the champion for business. My experience is people are respectfully honest and give their opinions. David do you feel a certain responsibility . Ms. Rometty women need role models. We are still a small minority that run these companies. David the stay fit category . Ms. Rometty i do box with a person. The difference is he doesnt hit me. Would you fix your tie please . David people wouldnt recognize me if my tie was fixed but ok. Just leave it this way. All right. David i dont consider myself a journalist. And nobody else would consider myself a journalist. I began to take on the life of being an interviewer even though i have a day job of running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tick . So when you wake up in the morning, do you say, look at all that ive achieved and i am incredibly proud of what ive done or do you say, geez, i got to deal every day with critics and all those things . Ms. Rometty what a way to start. Ok. I dont think i had either of those thoughts on that first day. I think that first day i just thought about what, perhaps, what an honor it was and what a responsibility it is. And i think people forget ibm is 106 years old. And so you really do get that feeling of, you wake up that morning realizing you are a steward of something. So a different feeling. David at some point when i was growing up in the 1960s, ibm was the dominant Technology Company in the world. Ms. Rometty still is, david. David ok. All right. Do you think it has the same strength in the computer world that it had in the 1960s . Ms. Rometty to me, i would answer that ibm is great but for a reason thaw didnt mention. I think the greatness of a Technology Company is if you can reinvent yourself over and over. And i say, well watch and see. Because its one thing to reinvent yourself once then twice but do it three, four, five times. And this is a really Competitive Industry that were in. I think we do something very unique because its one thing to have technology. It is another to have the know how on how to use it, right . So i feel what has made us distinctive and while weve gone through all sorts of products, i think the one kind of silver thread is that we really do help change the way the world works. And i go back to the beginning in time. I mean, way back. Ibm started, it wasnt ibm actually at the time. Cheese meat slicers. Then it was clocks. Tabulating. And then it was an era of, as you know, the main frame, which was the back office. And then it reinvented itself again into software and into services. And now we reinvent ourselves again. And to me, that art of reinvention and that d. N. A. Is really what makes it unique. David lets talk about your background for a moment. You grew up in chicago. And you have Three Sisters . Ms. Rometty two sisters and a brother. David ok. Three siblings. Ms. Rometty yes. David at one point your father left your mother and your mother was not College Educated at the time. Ms. Rometty yeah. David so how did she support four children . Ms. Rometty i continue to learn a lot from my mom but i give my mom a lot of credit for all four of us in this, in that david said, my mother had a also degree but then quickly had us as children right after that. I was in my early teens when my dad chose to leave. It was sudden. And my mother found herself with four kids, no money, soon to be no home, soon to be no food. And she did, as i said, i learned she was so intent on not letting other people define who she was. And we had to do some things for a short time. She had to go on food stamps. We had to get help. Thats what entitlement programs in this country are for, in many ways. But she went back to school. I had to help. I was the oldest. She went back to school at night and learned a profession. In fact, she became head of the administration for the sleep clinic at rush presbyterian in chicago. But, you know, a lot of people in families, like i think everyone, they pitched in, and my mom really taught us. I would say the lesson i learned is never let someone else define you who are. She was never going to let that situation define who she was. David you were the babysitter for your three. Ms. Rometty i was. Ive been to p. T. A. Meetings, bugle lessons. David did you get paid anything . Ms. Rometty no, i didnt get paid. I probably should go sum that up. David you had a scholarship to go to northwestern. Ms. Rometty i did. Im proud of my brothers and sisters, all, we always said my mom never complained. She never said much. But we all watched by what she did. And theyve said, sometimes they say im the under achiever. My three brothers and sisters are incredibly successful and that is really that work ethic by mom instilled in us. That, to me, is so when i went to northwestern, that was and i did have a scholarship because we all looked for ways to do that to put ourselves through school. David your mother is still alive. Does she call and tell you how great youre doing or say your other siblings are doing just as well . Ms. Rometty actually she calls and talks to me about all the things normal mothers talk about. Her biggest thing, this is a funny story about my mom. This past easter, she was at my house and i was having to leave to get to the airport and my mom says, hey, before you leave, i have your annual report. And ive written you a little set of notes on it. Great. Im even going to get it from my mother on this