Subject: VIDEO/TRANSCRIPT, TONIGHT HRC KEYNOTED LEAD ON
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2015 19:59:25 -0500
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

Here is CTR's transcript and a link to Secretary Clinton's great speech
tonight! Video can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-WVNe5zBko2015.02.24 Lead On: First Annual
Watermark Silicon Valley Conference for Women Keynote in Santa Clara, CA

SEC. CLINTON: Hello. Wow, what an amazing crowd. It’s great to be here.
Thank you all so much, thank you, thank you. I want to thank Renee for her
introduction, but more than that I want to thank her for what Intel is
doing that she just described, and I hope that more companies will join
with her and with Intel to really elevate this issue about diversity and
inclusivity in the workforce here in Silicon Valley and literally around
our country. I want to thank everyone at Watermark for organizing this
terrific gathering and supporting such a vibrant, visionary community of
women leaders here in the Bay Area, because you could just feel the energy.
I love it. I was watching backstage when Renee Brown was speaking, isn’t
she amazing, and the work that she’s done, and the insight she provides? So
for 20 years, Watermark has been helping people, women, grow networks, gain
skills, crack ceilings in technology, entrepreneurship, and beyond.

So really, it’s all of you who should be applauded for being part of this
movement, and I am delighted that I can be here for this first Lead On
Conference. It’s a great theme, and a very important one, because we do
need to lead. We have the information, we understand the challenge, and if
there’s any place in the world where Lead On should be happening, it’s
right [2:00] here, in a place of big dreams and transformational
achievements, where a kid can have a good idea and then build a
billion-dollar company in a place where faith in the future is so strong
that it’s taken as a given.  In fact, you all know Moore’s Law: computer
processors will keep doubling in power roughly every two years. Well,
there’s something very American about that kind of optimism. After all, our
country is a great entrepreneurial experiment. Families like my
grandparents who came to our shores with nothing but hope and a willingness
to work hard. The pioneers who set out for California by wagon train. The
patriots who dared imagine that a new nation could be built on the novel
proposition that all of us are created equal. And even though it’s taken
centuries to turn that idea into reality, and we’re still not there, those
dreamers and doers would have been right at home here because the
innovation and success we see around us is proof that progress is possible,
but also that it is not inevitable. Not in a life, not in a country. After
all, Moore’s Law doesn’t tell the whole story. Those processors don’t get
smaller and more powerful on their own. That takes incredible effort and
ingenuity. It takes people not only working hard but working together. And
America’s prosperity and security are not inevitable, either. We’ve learned
that we can bounce back from some pretty tough blows, so we know that
progress is [4:00] possible if we as a country harness all our talents,
find the best and freshest ideas no matter where they come from, and grow
together, lift each other up.

Today, I want to focus briefly on two areas where you know and I know there
is much more work to be done: women and technology, and technology and our
broader economy. Now, many of you in this audience know far more about
those two areas than I do, or ever will. You live it every day. You bump
your heads on the glass ceilings that persist in the tech industry. You
watch too many of our daughters and granddaughters get diverted away from
careers in STEM. As familiar as this story is, and we heard Renee
summarizing it as she made the announcement about what Intel will try to
do, it is still shocking. The numbers are sobering. On the Forbes list of
the top 100 venture investors in tech, only four are women. Just 11 percent
of executives in Silicon Valley and only about 20 percent of software
developers overall are women. One recent report on the gender pay gap in
the Valley found that a woman with a bachelor’s degree here tends to make
60 percent less than a man with the same degree. And we can literally count
on one hand the number of women who have actually been able to come here
and turn their dreams into billion-dollar businesses. And think of this.
While nearly 60 percent of college graduates are now women, they earn only
18 percent of the computer science [6:00] degrees. That’s actually less
than half of what it was in the 1980s, when women earned 38 percent of
those degrees. We are going backwards in a field that is supposed to be all
about moving forward. Women and girls remain underrepresented in STEM
education more broadly, and with STEM jobs growing faster and paying more
than many other fields, this puts our daughters and granddaughters at a
disadvantage that can have lasting consequences for them, their families,
and, yes, our economy. I think the bottom line here is we cannot afford to
leave all that talent sitting on the sidelines. So to borrow a familiar
phrase, it’s time to think different. All of us – in the private sector,
government, the nonprofit world, and education – we all have a stake in
making this better, from the classroom to the boardroom. I love the way
Watermark supports a class at Stanford’s business school focused on women’s
entrepreneurship. I really appreciated when Google became the first big
tech company to disclose the demographics of its tech workforce: 83 percent
male, 17 percent female, 2 percent Latino, 1 percent black.

So there’s a lot of entry points into tackling this problem. At the Clinton
Foundation, we’re working with partners to recruit more STEM teachers for
schools. We’ve also organized a series of Codeathons to bring together
young women software engineers to collaborate on new apps to promote
women’s health and wellness, while also [8:00] building new professional
networks for themselves. And many of you are involved in other efforts to
open avenues for women and people of color to participate and succeed in
this industry, and we have to keep that work going and growing, because
inclusivity is more than a buzzword or a box to check; it is a recipe for
success in the 21st century. Bringing different perspectives and life
experiences into corporate offices, engineering labs, and venture funds is
likely to bring fresh ideas and higher revenues. And in our increasingly
multicultural country, in an increasingly interdependent world, building a
more diverse talent pool can’t just be a nice-to-do for business; it has to
be a must-do.

Now of course, the challenges we’re talking about are by no means limited
to the tech fields. Less than 5 percent of all Fortune 500 CEOs are women,
and women entrepreneurs often have a much harder time accessing capital to
start or grow a business. Up and down the ladder, many women are paid less
for the same work, which is why I think we all cheered at Patricia
Arquette’s speech at the Oscars. Because she’s right: it’s time to have
wage equality once and for all. But it’s not just wage equality. Many
working parents all too often don’t have access to common sense benefits
like sick days and paid leave that would allow them to balance work and
family. I think we’re – [applause] – I think we are embarrassed by, even
shocked by, the fact we are just one of nine [10:00] countries in the
entire world without national paid family leave. Now, you may not realize
that, because here in California, this state has had paid leave for 10
years. And the last time I looked, it seemed to work well for both
businesses and families.

