david: after it did go public, it did go down by 11%. a record decline after an ipo. dara: i love how this interview is starting. i really appreciate that. david: how long will it be where there is no drivers? dara: the better thing than robots alone or humans alone is robots and humans working together. david: someone asked you to interview as the ceo of uber? did you say you already had a job? dara: at first, i said, no way. >> would you fix your tie, please? david: people would not recognize me

if my tie was fixed. all right. ♪ david: i don't consider myself a journalist. nobody else would consider myself a journalist. i begin to take on the life of an interviewer, even though i have a day job running a private equity firm. how do you define leadership? what is it that makes somebody tick? you have been the ceo of uber for how long now? dara: two years. david: do you enjoy it? dara: i love it. david: the company was not a public company. you have taken it public. you received a lot of publicity about the ipo. the company has a higher market capitalization, roughly $72 billion. higher market capitalization than any company in american capitalism history except for facebook, this short a time

after the ipo. why are so many people criticizing you for having a $72 billion market cap? dara: i think there are many critics for a large company. that is a fact of life. what is different about some of the technology companies of our generation that are coming public, the so-called unicorns, we have stayed private for longer. we have raised more money over a longer time. when we come public, we have bigger scale than companies that went public, the last generation of companies. my view is, we wanted to go public. we needed to make sure we are well-capitalized for the next five years, and we achieved that. now the time is to put your head down and get the real work done. david: after the company did go

public, it did go down by about 11% which is a record decline after an ipo. did you think the investment bankers did not price it correctly? what do you think the problem was on the ipo? dara: i love how this interview is starting. [laughter] i appreciate that. i think that the timing of our ipo was very much aligned with the president's tariff wars the same day. we got caught up in a bit of a market swirl, and there is nothing you can do about that. what i tell the team is short-term, the market can be a voting machine but long-term, it is a weighing machine. i am very confident that the market will appreciate it. david: how did you come here? did you take an uber? dara: i need professional security.

david: do you take uber from time to time? dara: we take ubers all over the place. absolutely. doid: when you take uber, they know who you are? dara: it's about 50-50. david: and the ones that don't know you, do you make comments? david: i make sure i am very --dara: i make sure i am very polite. ask them how they are doing. i ask them if it is ok to make a phone call. i try to be as nice as i can because i'm trying to improve my uber rating. david: you said people should not slam the doors. is that a big problem? dara: if you are driving a car, and you've got 10, 20 passengers coming in, the car is an asset of yours. david: your company has roughly 22,000 employees but you have 3 million drivers. dara: almost 4 million. david: you are in 63 countries,

585 cities? dara: you have been briefed effectively. impressive. states isthe united it increasing in terms of usage or is it going steady, going down? dara: it is increasing in every single market. the last quarter we announced that on a foreign-exchange neutral basis, we grew the bookings 41%. is off of an impressive rate of bookings. the business is growing at big scale, impressive rates. david: you did lose $1 billion during the previous quarter. dara: those are details that are important. david: how much longer can you lose $1 billion a quarter and keep going? dara: we have a significant amount of cash in the bank.

david: you've got $8 billion in the ipo and already have some money. dara: the company at this point is well-capitalized to keep investing. the markets we are going after, the transportation of people, food, freight -- they represent $16 trillion markets we are going after. if you look at even uber, the rideshare business itself, if you look at the audience in countries which we operate, typically we are addressing no more than 2% of the population of these countries. we think it is time to lean forward. the business itself can be quite profitable, we are confident of that. the next two, three, four years are going to be about growth and then we will flip it over. david: if i wanted to have a rideshare, why should i pick uber versus your competitors? dara: we have lots of competitors that are very good at what they do.

