Ive thoroughly enjoyed before will all of you. See is a greats friend. Thank you for coming and having your insight. [applause] thank you. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] cspan, created by americas Cable Television companies and brought to you as a Public Service by your cable or satellite provider. Next, peter marks reports on the late aig ceos to revive the company after the 2,008th 2,008th crisis. Bob benosche are i thought it was an amazing story of leadership. So, tell me, why tide you want to do this book . It actually started with my wife, who at the time was an aig employee. She was one of she wrote a lot of bobs the letters to employees in the communications deposit, and bob reached out to her, wanting someone to tell his story. He loved the way show wrote, and i subsequently became intime platly involved in the piece intimately involved in the piece as. We it needed some outside perspective, someone who didnt know the company so well at the beginning and could come in, and i was thrilled by the idea of penetrating this mans mind because i heard so much about him from val, who really admired him. She has worked for many companies, big companies, citibank, citigroup, and she greatly admired his leadership. There was a tremendous devotion within this company to him. And so finding out the story of how this man turned this company around and paid back the country 180 billion was just too delicious. I want to come back to that. Want to read this from the New York Times obituary when we took the job running aig after the crisis and looked like the company would never recover when the aig board comes to him. My first responsible to them was, you must think im crazy. Then i thought and said to myself, theyre right. The financial industry is in chaos and i have the skills, and the bit wear said the trauma and selfregard were typical. Mr. Benosche, an imposing physical presence at 64. Not only did he restore aig to health by 2012 but also repaid the entire debt to the american taxpayers and returned 22 billion to them in profit as well. Guest its a remarkable achievement. He was the only person who thought this was possible. Essentially. The government didnt think this was going to happen. The company certainly didnt think it would happen. They were ready to sell it for spare parts. And certainly the American People had no expectation this would happen. So that idea he was little crazy, you that be a little crazy to take this on. He was the right kind of crazy. He did he was approached earlier about the job when they chose his predecessor, ed liddy, but i think he was spoiling to do it. I think he really the idea of taking this on just appealed to a guy like this who really was a guy who got stuff done in the corporate world. Host what did you think when you met him . What stood out about him when you met him . Tell us about the first meeting. Guest the first time i met him, we met in i was immediately struck by what a people person he was. If my idea of a ceo was someone reserve expend kind of arrogant and had some kind of some level of not arrogance would be the word i found him the opposite help was immediately accessible. He was funny. He wanted his story told. Obviously in the mere fact he picked my wife as the first person to tell it to, endeared me to him. And he wanted it told honestly, bethany him didnt want his story to seem just the story of someone who was flawless, as a human being, or as an executive, but who had tremendous, tremendous desire to tell the American People and correct the record of their perception of the company. So when i immediately liked him. He was the kind of man who you asked him a question, he didnt think about his answer. He just gave his answer. It was all what you saw is what you got. Plus the fact he was charming and handsome. You could see all the charisma. It was palpable in the room in his office, and so that was it was an immediate like. An immediate enjoyment of him. Host this not a guy who came from privilege. He talked. Working at a cocacola truck driver and being in the army. Tell us about his Early Childhood and how it shaped him. Guest one of the critical moments in his life was at the age of 10 he grew up in the cat dash cat skills, this family had a bar and grill and they ended out rooms and at the image of ten his father died suddenly of a heart attack, and the really poignant part of the story was in terms of financially, anyway, was that he left the family with a quarter Million Dollars in debt. This is in 1953 or so,. Host quarter million of dollars really meant something. Guest really meant something, and his mother had no idea what she was going to do. So i this led to the feeling that bob had was always on intimate terms with debt. The concept of debt, and the desire his mother had to pay back that obligation, which she never wafered from and eventually did pay it back. Extraordinarily. The reason that changed his life is because he had to become intimately involved in their business at a very young age. He was the oldest son and his mother leaned on him very heavily in the business. So that instilled in him a real sense of commitment and responsibility. I think, at a young age he was a really independent kid. He wasnt a perfectly behaved young man. Had to do his things his open way, and but always worked. Always wanted to make money. He often said, through his life, the motivating factor for what he did very often was making money. It meant the value of money was extremely important to him. So thats why he always had a job, whether and learned about workers at the ground floor level. There was no trust fund. There was no extra boost by a relative to give him a job. Never. So, by the time he was in the army, he had inculcated this very strong sense of earning a buck. Host tell us about two stories about his mom put one stood out. You give them the pen. Telephone us about that one. Guest well, they owned this motel in monticello, new york, and he would sometimes work behind the desk. His mother was incredibly pragmatic woman, lillian, and one day he was behind the desk and a couple came