annual report. You know, the first thing, of course, like a mom does is she looks at the pictures. And then, but, this year i was really quite my mom is, says, look. I loved this annual report. She goes, this annual report i understand what i. B. M. Does. And it was 50 vignettes, 50 short little vignettes about how the world and professions and Industries Change because of watson, a. I. , cloud computing, and how itll make life better. Right . My mom goes, this is now i understand. And then she had some comments about the look and the paper type and other things. She gave me a report card. David did you give any of these comments back tour colleagues at ibm . Ms. Rometty yeah. I gave them all. Sure. I have a large retail shareholder base. David you graduated from northwestern and then although you had a scholarship from General Motors, you werent required to go work at General Motors but you felt you should. Ms. Rometty yeah. This is, you know, these were wonderful programs and from companies in that day and age, this was an effort to get women and minorities into businesses. And at that time General Motors had a program which was they went to some of what were the best schools and they said, if i can get you, the deal was ill pay your tuition, your room and board, everything, and someone going through school themselves, it was a professor who said to me, hey, you ought to go look at this program. In return, work there in the summers. Otherwise no strings attached. So i had a wonderful set of internships with them. When i graduated i did feel a real sense of obligation to first go to gm. I had lots of other offers but to go to gm. I was a Computer Science and engineering degree. David were there a lot of men taking those courses in those days at northwestern . Ms. Rometty what do you think . David not that many . Ms. Rometty no. I was probably the only woman in many of those classes even then. David so youre at General Motors for a couple years and then hear of an opportunity to go to a Company Called ibm. Ms. Rometty sometimes people think you have this long, thought out career plan. Im sorry to tell you, i had been working at General Motors and while i liked what i was doing i really felt because i Lakeshore Drive technology, it was this idea i liked technology it was this idea to be able to apply it to lots of different industries. It was as simple as my husband said look, i have a friend and his dad works for ibm. Why dont you just call him . I think actually my husband set the interview up to be honest with you. David a finders fee or anything . Ms. Rometty yeah. Im still paying that finders fee. So i went to the interview when i was hired. David what area were you . Ms. Rometty i started out as a Systems Engineer and i worked in banking, insurance, and i had many experiences through my years. I remember i had gone into consulting so i learned a lot of things. It was time to do another job. And the story i always tell is that i worked for a gentleman, very good mentor. And he said to me, hey. Im going to get a new job and youre going to get my job. Youve got to go for an interview. Youre one of the candidates. Go to this interview. So i thought, hum. So i go to the interview. And he tells me all about the job and im sitting there and i think, boy, in my mind, im not sure im ready for this yet. This is a big job. Just a little more time and i would be ready. And i said to him, may i go home . I would like to talk it over. Give me overnight to think about it. And i went home and so i get home and my husband, he is sitting there and as usual i always say, you know, im talking, talking, hes like, mmhmm. Mmhmm. I tell him about this interview. I said, but i wanted to go home and sleep on it. He goes, you think the man would have answered that question that way . I mean, i can remember it like it was yesterday. I said, no. And i went in the next day and, of course, i took the job immediately. And the man who had been my mentor who suggested it, he goes, dont do that again. I said, i understand. And it is what formed this basis for me that i think has guided my whole career, which is growth and comfort never coexist. And you have got to get really comfortable with being uncomfortable. Its when you learn the most. David when you started doing these things, did you begin to think there was a chance that you could be the c. E. O. . Did you think ibm like Many Companies were ever going to make a woman c. E. O. . Ms. Rometty that never entered my mind that ibm would make a choice on gender. For all my time there, theres always been the most Inclusive Company ive known. When you interview others, do they feel like they i never thought about that. I always felt, you do great in your current job. It earns you the right to the next job. David when you are meeting with President Trump or other president s do you see c. E. O. s are willing to say, mr. President , that is not a good idea, or let me give you my thought . Ms. Rometty my experience is people are respectfully honest and give their opinions. And so just as if there are times with every whether a president , a Prime Minister where we agree and times we dont agree. David lelts talk about ibm. It is a hardware company, software company, consultant company, what would you say it is today . Ms. Rometty keep going. Right. When i say first off an enterprise company, right, we uniquely live at that