i think we typically in most markets, pretty much every market, we have the greatest number of drivers. we have the best liquidity. you are probably going to get the best e.t.a. the quickest driver to pick you up. the choices we have are impressive. in d.c., we have transit schedules right on the app. we want to move from a ride hailing app to your transportation partner. if you are trying to get from a to b, we will give you all the information we have to be able to get to a to b with a trade-off of time, convenience, and price. david: you have many different businesses. ridesharing is the one you are most famous for. actually, it is more profitable for you is uber eats. is that right? dara: ridesharing is more

profitable in most markets. uber eats is 20%. it is growing over 100% on a year on year basis. we are now the largest food delivery player. we entered this business three years ago. david: as a revenue percentage, what percentage? dara: it is about 20% of our booking. david: how many cities? dara: eats is in 500 cities. david: what is the most popular food? dara: fried chicken is magic. david: how do you keep the grease from kind of going through? dara: david, i'm covering that in my next monthly business review. i have not gotten to fried chicken grease yet. david: that is the most popular. a lot of people in the company own more stock than you. do you think you are underpaid? dara: i would never claim that i am underpaid.

♪

david: let's talk about some of your other businesses. you have your scooter business and electric bike business. the scooter business is all over the united states, around the world or? dara: it is in about 25 cities.

expanding mostly in the u.s. but in europe as well. david: you have one that is manufactured for you? is it different from other scooters other companies use? dara: we are building one that is manufactured for us. the bike is manufactured and designed by us, totally proprietary. david: some people say they are dangerous. what do you say about that? dara: it is something we are watching carefully. we are working on technologies to modulate those issues. for example, when scooters get to very busy parts of town, we will slow them down. some of these scooters early on, they went as high as 20 miles per hour. now we are working with cities to find out how fast are responsible speeds. we encourage riders to wear helmets. david: you have a new product

helicopters. you have launched that in a couple of cities. dara: new york city, we have. service from downtown new york to jfk. david: is there great demand? dara: we will see. going to jfk during rush hour hour is a mess. what we are trying to -- david: what does that cost to do if you want to go from downtown manhattan to jfk? dara: in an uber copter? about $200. if you are going from downtown new york to jfk with an uber black, it will cost close to $200 anyway. the magic of being able to do it in a helicopter is we are bringing in demand from thousands of users going to jfk and matching three or four users and putting them in the same vehicle. one of the keys in terms of traffic is that most people drive alone and that is a huge waste of our roads. it is a huge waste of gas, etc. we have a product where we

match two or three or four riders into one car. the uber copter is pool for the air. what you will see is the helicopters will be replaced by a generation of electrically vertical power and landing. david: will they ever be driverless? dara: they will eventually be driverless. we are going to start with pilots. it is the safer way to go. you can expect that in the aviation industry in general, they are taking a look at either computers assisting pilots more and more. there are controversies with that. or over a long period of time, going pilotless. david: let's talk about your driverless or autonomous business. you took a lot of people from carnegie mellon. out of the robotics department. you have said recently you think it is not going to happen so

quickly as people have previously said. how long will it be before you your ride program, driver program is one where there is no drivers? dara: i think it will be 15-plus years. it will take a long time. there is a drama around robots replacing humans. i think the reality of life is that the better thing than humans and robots alone are humans and robots working together. robots are well designed for replacing repetitive predictable behaviors. most of driving is not either repetitive or predictable, but there are a subset of routes that are. we will make sure safety comes first. we are building our driverless program -- by the way, we are working with third parties as well -- in a context of a network. our data scientists know what are the 1% easiest trips in d.c.

and an easy trip in d.c. maybe avoid a roundabout. stay away from airports. stay on areas that are well mapped. there are a set of routes that are incredibly easy to drive. what you see with us is we will get the machines to do the simple stuff. and then we will have the humans do the difficult stuff. the two are going to coexist for 10, 15 years, a long period of time versus the drama of the -- drama that the press reports. david: your 15-year answer was intended to be no drivers at all. you expect to have some within the next year or two. dara: the next five years. you will see some driverless vehicles out in the market in a limited way. david: you spun off your autonomous company to a separate company. why did you do that?