But even that is not a silver bullet. As Sheryl Sandberg and others have
reminded us, even the professional women who have access to these basic
benefits are often set back in their careers, in some cases simply for
taking advantage of family leave or flexible schedules, and others because
of more subtle biases or attitudes in the workplace. When I was a young
lawyer and was pregnant, I worked in a small law firm, and there was no
family leave policy. It had never come up before. I was the first woman to
be a partner in that law firm. And so nobody said anything to me and I
didn’t say anything to them; I just kept getting bigger and bigger and
bigger. And I’d walk down the halls, and some of my partners would avert
their eyes. They didn’t know what to say to me. So when the time came and I
went in and gave birth, the next morning, the lead partner called, and he
said two things: he said “congratulations,” and “when are you coming back
to work?” I said, “Well, thank you very much. Maybe in four months.” Pause.
He goes, “Oh. Okay.” He had no idea. I had no idea. But I was in a position
where I could say, “Okay. Four months.” And too many women even in those
days – I can remember so well – they [12:00] lost their jobs, they were
marginalized, they were demoted for doing one of the most important jobs
anybody in a society has: producing the next generation.

And even though things have changed in many places, not nearly enough and
not everywhere, in so many ways, our economy seems to be operating like its
1955. And that’s not just a problem for working women. It’s a problem for
everyone. Just think about all he hard-working families that depend on two
incomes to make ends meet. When one is short-changed, the entire family
suffers. In fact, more than 40% of mothers are now the sole or primary
breadwinners for our families and our economy depends on the strong
participation by women – women moving into the workforce in large numbers
helped drive a significant amount of America’s economic growth over the
past forty years. Without that movement, the average American family would
be earning $14,000 less today, and our gross domestic product would be
about $2 trillion smaller. So when women’s participation is limited, our
country’s prosperity is limited too. And there are still too many women who
want to work more and earn more but are held back by outdated policies and
pressures. That hurts them. That hurts their families. That translates into
more families struggling. We’re just leaving that money, that growth on the
table. And many families then can’t afford their standard of living. They
can’t afford to get into [14:00] and stay in the middle class.

Sometimes when I would go out and talk about women’s issues, which I’ve
done for decades and particularly as Secretary of State, when I said that
it was the great unfinished business of the 21st Century, because the data
on all of this is overwhelming, I could see men’s eyes glaze over. I could
see particularly foreign leaders but some Americans too saying, “Oh yeah.
Here she goes. Just look like you’re concentrating. Act like you’re
listening and this too shall pass.” But when we began using the economic
data collected by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and a
lot of other organizations both public and private and I could say, “Do you
know how much money you’re leaving on the table? Do you know how much
greater your economic growth and GDP could be if women were able to
participate fully in the economy? Because this great unfinished business of
the 21st Century really is moving toward the full participation of girls in
every aspect of society all over the world. That is a goal that has
inspired me from the time I was an advocate for children and families
through today and which I took with me into the State Department, because I
wanted it to be a priority of American foreign policy, because where women
are included, you’re more likely to have democracy, you’re more likely to
have stability and prosperity. So it’s not just a nice thing to do. It’s
important to our economic growth and our security.

And since leaving the [16:00] government, I’ve worked on it at the Clinton
Foundation with my daughter. And Chelsea and I are working with Melinda
Gates and other partners on an initiative we call No Ceilings: The Full
Participation Project. We’re collecting the best data and research
available on the gains women and girls have made around the world over the
last twenty years. And we’re looking at ways to accelerate progress in the
years ahead. Next month, we’ll publish a sweeping global progress report
full of data designed to be accessible, sharable, even snackable, and I
hope you all will check it out.

Now, there will be good news to celebrate. For example, around the world,
we’ve nearly closed the gender gap in primary education. But there’s also
bad news, including the persistent gap between boys and girls in secondary
education. When it comes to technology, the data reveals a massive digital
divide – an estimated 200 million fewer women than men are online in
developing countries, and you know better than most how Internet access can
help unleash economic growth, lift people out of poverty, so this is a
problem, but it is also an opportunity to build new markets, to improve
education, to spur new growth. Technology has the potential to empower
women and girls like nothing ever before, and it is helping inspire and
mobilize grassroots action in places we’d never expect. I’ve seen that
firsthand. I’ve seen how innovations starting right here are helping to
lift people out of poverty, giving them more control over their own lives,
helping them hold their governments accountable. I’ll never forget one
woman I met at a tech camp that we set up at the [18:00] State Department
in Lithuania to train pro-democracy activists from Russia and other Soviet
countries, help them stay one step ahead of the censors and secret police.
It was part of a broader effort that included investing in new apps and
devices to protect dissidents, like a panic button that a protestor could
press on a phone that would signal to friends that she was being arrested,
while simultaneously erasing all of her personal contacts. For the tech
camps we brought along experts from Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft, to
explain how activists could protect their privacy and anonymity on line and
thwart restrictive government firewalls. I asked one young woman from
Belarus if she was scared that coming to this Tech Camp would get her in
trouble back home. She said no, ‘My government can go to Hell’ she said,
‘I’m here to learn how I can promote democracy.’

My goal was to make the State Department a hub of innovation, leading the
way with what we call 21st century state craft, harnessing new
technologies, public private partnerships, diaspora networks, tapping
expertise right here in Silicon Valley to help build the programs that
would address the challenges from the drug war in northern Mexico, to the
epidemic of rape in the Eastern Congo, to persecution in the Middle East.
And a partnership we call Civil Society 2.0 helped deliver technology
training to more than 1,000 civil society organizations from 80 countries,
and I was very pleased that we were ranked in the State Department as
having the most innovation-friendly culture. Now, the federal government
has a long way to go so you might think that’s [20:00] damning with faint
praise, but we were pleased that the work we were doing was being
recognized, that we could effectively partner with Silicon Valley and the
broader tech community.

