Roma manual was the mayor of chicago and also the white house chief of staff. At amazon they will be interviewed by nikki raleigh who works for the wall street journal. Please welcome them. Welcome beth, welcome ron, will have a couple of lets bring everybody ram up to speed. The 700 Million Dollars that amazon plans to spend to give us a really quick overview and how thats gonna. Work well youve got the basic facts, right 100,000 workers over the next six years, we are really excited about, this and its actually an abrogation of a whole series of upscaling programs. Things starting with our Fulfillment Center workers, so our frontline workers we will give them a career choice, where we prepay before they even start their classes, 95 of to wish in and books for up to three 80,000 a year, so they can learn skills, and feels like medical technology, bookkeeping, other tech fields, things that are actually going to train there for jobs outside of amazon. Very unique program that we have, that we recognize that we they might use amazon as a steppingstone. In addition we have Machine Learning university. Where they average our Software Developers and they Machine Learning is such a compelling we needs speaking spanish technical problem folks that have some stem background and we have other programs for headline workers to teach them technical stick kills. From being an this might be just a subset and rahm as mayor of chicago you reimagine to how the Community Colleges would function. Give us the 32nd tour of that. So one is, chicago has the most diversified economy in the united states. No sector runs more than 14 . A second munich olive system in america. So what we did was with seven campuses, each campus had an industry focus. Malcolm x, health care. Richard j daily etc etc. We brought the industry that would hire, we would bring them in and they went through the curriculum from health care, to nurses, to the empty, physical therapy, everything. And then basically, that school became an expert in that history of specialty and the focus. The second thing is, and this is part of it, we set up in the city of chicago. We want from 300 to 500 kids. From high school with a minimum of. Basically 50 of kids graduated with if you get a b average in the city of chicago in high school, to wish, books and transportation are free for the Community College. It is open for dreamers. One of the reasons we want to do this is that we want to guarantee employee relocating. University of michigan, university of wisconsin. Malcolm acts, right Community College. Certainty under workforce. More likely chicago is the number one city for corporate relocations in america. The addition to it is a social political view, which is, look everyone in this room is doing well under the economy. If we do not get more people in the Winners Circle in this economy, this gives up. I want to make sure that you can recruit from university of michigan, university of chicago, loyola, i want to give kids a chance who go to write who go to malcolm x who go to herald washington. That they see a academy where they have a future in it. If you see that, you have a political and economic stable system. I believe employers cannot prosper just on our fouryear institution. I think that was 70 seconds. Well the elevator stopped at the 14th floor. One of the things that is so almost transformative in chicago is that you had companies teaching the classes. You had a board, it was not easy, a lot of the teachers were not happy with it. But you had a board of advisers made up of the corporations. So there was 100 and 3220 corporations that served on different institutions. Not mandating but saying, if you want us to hire from, lets take presbytery in hospital, they were at zero, today they hire 20 to 30 people annually out of right Community College. They know that the curriculum meets the bases. You are not going to do soup to nuts. What the Company Wants to do is spend money for the basics, they want to hire somebody at this level and will customize it going forward. The institution has to do the fundamentals. Let us talk a little bit about how both of you, in these programs are predicting the future a little bit. The front page of the morning journal has a great story about manufacturing jobs that require degrees. Now require some kind of a degree. That is changing, all kind of sectors in the economy are changing. How are you choosing the skills that you want to focus on for the future . How are you predicting and modeling on amazon . When we look at it, the most consistent thing we see changing is the need for some level of technical skill. In any job. In our Fulfillment Center workers, we are working with new systems, new processes, they need some sort of technical skill. If you look at Software Developers they need to go to the next level of Technical Skills to Machine Learning. When we look historically over the past 20 years, we identified that 20 years ago we had nine jobs in the family, nine job families so to speak, that had technical skill titles. Now we have over 37 just in the past 20 years. When i look over the past five years, rose like Data Scientist and different security engineers, networking engineers, those have grown over 5 in the company. So it is just explosive from the technical side. We need to find ways to give those skills to the various breath of employees we have that will allow ways for them to involve as the environment involves. As you said, this is revolutionary to all of the men and women here. You are paying people to learn to get jobs beyond amazon. Some of those people are Grocery Store cashiers and warehouse workers for whom automation is a reality. How does that play