dara: we created a company where we were able to bring in some investors. some partners. toyota, a huge oem. we have a terrific partnership with toyota. a toyota company as well that is very strong in manufacturing kits and sensors and other parts of the car. really bring them in which is about building these autonomous vehicles at scale. we brought in mazda and softbank as a financial partner as well. david: softbank is your biggest single investor. they went in at a valuation above or right where you are? dara: below. they got a decent deal. i think it will get more decent with time. david: when was the company first started? who actually started the company? dara: the company was started about nine years ago by garrett camp who is an entrepreneur and

still on the board. he is an unbelievably smart guy. he brought on travis. he is our former ceo and one of the founders as well. garrett and travis and ryan really teamed up to build this thing. david: many of the people there at the beginning own a lot of stock. a lot of people in the company own more stock than you do. do you think you are underpaid? you have taken it public and you do not own as much as some people working for you. is that a problem for you? dara: i would never claim i am underpaid. [laughter] david: did you tell gary barrett you are interviewing for this? dara: i did very early. the press was all over the place. david: you don't think you could have kept it a secret? dara: i have gary to thank for pretty much everything in my professional career. i could not bear the possibility of him hearing about this from some news report. he was the first person i called.

♪

david: you grew up not in the united states. where were you born? dara: i was born in iran. david: why did you leave iran? dara: i left in 1978. i was nine years old. this was when the iranian revolution happened. my family was an industrial family, well off. when the shah was overthrown, folks like my family were no longer welcome in iran. we went to france to wait until things calmed down and things never calmed down.

we went from france to irvington, new york. we stayed at my uncle's house. we had no other place to stay. david: you went to high school in -- dara: tarrytown, new york. david: and then you went to brown. dara: i studied bioelectrical engineering at brown, and threw it all away to become an investment banker in new york city. go figure. david: you didn't want to go into private equity. investment banking was good enough? dara: it was a question of how evil i wanted to be. i wanted to be a little less evil. [applause] david: you could have gone into hedge funds. dara: that is the ultimate. i would have had horns. david: you are minding your own business and then you go to work for barry diller. how did he know of you? dara: i was a grunt analyst on a deal for him.

he was bidding against sumner redstone, a big battle in wall street. he was bidding for paramount. it was a back-and-forth. unfriendly bid. he was not wanted. we put up a big fight. i got to know barry over that time. i said if i ever have the chance to work for that person, i want to work for that person. i got the chance eventually. david: you went to work for him. ultimately, one of the companies he owned was expedia. did he own it before you joined? dara: i went to work for him as the deal person. we brought in companies in the travel space. we bought hotels.com and expedia. they were part of the family to some extent because the deals i did. david: you became the ceo of expedia. did you have experience? why did he think you would be good at being ceo? dara: he was desperate.

we were in a situation where one of the founders of expedia who was running it decided -- this stuff happens naturally -- founding a company, building a company is different from managing it. this person decided, i am not up for the ceo gig anymore. can you find a replacement? david: you were not the first choice? dara: i have no idea, i never asked him. i raised my hand and he said yes. david: the board gave you stock options worth $180 million. dara: i guess they did based on theoretical value. david: and then all of a sudden, while you are doing a good job, somebody asked you to interview for the job of being the ceo of uber. is that right? dara: yeah. david: did you say, i already have a job? dara: at first when i got called, i said, no way. i talked to a couple of friends.

you don't get too many chances as a professional or otherwise to work at and especially lead a company that i think is a part of how we live life. in this case, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. david: did you tell barry diller you were interviewing? dara: i did very early. the press was all over the place. dara: you couldn't keep it a secret, i guess? dara: i couldn't. i have barry to thank for pretty much everything in my professional career, and i could not bear the possibility of his hearing about this from some news report. he was the first person that i called. he was pretty unhappy at the beginning. then, he called me back. we had a series of conversations. he said, i understand why you are doing this. let me know how i can be helpful. he was genuinely helpful.

we are where we are now. david: he did not remind you of the $180 million in stock options? dara: he understood the reason was not necessarily monetary. david: you were replacing travis kalanick. one of the founders and one of the biggest shareholders, but he was still on your board. was it awkward to be the ceo replacing somebody on the board? was that easy to do? dara: yeah, i feel the same way. i am on the board of expedia. i am the former ceo. there is a new ceo who i picked who is the board ceo. being a former ceo, it is little weird sitting there and having someone else do something differently with your baby. uber feels like travis' baby. expedia felt like mine. it is a little weird. you know what? you are respectful. you get out of the way.

