>>James Fallows: For the next stage of our exploration of leadership, we're going to
hear from Dr. Sanjay Jha, who is the co-CEO of Motorola and CEO of Motorola Mobile. He
was born in India. His higher education was in the U.K. He spent 14 years at Qualcomm,
and in the last two years and 14 days, as he informs me -- but who is counting -- he's
been in the middle of a very celebrated transformation at Motorola.
So we're going to talk about what he's learned from this experience, his observations of
the mobile world, his thoughts about the computing future.
Please join me in welcoming Dr. Sanjay Jha. [Applause]
>>James Fallows: Let me start, before we get to talking about your recent business experience,
with a carryover question from our first session. You've heard a lot of presentations about
the relative secular decline of the United States and some western economies in general
relative, in specific, to China and India. Your part of the movement that in my view
has already strengthened the United States -- that is, its abilities to attract talent
from around the world -- how do you feel about this sense of the mood of American declinism
you've heard this morning? >>Dr. Sanjay Jah: My general view is that
it's -- certainly over the last few years we've gone through a process where there is
a need for renewal in the United States, but the strength of the U.S. has always been the
ability to attract some of the brightest and the best people.
I think probably if there is one concern, it is that some of our immigration policies
are getting in the way of being able to attract those folks.
But nonetheless, I think this constant sense of renewal that's built into the technology
as well as the culture of the U.S. I think enables us to compete as effectively as ever.
I mean, there's no doubt that there were excesses in the economic system, but equally, there
is no doubt that there is more investment being made in the next-generation technologies
here in the U.S. than nearly anywhere else. So I look at what we have done with the cloud
computing. Google at the head of that. I look at what has happened to the U.S. auto industry.
I look at Motorola and the cell phone business, the last really important cell phone manufacturer,
and I think that there is every capability for us to reinvent ourselves here in the United
States. I remain very, very optimistic.
>>James Fallows: And so your Indian counterparts a generation younger than you, would they
be as interested in coming to the U.S. as you were?
>>Dr. Sanjay Jah: I think it will depend on a number of things. I think our education
system here still continues to be some of the best. I think that certainly is attractive.
I think if we continue to create corporations like Google, like Motorola, I think they'll
be interested. But more and more, I think the vast majority
of Indians are now staying in India and creating opportunities.
But we shouldn't see that as lack of opportunity for our corporations. I think that creates
vast opportunities for us in those countries also.
>>James Fallows: Let's talk now about your current company, about Motorola.
You've been there a little more than two years, as you were saying.
Describe, if you would, the situation that faced you when you arrived and what you've
learned from your decisions, good and perhaps less good, since then. But we'll assume all
good. >>Dr. Sanjay Jah: Well, in 2006, we had 28
billion of revenue on the back of the RAZR franchise and post the RAZR franchise, I think
we were losing money at the rate of about a billion dollars a quarter.
It was a pretty dire situation, I think. It was broadly being discussed that we should
shut down the handset business in Motorola, and I was at that time in a relatively comfortable
position of chief operating officer of a Google-like franchise and I made the decision to move
to Motorola and take the challenge of turning around Motorola.
Largely because I fundamentally believe that there is probably a larger opportunity here
in technology, in the combination of Internet and making it mobile, delivering content and
information in a mobile environment, and I just believe that that is the largest technology
opportunity that there ever has been. And I felt that at Motorola, given its brand
name, given its distribution reach, I could make a difference.
So that led me to that place where I said, "Yes, I will take on this job," from really
a place of great comfort. And I think the thing that I found was that
this almost complete lack of optimism inside the organization -- there had been seven presidents
in the course of three years at that organization so there was clearly a leadership vacuum at
Motorola. But the bigger issue was that I think everyone
there was looking for the next RAZR. It was still a company which was looking for
a voice-centric device rather than embracing the almost seismic shift that was occurring
in technology at that time. And I think the biggest change for me was
to get people to buy into that vision while I was taking 1 1/2 billion of cost out of
the organization. >>James Fallows: And so what -- as you look
back on these two years, a question both is there anything you would do differently and
you have a colleague, you know, Mr. Elop, who is now taking on a similar challenge at
Nokia -- you don't want to be advising your competitors, but if somebody were advising
him based on your last two years, what recommendations do you think they would offer?