We had a great public-private partnership called mWomen, which brought
together  leading telecom companies from around the world to narrow the
digital divide. And, there was this wonderful woman from India at the
launch event, she represented the Self Employed Women’s Association, SEWA,
an economic cooperative that has transformed the lives of millions of poor
women through microloans and other support. Here’s the story she told me:
she said for most of her life she had never seen a cell phone, she made a
meager living by picking flowers and then bringing them to the local
market, where she would go from trader to trader hoping to find a buyer.
Sometimes her entire day was spent this way with nothing sold. Then she
joined SEWA and through SEWA she got a loan for $48 to buy her first mobile
phone. Suddenly she could actually call different markets, arrange to sell
her flowers at a fair price in a fraction of the time. She used the money
she saved to start a small business; she started buying and selling grain
from neighboring villages also using her cell phone. It was her dream that
every woman would get a phone.

Now the bottom line from all the data and all the stories is this, we still
have a long way to go but progress is possible, especially when we make a
commitment of resources and political will. In fact I think we are at a
pivotal point that requires all of us to work together, roll up our
sleeves, figure out what we’re going to do, whether it’s here in Silicon
Valley or [22:00] halfway around the world, to help shape the future we
want, to close the digital divide, to unlock our full potential, crack
every last glass ceiling. So technology presents both peril and promise for
all human beings, and it also presents some challenges for our economy and
this is another area where we should be clear-eyed about the gains and
about the gaps. American innovation, including the work many of you do,
holds such enormous potential. Whether it’s clean energy, or cloud
computing, or the Internet of things new advances will continue to
revolutionize how we live, learn, and do business. And increasingly, the
divide between the old economy and the new is breaking down. The next wave
of innovation could reach far beyond not just Silicon Valley but certainly
beyond our nation’s borders, creating new industries and remaking
established ones, and that’s important because even the most successful
tech startups rarely end up hiring large numbers of American workers. So
there’s enormous promise in the intersection of new technology, IT, but
also nanotech, biotech, robotics, and traditional industries like energy,
automobiles, health care, education, and more. That’s really the beating
heart of the American economy. That’s where most American’s work. So we
should set our sights on increasing productivity, spurring growth, and
improving standards for all, not just a few at the top. And let’s be
honest, as we’ve learned the hard way, there can be a real human cost to
some of these amazing innovations. We can’t lose sight of that. Just as
technology can boost productivity and create jobs, it has the potential to
put many people out of their jobs by automating processes that used to
require a full [24:00] day’s work. Advances that are supposed to move us
ahead can end up leaving a lot of people further behind. And I know from my
own travels and discussions how many Americans feel the ground shifting
under their feet. The old jobs and careers are either gone or
unrecognizable, and the old rules just don’t seem to apply, and, frankly,
the new rules are just not that clear, and the result is anxiety and
dislocation.

Just think about how much our families have changed, with caregivers
becoming breadwinners. Well, our jobs have changed too, and wages no longer
rise with productivity, while CEO pay keeps going up. Young people expect
to change jobs much more frequently, certainly, than their parents. So if
we want to find our balance again, we have figure out how to make this new
economy work for everyone. That’s why we have to ask how we organize
ourselves so that technological change helps create more jobs, not just
disrupts and displaces them, and how we try to have rising wages. We have
to redouble our efforts to provide the education and skills, not just for
our kids but for adults too so they have the tools they need to change jobs
or start businesses. And we have to think hard about how to have the
flexibility and support that American families need so that parents can be
both great workers and great parents.

And that brings me back to Moore’s Law and the march of progress, because
we can’t do this without working together. We can’t do it without really
empathizing and understanding what our neighbors are going through. But I
think we can help more families find a way forward, find their footing in
the middle class, find a [26:00] way to see rising wages and rising hopes.
I think it’s within our grasp, but I know it’s not inevitable. Our economic
success is not a birthright, it can’t be inherited, it has to be earned by
each generation, just like it was earned by those who came before us. My
grandfather was a factory worker in the lace mills in Scranton,
Pennsylvania. Proudly worked there from the age of 11 until he retired at
65. My father made it to college on a football scholarship, started a small
business. My mother overcame a childhood of abandonment to help build a
middle-class life for me and my brothers. And I knew I was the beneficiary
not only of their love and hard work, but their aspirations for us and a
larger community that believed as they did in America’s promise. I never
doubted how fortunate I was to live in America in a time of such positive
change from the postwar economic boom to the civil rights movement to the
women’s movement, and I hope for all of our children the same sense of
possibility that I had.

Now, it can be easy to get discouraged sometimes if you look only at the
headlines, but if you look at the trend lines you can see there is a
movement stirring across our nation. It is about putting families first. It
is about creating a 21st century economy for 21st century families. You can
see it in parents across California who demanded paid sick leave so they
wouldn’t have to choose between their jobs and their kids. You can see it
in the security guards right here in Silicon Valley who are organizing for
more hours, not fewer. You can see it in the hourly workers in San
Francisco who fought to make shift [28:00] schedules more predictable and
family life more stable. You can see it in the businesses and community
leaders coming together to invest in early childhood education in Oakland.
And you can see it in the moms demanding for equal pay for equal work and
the dads demanding access to quality, affordable childcare.

So many people are just asking for that same chance. A chance at a living
wage, at their dreams, and there are many reasons to think that we will
reinvent ourselves, we will figure out how we’re going to do this, we’ll be
part of the solution. That’s really what I think Lead On means. Yes, lead
on for yourselves. All of us have to come to grips with rising and falling,
as I heard Renee Brown say at the very end. We fall together, we rise
together. And as women, let’s do more to help all women lead on and
succeed. My friend Madeleine Albright famously said, “there is a special
spot in Hell for women who don’t help other women.”