you give the ceo support. i think travis has done the same. is it weird? yes. are we in a situation where we are respectful and comfortable and he's there for me when i need his advice? yes. david: what is the biggest challenge you see the company facing? dara: the biggest challenge we have is a common challenge with some of the large technology companies out there. there is an increasing regulatory burden coming on some of the tech companies. some of it deserved. david: let's suppose i have extra money and wanted to buy into a company like yours. dara: i think you have some extra money, don't you? david: never have enough, but why should i buy your stock? is it likely to go up? why would it outperform some of your competitors? dara: i have no idea where it is going next week or next month. time, weng period of

are at the cusp of a transportation revolution. we are the player that is global. we are the player that is multiproduct in terms of moving people, food, things. we have a much larger scope than any of the other players out there. i will tell you, many of our competitors and ourselves are going to do great. this is about replacing car ownership. this is about redefining how cities are shaped. this is about shaping how people move in urban centers. david: what would you like the average person who is listening to know about uber and its future? dara: we essentially want to be your partner in terms of your everyday life in a city. when you want to go to work, we want to be there. when you come back, we want to be there. we want to be there to feed you. we want to be your everyday utility in your use. we will do so in a responsible way.

this is a company that wants to be great but wants to do good for the world as well and we know we have a lot of work ahead of us. ♪

beyond the routine checkups. beyond the not-so-routine cases. comcast business is helping doctors provide care in whole new ways. all working with a new generation of technologies powered by our gig-speed network. because beyond technology... there is human ingenuity.

every day, comcast business is helping businesses go beyond the expected. to do the extraordinary. take your business beyond. david: how has humor changed? are people laughing at the same things or are there certain things you can make fun of now and couldn't? lorne: there is nothing i did in the 1970's i could do now. david: are you ever worried there is a guest host not up to the task? lorne: yes. david: how do you coach them to be ready? lorne: you can get almost anyone through it. david: what does it take to be a leader? lorne: if you are in power, everyone knows you're in a power, so don't ever have to explain you're in power. >> would you fix your tie, please? david: people wouldn't recognize me if my tie was fixed, but ok. just leave it this way? all right.

david: i don't consider myself a journalist. nobody else would consider myself a journalist. i began to take on a life of being an interviewer even though i have a day job of running a private equity firm. how do you define leadership? what is it that makes somebody tick? did you think at the beginning that you were going to change television history and the history of comedy when you were starting that show in 1975? lorne: i don't think i thought of it in those terms, but i thought if we got on the air, and did the show, that the people who were doing the show would stay home to watch. i thought there were enough people like us, because we all come from the audience. i was the person who had the most experience in television, but most people, it was the first time they had been on television.

david: you were only 30 years old? the others were in their 20's? lorne: i think dan aykroyd was 22, john belushi was 24. chevy was a little older than me. david: why would a 30-year-old be picked to produce this show? what was your background that enabled somebody to think you would have experience to do this? lorne: it was very low stakes. late-night doesn't average in primetime ratings, so it was no one's real responsibility. carson was on five nights a week. that was doing really well. so when i had done television, and i had done television in los angeles, both in the late 1960's and then when i moved back in 1972, and the more ambitious things that i would suggest, or go in and meet about, they always said it wouldn't work in

primetime. in those days, you needed a 40 share of the audience to stay on the air. david: it means 40% of the audience -- lorne: 40% of the audience is watching you. i was from canada, and i kind of knew what was in between the coasts. i thought there were plenty of people like me out there. it was a different generation, and if we could -- we were at the beginning of the baby boom. i had worked on shows like "laugh in," as a writer, and i've done several shows with lily tomlin, richard pryor, which were always specials. and i had done enough that i sort of knew how you did it. and it was a question of putting together a show which was on

some level was new wine in old bottles. we took elements of variety shows and knew that we would be different because we would be doing it. david: you grew up in toronto? did you grow up and say i want to be a lawyer or doctor, like all nice, young jewish boys? lorne: no, i think it was my grandparents owned a movie theater, and i think from an early age, if asked in like the third grade what i wanted to do, i probably would have said lawyer because that is what you said or something like that, but i would have wanted to be in the movies. david: at one point, did you say i want to make my career in canada or the big-time is in the united states? lorne: 1967 was the 100th birthday of canada, centennial. there was a new spirit in the country and i thought i would be perfectly happy to be here the rest of my life.