into your thinking . Automation is in no way replacing jobs. What we do need is for people in no warehouse and Fulfillment Center they need to be able to act without automation. They need some sort of technical skill, which we provide on the job training. As their systems change, we actually have some interesting programs using Machine Learning to help them learn very quickly on the job. We do Gaming Technology so we could have them learned through games and we just make it fun so they can continue to have the skills they need. They are working right in partnership with the automation. And chicago how are you thinking also about automation and how that will change and what is needed in the workforce . Two things have changed. Our model is, you are not going to get a job you are going to get a career. If you think about it differently, it may help you evaluate. You may go into health care and the foundation of nursing and obviously your income, so it is not just about nursing, it was about health care as a space. Second is, you have to really rethink, we are talking about the associate degree. That is really about the 40 population in Community College. The other 20 is getting a ged. The other 20 are working and then scaling up while they are working. It is not a 85,000 are working on her to your degree etc. We have an example, we made a whole new campus. Built these new campuses. He was for transportation logistics. Whole foods for the entire midwest left indiana and moved their facility up literally three blocks away from the Community College. Indiana, you could argue from a business handle, loss of illinois. Much lower tax rates in illinois. They left it came here, why . That is the biggest hustle right now going on the economy. Not only the skill set, but a certainty around that skill set. And the Community College system handled the 40 that are going for the associate degree, but also for the companies, the ability to have workers come in and out of the system and either take a class or just get what we call, step a pulse certificates in the economy. Some of the associates degree, but then there would be 16 weeks and then you would get this certificate that gets to the breath them of handling the economy. You do not have to get the to your degree, you just need 16 weeks. 18 weeks in this certificate. And we call it a stackable degree. Or stackable certificate, that allow people to work, skill up and then advance economically and get the economic independence they need for a career but not just for a job. One of the things i know, on the minds of a lot of people here is, they have money to spend on training and are very worried that it will not have the results they want. I know beth you and i talked the other day about how you guys have piloted some stuff. What is some example of how you are operating something going in, did not turn out to turn out to be correct and how did you correct it . It is a lot of money for us to invest in these upskilling programs. Its not a lot of money. 700 Million Dollars. It is a lot of money. It is important to make sure we get the results. So there is a few things we do in the front end and i will share with you where we had to evolve are thinking as well. On the front and, we are looking for four key things when we are starting the program. The first, we have to meet employees where they are. We have to find ways to remove as much friction as possible from employees being able to access the education. In our fulfillment standards we have to build the classrooms in the Fulfillment Center. So the peers can all see them do it. Therefore they could not commute. Virtual training is another way to do it. Virtual access. The second big thing we do is, we build these programs by amazonians four amazonians. We make sure we are connecting with the population that we are actually serving by having our own employees design and develop this program. They are sure makes sense for the people they work with. Third thing that we are doing is, pilots and experiments as you mentioned. We start small. We start every Single Program we do very, very small. And only once we prove that it is working to be doubled down and take a big. What is an example of that . We started our career choice where again, we give education and certificates, partnerships with Community College to our Fulfillment Center workers that will get where we fail. The thing that we missed was we look broadly across the country and what was in demand jobs and offered to prepay the training for those jobs. Guess what . If you are getting trains in an Aircraft Mechanic and you work in an area where there are no aircraft jobs and the only way to get it is to relocate. It is probably impractical for you. So that not only were we offering programs at prepaid intuition for the employees for and demand jobs. We had to make sure there were in demand jobs in the community which they lived. Once we saw that, we realized we could doubled down on it and go really big. Rahm a question for you. We talked on the phone the other day and asked how companies here can work with their local city. The region to develop regions like this. You basically said, unless they live in a place like chicago they are out of luck. Other ideas . Stick with what i said. No. First of all he, listened i will say this, hr when i started had never been to a Community College. Committee college and i made it my mission. I could now get companies to leave, meaning break off the relationship in Community College. Your hr is looking at the fouryear institution without a two mile radius. The Community College, and there is a little fact i did research, almost 60 , a little over, after using the g i built to go to Community Colleges. I think you are on the precipice of a renaissance for our Community Colleges throughout the system. You will find, at the universities, chicago is unique because it ran its own system. 