So – [applause] – what you do does not have to be big and dramatic. You
don’t have to run for office. [applause] Although, if you do, more power to
you. But seriously, a helping hand or a kind word can make a big
difference. It’s one of those “click” moments where you [30:00] realize
that helping somebody else not only feels good but ends up helping you. The
more we stand with each other, the more obstacles we can overcome, the more
we will be able to shape our own destinies. That’s true not just for women,
it’s true for everyone. Indeed, it’s true for our entire country.

So you came here today under the banner of Lead On, wanting to listen and
learn and meet and talk and network, because there may be nuggets you can
pick up and use for your own professional or personal betterment. But there
may also be ways you can think about, “You know, I hadn’t thought about how
that could help my friend or my coworker, my neighbor. I’m going to try to
have a conversation about what I heard today.” Or about an issue that you
really have been kind of stewing over, but now maybe go out and find some
other people to lead on with you to try to resolve. To prove every single
day that progress is possible in our own lives. And believe me, I know
that’s not easy. Because we have no time to waste.

You know, in our report – the progress report we’re issuing with the Gates
Foundation on the progress women around the world, including the United
States, have made over the last 20 years – we boldly assert that there has
never been a better time to be a woman in the history of the world. And
indeed, I believe that with all my heart. The changes that I’ve seen in my
own life – changes I’ve watched my daughter go [32:00] through and what I
now think about the future for my granddaughter – I’m absolutely convinced
of that. But I also believe – and maybe it’s part of the American DNA – we
have a special obligation to make it better for each other as well as
ourselves, and to set an example for people across the globe.

You know, when my granddaughter Charlotte was born on September 26th, 2014,
I have to confess, I was just overwhelmed. I’ve had lots of friends who got
to grandparenthood before me and who have far more grandchildren than I
will ever catch up to. And I heard them and I listened to them, and I
thought, “That’s really nice.” And then all of a sudden, here is this new
life, this new hope, this new opportunity; this blessing given to us in my
family. And of course, her parents, her grandparents, her extended family –
we will do whatever it takes to make sure that this baby has every
opportunity in the world. But even as I say that, I know that’s not enough.
Because she will become a citizen of our country and of the world in 20, 25
years God willing, and what kind of world is going to be there waiting for
her? Is it a world of hope or fear? Is it a world of possibility or
shrunken, destroyed dreams? I don’t know. I do know that it really matters
for the life I hope she will lead that we do [34:00] everything we can now
to make sure every child is given the same opportunities we will do our
best to provide for her. I believe talent is universal, but opportunity is
not. And leading on means, in large measure, how we expand that circle of
opportunity, so every girl and boy has a chance to be all she or he can
become, with their own efforts, their own work, but with the support and
the love of the rest of us. The time to start is now. I’m excited about
what we can do together, and I believe that all of us can certainly show
the way as we lead on to the kind of future we want. Thank you all very,
very much.

ANNOUNCER: [Welcomes Kara Swisher to stage]

KARA SWISHER: I didn’t know I was an entrepreneur.

SEC. CLINTON: By definition, right?

SWISHER: Exactly. [Makes administrative announcement] So hello.

SEC. CLINTON: Hello.

SWISHER: How are you doing? So I interviewed President Obama last week and
I’m very eager to interview another president.

SEC. CLINTON: [laughter] [36:00] That’s good [high five].

SWISHER: So I wanted to ask the big question, iphone or android?

SEC. CLINTON: iphone. Okay, in full disclosure, and a blackberry, and I
think the president told you the same thing.

SWISHER: Except I think he really loves his.

SEC. CLINTON: Well you know, it is, there are reasons why when you start
out in Washington on a Blackberry you stay on it in many instances, but
it’s also, I don’t know, I don’t throw anything away. I’m like two steps
short of a hoarder, so I have a, you know, an ipad, a mini ipad, an iphone,
and a Blackberry.

SWISHER: [comments about use of Blackberry in DC, ask Sec. Clinton Apple
watch or Fitbit]

SEC. CLINTON: Well, you can tell I’m not doing Fitbit, and I haven’t gotten
into the Apple watch yet. I’m not in a wearable frame of mind yet. You
know, three people have given me a Fitbit or a Jawbone and I look at it and
I think do I really want something telling me I should do what I know I
should do. I mean, I have enough stress in my life avoiding doing what I’m
told I should do, so I haven’t jumped off the ledge yet.

SWISHER: [Running for President or hosting Oscars]

SEC. CLINTON: [38:00] Yeah well, and both jobs are really painful from my
own personal experience and observation. I don’t think I could do the
Birdman imitation. That goes back to the Fitbit conversation, I couldn’t do
that.

SWISHER: But what about the president thing?

SEC. CLINTON: You know, there have been, there have been a lot more Oscar
presentations than there have been presidents. So the pressure is probably
somewhat less, it’s a one night gig, and for many its just one night, and
the other one it’s, you know, a many year commitment.

SWISHER: Eight in your case, you hope. Correct?

SEC. CLINTON: Well, yeah, you’ve got to hope that. And I am, look if you
don’t tell anybody, I am obviously talking to a lot of people, thinking
through, because here’s my view on this Kara, I just think that we have so
many big issues we have to deal with that unless we really can come
together and have a national conversation about those issues we’re not
going to make the progress we make. And there are a lot of things that I
would love to see our country do, I’d like to bring people from right,
left, red, blue, get them into a nice warm purple space where everybody is
talking and where we’re actually trying to solve problems, and you know
that would be my objective if I decide to do this.

SWISHER: Why wait announcing?

SEC. CLINTON: Well, all in good time is sort of my response because,
[40:00] you know, there’s a lot to think about I have to tell you. I don’t
know how many of you are list makers, I have a very long list, I’m going
down it, I’m very, you know, I’m very committed to go down it but I haven’t
checked off the last couple of things here.

SWISHER: If you were to run, what would be the central parts of the
campaign for you, you’re talking about there’s a lot of things, the purple
thing I get that, but what would be the central thing that you’d want
[inaudible]?