and then got an opportunity to do a show in california called "the beautiful phyllis diller show." and i was working with a partner, and we would write and perform and wrote some stand-up for various people, woody allen, joan rivers, not that we influenced their careers, but we had had enough experience and we performed. david: you picked a number of famous people that later went on to great fame and fortune. the first show goes on. when it is over, are you convinced you have a great hit or you are not sure? lorne: when we were beginning, i had all of the ingredients, i didn't have the recipe. between the first show and the second show, we changed. second show was paul simon. third show was rob reiner with penny marshall. by the fourth show, we found the

show that resembles the show today. david: the original idea was to have a cast of characters and a host. lorne: a different host every week. david: who was the first host? lorne: george carlin. david: was he so funny in those days you knew it would be a hit? lorne: he had monologues that worked and i thought he was funny. the biggest controversy in the first show was the network wanted him to wear a suit, jacket and tie. and he didn't want to. he wanted to wear a t-shirt. it was not the biggest thing in my life. i was, let him wear whatever he wants, but the compromise which took up a lot of time on show day was he wore a suit with a t-shirt. perfect solution. david: did you have to have a censor?

lorne: we had a lot of discussions about what we could do and could not do. and what you could do at 11:30 and what you could do at midnight. i think that we sort of, all those phrases from the 1970's, "cutting edge" and "pushing the envelope," we were trying to reflect life as we were living it. also 1975, the end of the vietnam war. the president resigned. new york city was bankrupt. it was a little window that opened where it wasn't business as usual. david: 1975 to late 1970's or early 1980's, how has humor changed? do people laugh at the same kind of things, or are there certain things you could make fun of now, you couldn't or vice versa? lorne: there is a must nothing

we did in the 1970's? radner could not have played rosanne rosanna, john belushi could not play japanese. it is all, values change. i said between the movie "arthur" and the movie "arthur 2", alcoholism became a disease. no one wanted to laugh at drunks, whereas for 200 years, they had. david: anything that makes you so uproariously that you lost control? lorne: some things i am proud of and also comedy is a disruptive thing. people don't plan to laugh. they are taught when to applaud, but not taught when to laugh. ♪

david: let's take people how the show is produced. on a monday, do you recover from the previous week and do you go to work on monday? lorne: everybody has to show up on mondays. i have a meeting i have had since the beginning of 5:00 on mondays which has all the writing staff, all the cast, the host, people from the music department, film department. we all gather in the office -- they gather, i am behind a desk.

i go around the room and ask everybody with their idea is. david: in your 45 years of doing it, have you ever had a private equity person as a guest host? not yet? lorne: it has been suggested, but we haven't done it. david: maybe there is opportunity at some point. tuesday and thursday you have a --tuesday and you have a wednesday dinner, then you do dress rehearsals? lorne: we choose the show on wednesday. we read 40 to 45 pieces, looking for 13 or 14. once that is chosen, the designers begin designing the sets. then, those plans go to the shop that night and they start. the film unit goes off to figure out how they are going to shoot the two or three pieces we are shooting. we are always assessing who has not as much to do as we'd like. we have left the opening of the show and generally one or two

spots open for anything that happens. david: have you ever gotten worried you picked a guest host not up to the task? lorne: yeah. david: how do you coach them? lorne: you can get almost anyone through it. it is an odd hybrid because you are on stage. there are lots of people who are good at that, and there is also cameras and the script is constantly changing up until the last minute. it takes a level of focus. there is a point which the host really gives up and goes, you have to trust at this point. that it will all come together. david: in anticipation of my getting a chance to do this with you, you invited me to come to one of the shows recently, and i was surprised how small the studio actually is. this is a studio that arturo tuscanini conducted the nbc orchestra at one point.