up and they asked about a room, and he proceeded to describe to them the options they had for what they could rent for and what the price was, and he after the transaction was done, his mother was furious with him, and he said, what is the matter . She said, son, you didnt give them the pen. And he said, dont know what you mean by that. She said, when theyre asking about the room, you describe what you want them to rent, and you hand them the pen so they can sign for the room. Dont let them make the depression. You make the decision. Just give them the pen. And this became sort of a mantra for him, understand what, the transaction in sales was. You had to effectuate the sale. You had to make happen. Host the one i loved when his mom cold him when he was complaining about being bored, she avoid you got a better job . No. Then go do it. Talk about how this shaped his philosophy, you live the hand you were dealt. Guest exactly you play the hand death you. Very important. If you find Something Better do that. But for the time being, her philosophy always was, son, whatever is available to you right now is the thing you have to go for. That was essential to him and it plays out later in his career. He was always on the verge of another job, something that possibly he wasnt even perfectly qualified for. But he knew that he had to take the leap. He knew he had to go for it because that us what was being dealt him. Host i loved this, he talks about his leadership lessons. Saying theyre not the lessons of the Business School variety. Never been to one, never enrolled in a single Business Class ever. These are ideas gleaned from a life in business with emphasis on the life part of the business. Talk about that a little because i think in this day and age with expensive harvard mbas, his approach and training were interesting. Guest yeah. He didnt really he had no particular interest in schooling. He went as a high school for high school he was sent as a he worked actually in a work study thing at a new York Military academy. One year ahead of donald trump at this school. He didnt do particularly well gradewise ever. In fact, in college, went to alfred university, which he had never heard of, and he decided on his major, math, because he thought thats what smart people would major in, not particularly he had some facility for numbers but his grades were abysmal. He had no interested in studying. It really wasnt book learning wasnt his thing at all. And i think he respect education. Its just that everything he greens was not from a book. It was from the hasnts on experience that started when he was a young man working for his mam. Theres program called getting things done and bob describes him as a gfd person. Whose it that. Guest gsd is theres a pejorative its get stuff done. And he was very early on the n his career he was pegged as the get stuff done guy. And it was a remarkable facility he always had for coming into a situation, being able to analyze it, and even if he didnt have the skills that the job required, finding them. He was he came up through operations in early days of information technology, and data processing, its really where he got his he cut his teeth, and he always was the man, the person, that his higherups could go to with challenging new situation that required him to figure oust something that he didnt know before, and he knew how to marshall people he needed to help hem figure those things out. At paine weber he didnt know about the cash accounts. They created those accounts that became very essential for places like Merrill Lynch and he knew how to find the people that needed to instruct him. He was just a really quick study that way. So that gsd stuff continued on and on, through all the jobs he head, going into metlife where he took on this huge responsibility for demutualization, taking the company public. And i think that was sort of an operating talent of his, that just got more intense as he got older. There are lot of epithets in the book. Suspect thats very true to how he spoke. But he has another phrase, and we probably wont be able to say this one but he described if theres anything i loathe, its the business person who looks at you with a pastedon smile, spouting the company line or nodding and completely unconvincing agreement. So has hand expression for that maybe you can come inwith a way to describe and tell me how he taught of it. Guest he called it grin fing, and its it was probably one of the reasons i wanted to write the book. I helped him write the book, because it was so colorful and so perfectly a perfect distillation of everything ive observed in my work life, that i thought, well, heres a man who is sort of a natural philosopher, and of course its refers to people who smile at you and nod in agreement and lavish praise on you, you being the person in charge, to make you feel secure and everything youre saying is brilliant, but in fact walksway and goes, what a walks away and says, what jerk. Host we have all met them. Guest and bob part of his Emotional Intelligence was he could uss that out in people. The knew the first time he met them whether or not he was been grin fd or not. It was an amazing intuition he had. And i was actually thrilled every met him that i certainly didnt want him to have that impression of mean, even before i heard the term, and somehow bob accepting you into his world was a real badge of, i think, honor, because he recognized immediately when he was being talked to and not in a honest way. Host one of the thing is thought about as i read this, he talked about Emotional Intelligence and clearly cares a lot of employees and also talked about his own transparency and being exactly who he is and quotes someone saying about him you need somebody who will not be afraid to say f. U. , and i mean everybody and thats the way he is. How do you balance those qualities . Thats the balance in those things is what is hard to achieve. We meet a lot of people would arent afraid to say exactly what they think but they trample over everybody else and he seemed to have something that prevented that a little bit . Guest i