intersection of tech and business. And then as you said, over time, weve built hardware. Then we layered it with software. We integrated on to that services. Now as i say were becoming a cloud and a Cognitive Solutions company. There will be another reinvention of ibm in the future. Today it is about that. It isnt about the technology. Its cloud, a. I. Right now. Its the why. As i say to all my colleagues, i feel like were the champion for business. Ill tell you what i mean by that. Right now, if you ask me to pick one word what ibm is reinventing around, i would tell you its the word data. There is gold in that data and to me we are on the verge of companies being able to use all that. To me this is companies to go on the offense now against startups, against disruption. You do it with that data. And you will need new tools and thats where a. I. Comes in. David one of the tools is what you call watson. Ms. Rometty yes. David watson is named after . Ms. Rometty our founder, thomas watson. David now, watson got some attention because of jeopardy. Ms. Rometty the game show. It is funny how many people still remember that. I really give us credit if i might for having sort of relit the world of a. I. You asked what i did early in my career. I was an a. I. Specialist at one time. That would be a couple decades ago. It isnt like a. I. , itself, is brand new. There is a number of things that make it different at this point in time. What we did back then, it was 2011, with jeopardy and we had been working on a. I. For a good five years before. This gets back to this idea of if youre always moving to where you think there is value, in tech, we believed there would be value in this data and you had to be prepared for this world to do it cost effectively and, more important, you had to have technology that didnt get programmed. That is the difference. Thats what watson and a. I. Is. Meaning what watson does, you dont say if this, do that. Every device you have has been programmed, if this, do that. Somebody had to tell it what to do. Your smartphone, you name it. Watson, takes data of all kinds, understands, reasons, and learns over that data. That will help you make better decisions. This is an interesting stat i think were sharing. In the world, we think there is a market of 2 trillion for making Better Business decisions. Some of it is rooted in the plain, fundamental fact that when you and i make decisions, you may be better at this, david. David not likely. Ms. Rometty a third are right, a third are not optimal, and third are wrong. It transcends everything. David lets talk about the life of a c. E. O. Of a large company. How much time are you on the road traveling now . Ms. Rometty probably 50 . David and customers are mostly interested in what when you meet with them, youre trying to tell them why ibm is better than someone else . Ms. Rometty no of course, always, in some way, but i i think many clients look at us as a bit of a mirror image. I hear this from them. Theyre like, i can remember years ago theyd be saying to me, wow. So a lot of change. And i can remember saying, be careful. I think this is coming to a theater near you. And so this idea, i believe our transformation mirrors what every company is going through. You rebuilt yourself around data and cloud. You have to change how you do the work. You have to work on who the people are that do the work. David how do you measure your success as c. E. O. . Is it share price . Is it earnings . Earnings per share . Revenue growth . Ms. Rometty what i am most focused on and the board is most focused on is transforming ibm for this next era, this next cognitive era. And so the sort of mile post that we put out there, as i said, part of the portfolio is we build new products and services which is now 42 of ibm which is 34 billion. It had double digit growth. That is a very important set of new offerings that team created. At the same time, theres other things we do for clients. I mean, david, i think people forget we run the banks of the world, the railroads of the world, the airlines of the world, you know, its 910, 1010. Thats why i both mirror and help them transition to the future, run their current world, transition to the future, and become the future. That is a really serious obligation. Some of that doesnt grow as fast as other pieces. The new grows fast. We, if anything, it is to help people transition era to era. So the measurement is as we build the new businesses and that we keep moving to higher value. That is our distinct value. David does it bother you ever that you have more employees, more revenue, more customers all over the world than Companies Like i assume apple or amazon or facebook but they have higher Market Capitalizations . Does that strike you as unfair in some ways . Ms. Rometty i always want to ork on higher Market Capital izations. The unfair part, i dont feel these things are sort of a burden in that way because what we do is different. It is this combination of having technology and then know how which means you have both of those things together. David in every country you visit around the world i assume if you want to meet the Prime Minister or president you have no problem getting in to do that . Ms. Rometty yeah but you dont abuse that. There are some really important issues around the world. Almost every government we talk to around cyber security, very importa