SEC. CLINTON: Well let me answer it this way by saying whoever runs here’s
what I think the central thing is, because we have to restore economic
growth with rising wages for the vast majority of Americans and we have to
restore trust and cooperation within our political system so that we can
act like the great country we are, and those two things it seems to me are
actually related. Because, you know there are some steps that business has
to take, you know we heard Rene talking about what Intel’s going to do, I
talked about Google, we have to have businesses take a hard look, like how
can they expand opportunity, be more inclusive, that’s part of it. But we
also have to figure out how we can have a foundation in our economy again
that makes people feel that their hard work and effort will be rewarded
because productivity is actually up. People are working longer hours than
many had to work in the past but there’s just no increase in their wages
that demonstrates they’re respected, appreciated –

SWISHER: What could a supposed president do to fix that?

SEC. CLINTON: Well, I think that, you know –

SWISHER: Actually, I’m going to call you the alleged president.

SEC. CLINTON: [Laughs] Well, I mean, this is where I’m supposed to say
“stay tuned,” you know. What I would say is, this is why we need to figure
out how to go after this problem. And some of it is a bottom-up issue like
the minimum wage. Some of it is a fairness and equity issue like equal pay
for equal work, like paid leave so people can actually stay in the
workforce. Women are, not because they want to but because they have to,
dropping out of the workforce in many instances, thereby diminishing their
income. So there are certain steps that a government can and should take
and in the past we’ve seen a government sort of shore that up. And then
there are ways that we have to recast our thinking. You know, so much about
the rise in productivity without the rise in wages has to do with decisions
that businesses are making. And a lot of businesses say to me, “Look, we
are under tremendous pressure, quarterly pressure. We have to meet certain
targets. And we just don’t have the leeway.” And my response is, well we
need to create that leeway. How do we look at what’s happening in corporate
governance, in how the incentives work within the corporate world today,
and figure out if there’s some way we can help the good guys so that they
can actually do more for their employees. And I’m looking at a lot of
different approaches.

SWISHER: Can you actually create jobs? Because a lot – you referenced it –
and many Silicon Valley people reference it, is that they’re going to be
fewer jobs.

SEC. CLINTON: Right.

SWISHER: And as things become automated –

SEC. CLINTON: Well let me give you two quick examples. One, look at the
enormous numbers of jobs that technology created, starting in the nineties,
right? I mean, it was a huge explosion, not just in tech companies but
across the board. And now we’ve got to figure out, are we hitting a ceiling
because with increased innovation, automation, we’re not able to create
more jobs, or is there more that we can do in order to promote job
creation? But it’s not just job creation, it has to be with a rising wage,
an opportunity ladder. Energy is a huge opportunity. Energy efficiency jobs
are woefully underrepresented in the economy. Now there are things that
both utility companies and governments at local, state, the federal level,
could do to encourage more jobs that would move us toward more renewable
energy. We’ve done a bit of it, but we haven’t done near-enough of it. And
so there is an area where it’s sitting right there and we’re not doing
everything we could. We don’t have a level playing field, we still highly
subsidize non-renewable, non-clean energy. We should have a much more open,
competitive field so that energy efficiency, solar, geothermal, wind, all
of that, is on a stronger foundation – and we will create more jobs.

SWISHER: Alright, let’s talk about the – [applause] – why do you think we
need a woman president? Just curious.

SEC. CLINTON: [Laughs] Well –

SWISHER: Besides “she’d be better.”

SEC. CLINTON: Well, speaking hypothetically?

SWISHER: Yeah.

SEC. CLINTON: Well, you know –

SWISHER: We can say “President Warren,” if you want. But it’s more of a –

SEC. CLINTON: Well, yeah, you know I think whoever it is – or should be –
we need to make sure that all the talent in our country is represented. I
mean –

SWISHER: But do you think it’s be a different president, being a woman?

SEC. CLINTON: Well, I can only speak both for myself and for my experience.
But having been in the Senate and having seen the difference that women in
the Senate made, the most famous example – and it’s literally hard to
believe right now – but in the seventies and eighties women were not used
as subjects in clinical trials by the National Institutes of Health. And in
fact, big trials on breast cancer did not include women patients.
[Laughter] I know, it’s so sad right? And so along came –

SWISHER: Also weird.

SEC. CLINTON: – somebody like Barbara Mikulski and others who were
determined to “lead on,” and they changed that. Now that’s a specific
example and there are many others where the experience of being a woman,
the ability to see what others might not see, as either gender
discrimination or marginalization, gives us a chance to speak up, to be
heard, and to make changes. You know, when I was first lady I worked with a
lot of the breast cancer advocates to continue on breast cancer because it
was one of the most egregious examples, and we kept seeing how research for
the causes, prevention of breast cancer kept being cut. And so I worked
with a lot of these advocates and we put a breast cancer research program
into the defense department budget – because it wouldn’t be cut. [Applause]
Now, we had to keep saving it, because people found it and tried to cut it.
But that’s the kind of difference, that you sit and talk – and this is
bipartisan, you know, women on both sides of the aisle. They have these
views, and we had some of the best times, we had dinners every month
together. They were totally off the record, they were not political. We
would say, “Well, what are you working on? How can we help?” And so it was
what you would hope your elected officials would do together and I think
there’s a lot more of that and, you know, women in public life do bring
that perspective which we need.

SWISHER: Well, why do you think – let’s get to Silicon Valley. You talked
about Rosanna [Patricia] Arquette’s statement at the Oscars, the wage
inequalities. Those numbers you coded for Google, it’s every single company
in Silicon Valley. It’s essentially white dudes and a couple of ladies.

SEC. CLINTON: Right. Right.