think it probably varied on the audience. Think he was kind of if bob was angry, it was terrifying. He had a very, very strong point of view, and didnt really i dont i think he wanted some debate but ultimately i think he was so sure of himself and want he wanted to do he didnt want challenges that were going to thwart him in any way or change his course. And to that point about balancing, he had tremendous charge and i think the key for him to running this company, and what was extraordinary about his ability as a leader was that he understood and i think truly empathized with the people who original for him and wanted them to feel that. He had the able to communicate that and i think he was i often said that he was more himself in front of a large group of people than he was oneonone. There was a performance aspect to bob put also very real. I think he loved the idea of taking people into his confidence in large groups, and they responded to that. The employees of aig felt and he truly thought about them. Thats an extraordinary skill for a ceo because we all know anyone who has worked in a Large Organization knows the person at the top is usually very remote, spares his appearance or her appearances just for the sake of control, to a minimum. Bob wanted the exchanges. So, that gave him tremendous capital with people, and i think for those moments when he was also being bob and being angry, when he came into a room and told off the people who worked for him that they were not doing well, it had even more power because they wanted to please him. They werent just afraid they would lose their jobs. They really wanted him to be happy. He made them happy. He it was an exchange. Its an amazing balance he could strike. Host from a leadership point overview its very counterintuitive book because today ceos say they listen to all opinions in the room and want to take everybody elses point of view into account. Sounds like he did that but in the end he ultimately wanted it to be his decision. Guest i think thats true. I think thats totally true. Thats because especially in the case of aig, he had a mission. He knew what the mission was. He i mean, he could he had to shift the mission because, lets face it there are other strong people involved in the process as well, one particularly the chairman of the board, and so he had to be a negotiator that way, but he knew, as i said he relied so much on his own sense of value of things and the value of people, and thought he knew it so well that he didnt really need a colloquy constantly him didnt need to have a brain trust that told him the opposite. I think he that drive really did serve him incredibly well. That intuition. Host getting to aig, what did you know of san diego you had a better understanding of it given that your wife worked there what did refresh the audience why aig mattered. Guest well, aig was the Largest Insurance Company in the world. It had been dominated for decades bay legendary leader named Hank Greenburg who built it into a con groom rat conglomerate. Elizabeth warrencast its frankenstein because it had so many working parts but an enterprise that covered every part of the globe. What i knew was most see duck tonight to me about the company was its adventurousness in terms of what it insured. It insured kidnappings and military things. All kinds of highrisk customers, all over the world, and it really did change the nature of what a big Insurance Company could do, i think, and so that was my whole understanding. I didnt know anything about the operations of the company. I didnt understand the workings at all and how byzantine it was and how much i was broken into little speakses especially after hank left in the mid2000s. So, i didnt insurance, lets face it, is not the most the sexiest business on the planet. Host it is as you mentioned. And aig in some ways was a very glamorous company. Guest even the name, aig, didnt have much sounds so vague and so almost like an james bond movie, you name the company that somebody was running. That vague quality. So i didnt really have a great understanding, and i think that was part of the problem that the company had when the dam burst because i think the American People, particularly, knew what citigroup was and what golden sack was anddoor golden sachs or Lehman Brothers but didnt know much about the Insurance Company. It had a very foggy public image. Host aig was the poster child, one of the most, i think, if not the most, hated recipient of the governments bailout and it was 187 billion. Right . One of the controversies of the financial crisis was this idea that the money went to aig bailed out firms like Goldman Sachs who received payment in full. So talk about how bob felt about that. Guest it infuriated him they were being bailed out at 100cents to the dollar. It made no sense to him, and he called them vultures. And then it was additionally, they were all in the building. They were reaping hundreds of millions more in consulting fees, they were all brought in to do studies. There was a huge plan called project destiny, which cost untold millions that were supposed to sell off the company very quickly into its contingent parts, and that all drove him nuts. He thought it was unconscionable they got paid off before the public did. Host he sounds like he was ended up running a firm that in some ways epitomized wall street but yet he was not of wall street and a ton of contempt toward the institutions, the countrys powerful institutions, to the consulting firms to Goldman Sachs permeates the book. Guest he had friends on wall street but when it came to aig and what he wanted to do he saw it very black and white him understood that something was amiss. But there were only so many fronts on which he could fight at any one time. Host before we dom back to project destiny, talk about who Hank Greenburg was and then what bobs relationship with him was. Guest well, hank bob had been the ceo of metlife in the 90s and early 2000s, so they were competitors. Bob had greats a mr. Racing, i think i think he had Great Respect for what hank did at aig. I think he thought he wa