2021-06-15 Past, Present, and Future: A Conversation with David Rubenstein and Janet Hill about Politics, Education, and Leadership
DDavid ChangJun 16, 2021 at 12:12 am2h 2min
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00:00John Werner
This is Imagination in Action. It's a night of creative, connective, compelling conversation with a dynamic mix of imaginators. We have Janet Hill and David Rubenstein. And these two are driving the action that will power our futures. We strive to be one of the most original, engaging salons on Clubhouse and in the world, and Imagination in Action is the catalyst sparking thinking and insight never captured before. So we're really excited about this. Next week, we're going to do a show on comedy. We have comedy writers for [The] Ellen [Degeneres Show], [Everybody Loves] Raymond, and [The Late Late Show with James] Corden talking about the comedy process. We have Peter Diamandis the week after that, we have Tal Zaks, the Chief Medical Officer of Moderna, with Juan Enriquez, a futurist, and Jane Metcalfe, the founder of Wired. We're going to do a hospitality and education show with the former head strategist of Airbnb, Chip Conley, and Barbara Waxman, we're setting up a show with Mark Bittman on food. We're gonna have some finance show-- we have Randall Lane from Forbes, the [former] president of Mastercard, Ajay [Banga], and the president of Fidelity, Kathleen Murphy. We have a bunch of great shows coming down the pike. But tonight [I'm] excited for this conversation. So, Caroline, can you play something to kind of kick us off? It's officially that time.
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01:32Caroline Goulding
Sure! I'm going to play a little thing from Yankee Doodle Dandy by Henry Tom.
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03:39John Werner
Thank you, Caroline. We dedicate that to our speakers. That's a live performance. Also later in the show, we're going to have Max perform. He's a jazz pianist, and he's in Spain right now. [He's] got a full scholarship, Berklee College of Music, and he's going to celebrate some New Orleans music and Janet and I know that's where you're from.
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04:00Janet Hill
Thank you.
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04:00John Werner
And then let me introduce our two speakers and then Allison and I will start interviewing and then we'll get to the audience. So Janet Hill grew up an only child in New Orleans, when segregation was the law and "white only" signs were around. She was inspired by civil rights leader, Andrew Young, who went on to be the mayor of Atlanta. Andy and she called themselves the "country cousins". She went on to Wellesley. Her mom, who was a business leader for 64 years at least, had encouraged her to do that. She was one of five African Americans in a class of over 400 at Wellesley and Hillary Rodham Clinton was in that class. She went on and got a master's [degree] from [the] U[niversity of] Chicago, same school that David got a master's from, and she used her master's in math to take a job spying on Soviet sub[marine]s. I don't know if we'll get into that, but I thought that would be interesting to share. She joined the Pentagon and a senior role was Secretary of the Army, Clifford Alexander. And after being in the Pentagon, she and Clifford formed a firm and spent 30 years helping major corporations, especially around women and minorities in senior ranks, and she supported First Lady Michelle Obama as she transitioned to the White House. Her husband says she has more energy than a Dallas Cowboy player. He should know-- he ran for 9000 yards with the Cowboys and for 25 years helped coach them and so he knows what a Dallas Cowboy looks like. She is NFL royalty-- when Janet and her husband Calvin couldn't decide on the name for their newborn, Roger Staubach suggested "Grant" and there you go. Grant is one of the most amazing and beloved NFL.
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06:03Esther Dyson
What happened? John, you're on mute.
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