SWISHER: How do you – what do you think about that? This is supposed to be
our most fast-forward industry, the one where all the jobs are. But it’s
completely –

SEC. CLINTON: Well, you know I’ve thought a lot about it, and I thin,
overgeneralize, three big reasons. One, this pipeline problem. You know,
when you had more women getting computer science degrees in the ‘80s by a
factor of 2+ than you do now, that kind of let’s people off the hook. You
know, why aren’t more girls and women going into this field? What was
different about being a high-school or college student in the ‘80s than it
is today? And I think we need to unpack that, and we have to do more to
create opportunities for girls to have access to computer science,
programing, coding experiences to kind of light those interests in them.
And then secondly, I do think you have to recognize that in technology,
which has just exploded over the last twenty years, it’s been a very almost
Wild West environment, and I think a lot of women find that distasteful,
unappealing to be in a situation sort of resembling a locker room in some
ways where you just feel like you’re… it’s hard to get your voice in. It’s
hard to be heard. It’s like that classic tale when you say something in a
meeting and nobody pays attention and then twenty minutes later a man says
it and everybody thinks he’s a genius. And I’ve had that experience a lot
of times. And you just have to… you have to kind of gird up and you
therefore need support systems like the Watermark or like this conference,
because it’s not easy if you poke your head above the parapet if you’re in
technology, politics, and a lot of other areas.

And the third thing is I think companies should be held to account. I mean,
you need shareholders and executives and customers and others to say “Hey,
you can do better than 83% male.”

SWISHER: [How do you change the systemic qualities that create that
locker-room culture?]

SEC. CLINTON: Look, I think that it requires both men and women to speak up
and speak out about this and I think for men it’s always fascinating when
you talk to groups of men in tech or any other industry, it’s almost
inevitable in my experience that they… some of them will tell me how great
their daughters are and how well their daughters are doing and what their
daughters hope to become. And I always say, “Don’t you want your daughter
to be able to go as far as she can go in whatever field she chooses? “Oh of
course.” Well, you’re a bank, you’re a big corporation, you’re this, you’re
that. You better pay attention to the kind of environments that educated
young women are going into and maybe raise questions about it, so men have
to be more sensitive to, more interested in, creating this environment, and
if you can’t get them on the daughter side of argument, try to get them on
the fact that we are now amassing evidence that corporations with women on
boards actually do better. They have a higher ROI. They are consistently
you know more successful.

And so, we have some both personal and some statistical data to back it up.
But then I think for women that’s why I ended by talking about how we have
to support each other more. And this is a constant challenge, and we need
to be willing to stand up for other women, to raise questions about how
other women are being treated. I remember all those years ago when I was in
this law firm [4:00], around 3 o’clock, every secretary, every
administrative assistant, every woman paralegal would be on the phone
trying to make sure their kid got home safely. Because the kids were coming
home, they were what we called then “latch-key” kids, and they wanted to
make sure their kids were safe. And they were whispering in the phone,
because you’re not supposed to make personal phone calls at business. And I
finally went to the partners and said, “This is absurd. You should have a
window of opportunity. These women work so hard. They’re great members of
our team.” So you need to pick up on what’s happening and not just among
your peers but women who may not have the power and position you do. And
then finally, develop a thick skin. I mean, my favorite predecessor,
Eleanor Roosevelt, said that women in the public arena have to grow skin as
thick as the hide of a rhinoceros, and you have to be prepared… you know,
try to think ahead of the smart thing you’ll say if somebody makes an
offensive comment to you, instead of what we all do which is, you sit there
shocked and then in bed at night you think, “Oh, I wish I’d said this.”
Sort of have a stock of those that you kind of carry around with you. And
throw out and you know kind of say, “Oh, take that.”

SWISHER: You know, you’re pretty good at that actually.

SEC. CLINTON: You know, I’ve had a lot of practice. I mean I started… I
mean really.

SWISHER: But would you put this idea of childcare at the center of an
administration, a real center and not a sort of side way?

SEC. CLINTON: Now look, I think…

SWISHER: Did you do enough in the last campaign to bring it to the center?

SEC. CLINTON: You know…

SWISHER: Many say you didn’t.

SEC. CLINTON: Well, you know, I’ve heard that. And I’m certainly trying to
learn from what I did right and what I didn’t in thinking through, you
know, doing this again. I think that the family issues, sort of putting
families first, creating more supportive work environments so that if you
do that, what people find is that women who get treated well are such loyal
employees. They will stay with the company. They will work double-time.
They will do everything they can to make the enterprise that supported them
successful. So this is not a nice thing to do, this [54:00] is a win-win. I
think that child care, these family issues, are now bubbling to the top of
the list on people’s minds.

SWISHER: So let’s talk a little bit about some of the issues around the
tech sector. We talked backstage, net neutrality. They’re going to vote on
it Thursday. The president’s been rather aggressive about making it a
utility. Do you think it should be a utility?

SEC. CLINTON: Well here’s what I think. I think that it, for the FCC to do
what they want to do to try to –

SWISHER: -- regulate it like a phone.

SEC. CLINTON: -- create net neutrality as the norm, they have to have a
hook to hang it on and so they’re hanging it on title 2 of –

SWISHER: Do you like that hook?

SEC. CLINTON: Well it’s the only hook they’ve got.

SWISHER: Yeah but what hook would you like? [crosstalk] Because your
husband’s administration and the Bush administration before were much hands
off in that regard.

SEC. CLINTON: Well you see how things develop. It wasn’t really a threat
until relatively recently. I think I gave my first statement on net
neutrality about eight or nine years ago. And we know how important it is
because of concentration and the industry and the like. But I think that if
there were another hook it would come out of a modern, 21st century telecom
technology act. We don’t have that and we’re not likely to get it

SWISHER: Should this vote open that way?

SEC. CLINTON: Oh yeah absolutely.

SWISHER: Would you vote for that?

SEC. CLINTON: Yes I would. Yes I would.

SWISHER: That act, but what about the one the FCC’s invented?