>>Dr. Sanjay Jah: Advising your competitors is an exercise in futility, so I won't do
that. But I think the first thing I would say to
Stephen is to make sure that he connects with the Finnish culture in some way. I think almost
the biggest challenge in front of him is to be able to make sure that he gets the information
that allows him to make rational decisions. And I was happy to see Finland was third on
the list of very happy countries, flourishing countries. That certainly is a positive thing
that he will have to tap into. But there is a very strong cultural element
in Finland and he has to make sure that that cultural element is aligned with his strategy.
Anytime strategy and culture collide, strategy always loses, so there has to be an alignment.
So that's probably -- The second thing, on a more personal level,
I would say is that he needs to have a confidant who is connected to the Finnish culture that
he can lean on and learn on. Strategically I won't advise, but moving aside to Motorola,
moving back to Motorola a little bit, I think that that was that was probably the biggest
challenge. I came in the west coast, and Motorola is a Chicago/midwest company where the winters
are extreme and it formulates a certain culture and a certain way of looking at the world,
and my -- my view might -- Probably the largest contribution in Chicago
has been to make it feel like a high-technology company rather than a midwest hardware company.
And I would say that Steve has to figure out, with clarity, what is the strategic direction
that he wants to take and communicate that and align it as well as he can with the culture
of the country. >>James Fallows: And let me ask you a little
bit more about making Motorola feel like a high-tech company, having it feel like a startup.
Professor Seligman was telling us about ways you can learn different kinds of about performance.
It's relatively easy in a startup, especially on the west coast, to have a certain esprit,
but if startups succeed, they become mature companies and they become more set in their
ways. How exactly did you try to do this at Motorola
and what lessons do you extract from that? >>Dr. Sanjay Jah: Very specifically, I picked
four groups that I thought were doing very, very advanced work at that time and I made
them successful. I rewarded them. I gave them resources to make them successful. And that
success was the basis on which I think our organization saw where we wanted to head.
There were a very small number of small successes, and we built upon them one at a time, and
I think that that was the core of it. I think being clear about the strategy and being clear
on who are the key people who will drive that success to the next level was important for
us. As I think about how do you keep that startup
culture in large organizations, I think my fundamental sense is that new ideas can only
be born when some -- there is some dying of the old ideas, and how you kill old ideas
whose time has come and passed, I think that became important for us.
We weren't making money. One of the big things for me at Motorola was
that there was no doubt that we were in crisis. There are lots of companies around the world
who are -- who have 5, 7 billion of cash flow who are, in my opinion, in technological crisis,
but it's very difficult to bring transformation if there is no sense of that crisis, that
sense of imminent death, and I felt that we had that and that was a huge advantage to
me in being able to convince people that we needed to do things differently.
In terms of startup, I think -- I think in terms of innovation, again, I have always
felt that the innovation -- there is an innovating class in every company.
To innovate, you must have understanding of a broad range of subjects, and the confluence
of those subjects creates the innovation. And it's a matter of sponsoring and providing
room for those -- that innovating class to develop new ideas. That was the core of it.
I felt I had to connect with maybe 50 to a hundred core engineers in the company, at
Motorola, who were doing things of consequence and give them room and give them resources
to succeed. >>James Fallows: And if those engineers, the
ones you're trying to enlist in this cultural change, if they were explaining your message
to their friends and their coworkers, what would be the distilled version of the message
that you were trying to impart to them? >>Dr. Sanjay Jah: That's a good question.
I would think that they would say that this convergence that we're seeing of wireless
mobility -- you've seen iPad, you've seen smartphones, our own Droids -- that that is
the path for us to grow at Motorola and that that alone is the way for us to move forward.
That all the other work that was going on, I took a huge amount of cost out of that,
and that they must find -- align with that, and if they didn't align with that, then I
don't think we would succeed. I think that this central focus on one single
thing that was going to be our future, I think that's hopefully the message that they deliver.
>>James Fallows: Great. Let me ask you about a couple of topics relatively in the news
now. Under your leadership Motorola, has made a
big bet on Android. >>Dr. Sanjay Jah: That's right.
>>James Fallows: And could you describe the operating system environment, the operating
system struggles as you see them in the mobile space?
>>Dr. Sanjay Jah: So obviously there are two fundamental views. One is the open, horizontal,
operating environment like Android. Perhaps Windows Mobile.