85,000 kids. They are unbelievable desires to this relationship. Ask your hr what was the last time they recruited or talked about an Academic Program at a Community College in the area. If you do that. Do you will see that they can actually reprogram. And i am not saying take it over. But the fundamentals of making sure that the education and the curriculum matches what the industry. Not the company specifically. Wants. That is on the two year associate degree. You can also develop interest the relationship or do you have customize a new machinery are new computers and youre designing you can get men and get train specifically for what youre about to get trained is 16 weak program. If you dont have that relationship you should. And weve done it in the city of chicago when the breath of the economy and you can go, do all the recruitment you want in the ben tenure universities all, those areas in chicago there are to be 40 of the kids are the children of immigrants. You get a child of an immigrant family that came to america, and ill get you a really hardworking loyal, thats true of all americans workforce. But you need that relationship, and they are desire list. They know how to communicate to you, you know you would be amazing how quickly they a question for you and then were going to switch gears real quick, im going to ask from another political question. You have about 600 engineers working on a people team can you share with some insights that have helped to you on earth some workforce that other Companies May not . Thats a great question, we invest within the h are really or organization into a team that develops the products for our employees. The biggest learning that weve had for that process, its important to look what you do for the your employees, to any business problem that you work. With were looking at what were doing for employees we have to have the right, metrics the right data, we use scientists to help figure things out to what matters the most to employees. And we used to learn things, what his motive motivated to an amazonian what makes them come to work what makes him do want to stay at . Work we did an interesting find recently, where we fought and, traditionally one thing that will cause an employee to stay or go as a manager. In our company, this has an insular, but what causes our employees to stay, is that they do meaningful work. What is the content of their job and are they able to see the impact that theyre having . We will lose employees if we dont satisfy that need, more than if they dont get along with a manager. Well i guess ill ask these questions were both of you, but i know that you have been talking a little bit about the election, where you like, some targeted cut questions for. You i have a broad based answer for. That thats how this works. You know, you worked heres im gonna say, space right i have. It you were for Elizabeth Warren at your time at the white house. Do you think warren would make a good president . Let me back up and all look, i always, my principal role, for a chief executive mayor, government, president you have to be illegal idealistic enough to know what youre doing, and ruthless enough to get it done. A lot of history gets written, oh this person, they were all principle etc. And the political opt, no if you make it to the oval, you have to have that skill set. And i think, Elizabeth Warren is, have garden idea and a philosophy, in an approach, but shes also, and when i say a tough i dont mean just drill, through note knows trimmer, sales knows what the whole for with. The same question but for biden. And then i get to more minutes and the Community College of six chicago. I used to say to when i was Senior Adviser to president clinton. If we knew in the first world the first storm would all be geniuses. Take a look at president bush 41, hed be cia director, Vice President , there is a learning curve. The way the oval office operates, i think biden would have exactly what i talk about. He has a vision, and the capacity, if you thought about the other end of pennsylvania avenue to make that work. You can have all the ideas you, want but you dont know how to move the country, and move the legislative body to a different degrees, and different gearshift, than you cant be an effective chief executive. And im saying chief executive the way you think, about a public she could executive is different than a co2 of a company. Completely different not even close. Mirror images of each. Other and, he is not scared, obviously the Vice President better better than i know senator warren. Some of the keys for the president , is not being scared of people and saying. No and unfortunately to work with two president s, who probably you can, see and no, im not intimidated and saying what i think to a president. Ive said it before. And Vice President joe biden, is not scared to have people who disagreed him and tell him to his face. Cars otherwise are just going to have a bunch of yes people, and if you look at today, i think you know what the consequences of that are. So, with that. Questions for the audience. I was just getting warmed up. Im not really comfortable being card. Off those therapy i was feeling pretty good. Did you Say Something sir . laughs ceo of the Ohio Medical Center and chancellor of some university. Do you see the pipeline as a billionaire asset for hr . Or point of entry for amazon for higher education, which has been doing things by consistently for a long. Time the Pipel