SEC. CLINTON: I would vote for net neutrality because as I understand it,
it’s Title II with a lot of changes within it in order to avoid the worst
of the utility regulation. So it’s a foot in the door. It’s a value
statement. I think the president is right to be up front and out front on
that but it’s not the end of the discussion. I mean we need to do more
about how the spectrum is allocated, we need to do more incentivize more
competition in broadband. We need to figure out how to treat connectivity
as an infrastructure development. There’s a lot of other aspects so it’s
not just net neutrality standing alone, end of debate – and that should be
part of a really smart legislative endeavor – but I don’t think people
believe that can happen in the short term.

SWISHER: Okay. What about encryption? Right now Apple and Google are
fighting the government. Do you have a side in this? Which, the president
was kind of, “I was for it until I was against it” kinda thing. Where do
you feel on encryption? Do you feel these companies should be able to
encrypt these phones?

SEC. CLINTON:  Well I think you have a classic hard choice and I wrote a
book called Hard Choices and it’s not a dodge, or a feint, because I think
that what we’re missing is people are kind of in their corners arguing
about liberty versus security instead of saying look we all want to have
privacy for the end user. That’s what the companies are responding to,
they’re trying to be able to tell their customers we’re going to protect
your data but we also don’t want to find ourselves in a position where it’s
a legitimate security threat we’re facing and we can’t figure out how to
address it because we have no way into whatever is holding the information.
And we’re also not operating in a vacuum. We know that other countries are
taking their own steps to monitor the internet, control the internet, which
we’re not but what we’ve got to figure out is how you get the right
balance. So encryption is a part of protecting people’s legitimate right to
privacy.

SWISHER: How would you address Google and Apple if you were the president?

SEC. CLINTON: Well I’ve talked to some of the leaders in technology, some
of the executives of these companies, and I think that’s the way to start,
not a – a real conversation, where you say look here’s our problem. If you
were sitting in my seat, if all of a sudden some president said okay Mr. or
Miss X we want you to be head of the counterterrorism or the new cyber
warfare, something that takes advantage of your expertise. So you’re
sitting in these meetings that the president and I and others have sat in
and we can see the sequencing where we know people are in contact and we
have both human intelligence and some technology-enabled intelligence and
we know there’s something going to happen and we’re trying to figure out
how to get through the door that has been locked. So I think the
conversation rather than you don’t understand privacy and you don’t
understand security [inaudible] Okay let’s figure out how we’re going to do
this. So I don’t have the answer, I would be the first to say that I don’t
have the answer. I think there are really strong legitimate arguments on
both sides and what I would like to see is more the kind of brainstorming
that I’ve had the good fortune to do.

SWISHER: Another issue of contention is the NSA. Would you throttle back
the NSA in the ways that President Obama had promised and hasn’t come to
pass?

SEC. CLINTON: Well I think the – look – I think the NSA needs to be more
transparent about what it is doing, sharing with the American people. Which
it wasn’t. And I think a lot of the reaction about the NSA when people felt
betrayed. They felt like, wait you didn’t tell us you were doing this and
all of a sudden now we’re reading it on the front page, we’re getting
hammered by our customers and by other countries – I would say very
hypocritically – are going after our companies because I know for a fact
that there’s not a country out there that doesn’t do anything they can do
to get an advantage. And they do things that we would never do, like
industrial espionage, like stealing intellectual property. So there’s a lot
that’s going on in this space. So when you say would you throttle – the NSA
has to act lawfully and we as a country have to decide what the rules are.
And then [1:00:00] we have to make it absolutely clear we’re going to hold
them accountable. And what we had, because of post-9/11 legislation, was a
lot more flexibility than I think people really understood and was not
explained to them. I voted against the FISA amendments in 2008 because I
didn’t think that they went far enough to kind of hold us accountable in
the Congress to figure out what was –

SWISHER: -- By flexibility you mean too much spying power really?

SEC. CLINTON: Well yeah but how much is too much? And how much is not
enough? That’s the hard part. I think if Americans felt like, number one,
you’re not going after my personal information, the content of my personal
information, but I do want you to get the bad guys because I don’t want
them to use social media, use, you know, communications devices embedded
right here to plot against us. So let’s draw the line. And I think it’s
hard if everybody’s in their corner. So, I resist saying, you know, it has
to be this or that. I want us to come to a better balance.

SWISHER: Do you think Edward Snowden was a traitor in revealing that?

SEC. CLINTON: I can never condone what he did, and I think he, you know, he
stole millions of documents, and the great irony is the vast majority of
those documents had nothing to do with American civil liberties, privacy,
or anything affecting us here at home. They were about information we had
vis a vis China, Russia, Iran, others. And then he fled to China, then he
ends up in Russia. So, you know, the President had given a speech before
Snowden’s disclosures laying out some of those issues that we needed to
address. So people were beginning to take a deep breath after a decade of
9/11 reaction, and the President was sort of leading that. And along comes
Snowden, and puts forth information into the public domain that people are
entitled to know, but I think it’s fair to say a lot of it was nothing to
do with the subject we’re talking about, but very damaging to our national
security vis a vis countries that do their very best to gather information
about us.

SWISHER: Alright, two more things. Couple more topics. ISIS. Disturbing
videos, they’re using social media, creating terror there. Has the
Administration done enough to tackle the problem, and what would you do
more to deal with them?

SEC. CLINTON: Well, you know, again, how much time do we have? I think not
enough –

SWISHER: As much as you want. [laughter] We can sit here all day.