lorne: it was built on springs. the nbc symphony orchestra, it was that important. rockefeller center had been built so they put this in between floors so the subway noise would not affect it. a lot of it was changed when television came in because they thought sound wouldn't matter. turns out, it did. david: i noticed you walking around the set, and sometimes you are staring at what is going on. you don't smile that much when you are doing this. do you ever think this isn't going as well as i thought, so you tell people fix it or do something different in the middle of a show? lorne: no, there is some of that, but mostly it is about time. the casts are good enough that if you are running a minute or two long, you can go, and they understand, pick it up. or we take a page out of something. david: there are cases were you have a funny sketch and all of a sudden people aren't laughing in

the studio, or the reverse is you are not sure it is funny and it suddenly becomes funny. lorne: yes. you choose the pieces on wednesday, rehearse them thursday and friday, and again saturday afternoon in costume and makeup. you do the dress rehearsal, which is the first time 300, 400 people come in and see it. whatever you thought, if they disagree, they are right. we adjust from that, things you thought were surefire don't play and things that -- a lot of it is placement, where they were in the show. if it is a harder piece, if you play it early, it probably won't work. it is where you play things, running order and also topicality. david: you don't get people calling you from the network -- nbc is owned by comcast now -- saying, you are being too tough on a political figure?

lorne: they leave us alone and the comcast people have been brilliant. i don't think they want to be doing the show themselves, so there's that. and also it has been stephen burke, roberts, unwavering support. david: when you are not doing "saturday night live," you are producing other shows. you are producing late-night. lorne: i did "the tonight show ," and seth meyers," late-night show. in all of those, "30 rock" is a perfect example. tina fey was a brilliant head writer on "snl" and then cast member and did update. she wanted to do a series. we did "mean girls" together. she wanted to do a television series, it ended up being "30 rock." what i will do is i will be all over it at the beginning to make sure that it is on track and the

best version of what it could be. and then once it is sort of going or going well enough, i will tiptoe out of the room and go back to my other job which is "snl." most of my focus is "snl" because it is compelling and because you don't know what is happening from minute to minute. with "the tonight show with jimmy fallon," and seth meyers on "late night," these are people i worked with and we have a shorthand. i have faith in them. you can sort of see that process. david: sometimes humor is so funny on your show you can't stop laughing. lorne: they do eventually. david: is there something that makes you laugh so uproariously that you cannot control your own laughter? lorne: there is always something i am proud of, and comedy is uproarious. people don't plan to laugh. they are not taught when to

laugh. there is something that is always surprising. when you see the pairing of really good writing and a brilliant performance, when they are locked in, it is thrilling. david: when people are made famous by your show and go on to great fame and fortune, do they ever say thank you for everything you did, could not have done it without you or do they forget to do that? lorne: there is strong feelings on both sides. when we did the 40th anniversary, a couple years ago, i think everyone, all the people were invited who worked on the show, plus people who hosted. when people looked around the room and saw all the different generations of people who had done it, it was some of people realized what we had done was important. recently, a couple weeks ago, adam sandler was hosting the show.

he did a song about chris farley. i did a lot of work with chris farley, and adam and he were very close. he was doing this tribute and looked around the studio, and the crew were the same crew, the people in design were the same people, and you sort of saw people tearing up and you realized it is an important thing. on that stage, in that room, where everyone has been working forever, it had real power. david: are there things you would like to do with the show you have not done yet? lorne: the show continues to morph. since the last election, it has been much more political because the audience can follow it. there were times in the mid-1990's if you asked one of the cast members who the

senate majority leader is, they would not know. ♪

david: on your lapel, you are wearing a pin which i guess is the order of canada? that signifies the highest order you can get is a citizen of canada? lorne: you can be elected prime minister, i suppose. david: people would rather have that. you received that as -- you are a canadian and american citizen, but you have also received the highest civilian honor our country can give which is the presidential medal of freedom. you got it from president obama. what was that like?