And the second one is RIM and Apple with their vertically integrated systems and closed systems.
My view is that I think that either of the two ways -- the close integration of hardware
and software and end-to-end service delivery -- is going to be the way to meet consumer
requirements, and I think it's possible to do that both in a horizontal way, in an open
way, in the Android way, and in a controlled environment in the way that Apple delivers
that experience. I actually think that the pace of innovation,
though, in the open environment has proven to be much, much higher.
RIM clearly has a franchise. I think time will tell as to how innovative they will be
and how they can sustain that pace of innovation. But if you look over the last two years, I
think the pace of innovation in the Android franchise and Android ecosystem has been meaningfully
higher, in my view, and as a result of it I think we are clearly now seen as the contender
to the Apple franchise, and I believe that over a short period of time, I think you will
see us delivering much higher quality of experiences because of this sense of openness, because
of our ability to garner innovation from lots of different places.
And so I think both of them are viable economic models but I think in the long term, the open
model seems to, at the present time, be delivering much higher --
>>James Fallows: And here's a related news question. The whole net neutrality debate.
Our sponsoring institution, Google here, has recently and somewhat controversially taken
a stand with Verizon, with their manifesto on net neutrality.
Could you describe what you see as the merits of this issue and how you think it will and
should play it out? >>Dr. Sanjay Jah: Certainly.
I think the ability to deliver all applications and all services without regard to who is
delivering it and what services are being delivered, I think that in principle that's
a fundamental principle that must be supported very strongly.
On the other hand, I think that we need to understand that Verizon or AT&T probably invest
15 to $20 billion in capital expenditures every year and we must have an economic system
which gives them motivation to continue to invest that.
Only two years ago, we could only get, I don't know, 10 to 20 kilobits per second data rate
and now we can get megabits per second of data rate, and as a result, it has enabled
the level of innovation. 50% of all phones sold in the United States are smartphones.
Without that data network, there is just not that innovation.
So I think as much as we want to make every application available in a uniform way, we
need to make sure that the economic incentive to invest that kind of capital expenditure
doesn't go away. And I just think that there are some very
complex issues here which, without going into the details, I would simply say that that
economic incentive has to be there. >>James Fallows: And just to make -- just
to follow up for one further turn, the basic division that Google and Verizon proposed,
which is in the wired infrastructure you'd have sort of strict net neutrality but not
in the wireless, is that a -- from your point of view a sensible guideline going forward?
>>Dr. Sanjay Jah: The two networks certainly are fundamentally different. In the wireless
space, if you want to deliver quality of service in the same -- then the cost of that is dramatically
different, and there is no way that they have to be -- there's absolutely agreement that
they have to be treated differently, yeah. >>James Fallows: Okay. We only have about
two more minutes here. I want to ask you a final question before we bring you back for
the panel. We heard in a previous presentation from Professor
Seligman trying to be specific about what it means to be hopeful, what it means to be
optimistic. In your business, innovativeness, risk-taking,
et cetera, these are the mantras everybody -- everybody talks about, but in specific
what do you do to try to have learned innovativeness, to cultivate what's the right degree of risk-taking
and how do you do it among your employees. >>Dr. Sanjay Jah: With a great deal of difficulty,
I think. But I think the notion of flourishing seems
to be such an important notion that -- and I actually really just listened to Professor
Seligman and I was thinking that we ought to start measuring the quality of our innovation
as it correlates to the quality of flourishing in the organization.
The -- I just think, again, I -- the way -- to answer your question more precisely, I think
what I like to do is to allow people to take risks but try to kill as many projects early
as I could as they begin to seem like they're not going to deliver the results.
Starting many different projects seems to be the right thing, but continuing those projects
to conclusion virtually always guarantees that none of them succeed, so that the decision
to -- decision to kill projects is nearly as important for us as decision to start.
I think the threshold for starting projects I have kept to be quite low, but the threshold
for letting them continue beyond a certain phase I have kept quite high.
>>James Fallows: So you're -- that would be the "fail quickly" motto. Is that right?
>>Dr. Sanjay Jah: Absolutely. Fail quickly. Yeah, yeah.
>>James Fallows: There's many more things I'd like to ask you. I think we've come to
the end of this session now, so please sit with me here while we introduce the next session.
Then we'll both come back jointly for the panel.