SEC. CLINTON: – yeah, you know, look. OK, then let me start with this. ISIS
is the manifestation of a movement that is incredibly fueled by an
obsession to control territory, to reestablish, as they say, a caliphate
that would be governed by people with a very retrograde view of everything
about women, everything I care about, everything about due process or
rights or anything. We know that. So why are they – why did they get a
foothold? Well, first of all, they are the successor to what was called al
Qaeda in Iraq. Al Qaeda in Iraq was an al Qaeda affiliate that was based in
the Sunni regions within Iraq and was fighting the Shiite forces in Iraq
during the American involvement in Iraq. They were so brutal at that time
that it provided the opportunity for a lot of the Sunni tribal sheiks and
community leaders to band against them, to come together to try to drive
them out of Anbar Province and out of the Sunni dominated regions, and they
were successful in doing so because they finally decided that the enemy of
my enemy is my friend didn’t work, because these people were so brutal, so
beyond the pale. So they effectively squashed them, and then the United
States turned over Iraq to the elected leadership of then Prime Minister
Maliki. And he proceeded to then alienate all the Sunni leaders and
citizenry, purged the army of Sunni officers, generally behaved in a
sectarian, exclusive, oppressive way, and so these shoots that had been
suppressed began to pop to the surface. Meanwhile, next door in Syria you
have all kinds of extremist groups taking advantage of the vacuum there,
and one of them morphed into ISIS and was able to recruit former officers
in the Saddam Hussein army, as well as foreign fighters, as well as very
combat-experienced jihadists, and were able to gather up a lot of resources
by breaking into banks and stealing everything in them, by stealing oil and
selling it on the black market etcetera. And they did something that, up
until now, no other extremist group has done as effectively and that use
social media. So, all of the sudden it wasn’t just like, oh my gosh those
people are killing each other over there again, it was oh my gosh they’re
threatening us, they’re recruiting kids from the United States, Canada,
Europe, elsewhere, they are threatening to expand their territorial grasp,
they are really a metastasizing danger. So, therefore, we have to work with
our partners in the region to try to diminish and eventually eradicate the
threat, because it does affect us and not just them.

SWISHER: But how, do you think enough is being done?

SEC. CLINTON: Well, I think that it’s, you know, it’s a very hard challenge
because you can’t very well put American or western troops in to fight this
organism, you have to use, not only air force, but also army soldiers from
the region, and particularly from Iraq. And so what Americans are doing now
is helping to retrain the Iraqi army after it was really decimated by
Maliki trying to get leadership back in within the Sunni regions, trying to
integrate them so the Sunnis feel they have a stake in the future,
supporting the Kurds because the Kurdish peshmerga are right now certainly
the best fighting force. It’s like three, four, five dimensional chess. So
yes, I think a lot of the right moves are being made, but this is a really
complicated and long term problem, because remember, we’ve got al Qaeda in
Yemen, we’ve got Boko Haram in North Africa. We’ve got terrorist groups
from, you know, the Sinai through Libya and south into Mali. This is a long
term struggle, so –

SWISHER: So are you sure you want to be president then? [laughter]

SEC. CLINTON: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, every time has its own problems,
so these happen to be some of ours.

SWISHER: That’s true. So, two more very quick questions. If you could wave
a wand and change anything about this country, what would it be? One thing.

SEC. CLINTON: Oh, oh, that’s so hard.

SWISHER: And not another season of Downton Abbey or something like that.

SEC. CLINTON: Well, I hope that happens without me waving a magic wand. You
know, that we could get back to working together cooperatively again, that
we could get out of our – [applause] – our mindsets, our partisan bunkers.
We’ve come so far. We still have lots to do on ending, you know, sexism and
racism and homophobia and all kinds of really bad issues that we’ve had to
confront. And we have work still to do, but we’re making a lot of progress,
but nobody wants to associate with anybody who doesn’t agree with them
politically. You can’t have a conversation. People won’t listen to each
other. They listen to different media, and those different media tell
different stories about the very same thing that you’re watching unfold in
front of your eyes. You cannot run a great country like that, and this is
the greatest country, and we need to start acting like it and working like
it again.

SWISHER: Do you think you’ve become less polarizing?

SEC. CLINTON: I mean, yeah, obviously I think I have. I think that, you
know, I was a little bit surprised. I mean, when I was first lady of
Arkansas, I worked on a lot of really controversial issues in education and
health. And I worked with people across the aisle, worked with people of
different philosophies because within the Democratic Party in those days,
there were lots of very conservative Democrats. And then I go to
Washington, and all of a sudden it’s considered just an incredible shock
that somebody like me, who’s been an advocate, been involved in so many
movements for so long, would actually have an opinion about something like
healthcare for everybody, or whatever it might be. So I think there was
some back and forth there that I had to understand better  and I certainly
tried to do that when I ran for the Senate that was something that I
stressed. And when I worked in the senate I was very much somebody who
would work across the aisle, look for opportunities to do that. Because I
don’t think I have all the right ideas, I don’t think my part has all the
right ideas, I think there are good ideas in lots of places, but if you
don’t talk to each other, you don’t listen to each other, and in Washington
you don’t spend time with each other because you fly in you vote, vote,
vote, and then you fly out to go raise money. I’ll just end with this
because I know we’re running out of time. I was so proud of my friend Patty
Murray, the Senator from Washington, who when the government was shut down
a year or so ago, she was the chair of the budget committee, and so they
shut the government down, and then they reopen it, but they basically say
we have to pass a budget. They turn to Patty and say you okay, you’re the
chair of the Budget Committee, go work out a budget. So Patty, worked with
Paul Ryan, the former Vice Presidential nominee for Mitt Romney,
congressman from Wisconsin, and they actually talked to each other. They
didn’t show up at a big conference table with valences of true believes on
each side of them with notebooks filled with argumentation. They had
breakfast together, they lunch together, they’d sit and talk about what
each of them wanted, knowing they couldn’t agree on giving each other
everything, but how could they make enough decisions to reach a consensus,
and they did. So it’s possible, and it requires relationship building. You
know, a lot of people that I have really serious disagreements with I found
ways to work together and I got to know better, and that’s kind of lost. So
this is, as you can tell, one of my pet peeves here.

SWISHER: So my last question, I asked this the President last question. If
you could have a hashtag for the next few years, and you can’t do
grandmother knows best, you've used that one, but you could do Hillary 2016
if you want, just offering a suggestion. Hash tag I love selfies, whatever,
what would it be? Your hashtag?

SEC. CLINTON: Lead on.

SWISHER: Thank you.

SEC. CLINTON: Thank you all very much!