lorne: thrilling. my family was there. it was thrilling to be there. when i got the call telling me that i was to receive it, i was in the middle of working out, then i sort of took it in and i went, oh. valerie, who called me, said i'd appreciate you not talking about it. there was a month i knew before it was going to be announced and i took it very seriously about not talking to people about it. david: when you are as prominent as you are and have been doing it for as long as you have been, are there people in their 20's who say this is funny and you say no and they argue with you? lorne: 3:00 in the morning, you see two writers in the hall -- and in the 1970's, it would have been seamless, but now they just

stop talking as i get closer. if they suggest an idea, and i am thinking, well, we have done that eight or 10 times, i wrote it three times, it has never worked. but if you ever said it won't work, they think, he doesn't get it. which is infuriating. but, they have to be able to write it, and hope springs eternal maybe this time it will work. there is no idea that somebody brilliant is not able to pull off, so we are always hopeful. david: today as you look at next season and so forth, are there things you would like to do with the show you have not done yet? lorne: i think the show just continues to morph. since the last election, it has been much more political because

the audience can follow it. there were times in the mid-1990's where if you would ask one of the cast members who the senate majority leader is, they wouldn't know. so politics becomes, obviously post-watergate, politics is very important, and to the baby boom generation, remained important. and then in good times, it sort of recedes. we are always topical. it might be politics -- right now it is. david: if somebody says i want to be like lorne michaels, a successful producer, master of television, what are the qualities this person should have? hard work, smart, good sense of humor, motivate people -- what are the qualities that are the most important ones? lorne: i would not advise anybody on it, but i think that

leadership in this field is the ability to change your mind. quite often change your mind. if a better idea comes in from a first-year writer, we will go with that, and it is a culture that thrives on it. it is not a status or hierarchy that determines. people the audience is dying to see in the cast could end up in one piece because the pieces got chosen. everyone has heard them play at readthrough. there isn't a week where someone is not seriously unhappy. it is not fun walking past people after you cut their piece because we are running long and that is the piece that got cut. but there is always next week. you just keep moving forward, and you try and create a culture where everyone feels they are heard.

david: final question of a like ask you, veryo often, i ask people what it take to be a leader? you are a leader in your area. the skill set, what do you think? in your observation of other people or your own life, the qualities you have seen that makes people an effective leader? lorne: if you are in power, everybody knows you are in power so you don't ever have to explain you are in power. i think that when you are in a room with talented people, you don't make many suggestions. almost everything you are going to suggest has been covered by someone. so, it is more about -- you more lead by example. it is what you stand for and what your taste is. mostly, it is about being right more often than you are not.

also pushing people forward because in my case, i think people know that all that matters for me is whether the show is good or not, and i will be ruthless in the search for that. that is what i am seeing. if you have not caught up with it on some level why i am doing something, i won't have time to explain but after a while, you will see a pattern because we have 45 minutes between dress and hair to figure it out. i go around the room and go, what do you think, what do you think? what if we put this here, and everybody speaks. ultimately, the decision is technically mine, but you can feel consensus, and they are all people who want it to be good. david: thank you for letting us talk to you and thank you for not making fun of private equity in all the shows you have done.

it is a good thing. lorne: yes, it is a good thing. david: thank you very much. lorne: thank you for having me. ♪

david: if you have a 5-four perspective decision, does one of the justices go to another justice and say why not change your mind? does that work very much? jus. ginsberg: there is no orchestrating at the court. david: you got attention for your exercise routine. jus. ginsberg: when it comes time to meet my trainer, i dropped everything. david: many people think that the court is political. jus. ginsberg: people have that view because agreement isn't interesting. disagreement is. >> would you fix your tie? david: people will not recognize me. leave it this way. alright.

i don't consider myself a journalist. nobody else would consider myself a journalist. i began to take on the life of being an interviewer even though i have a day job of running a private equity firm. how do you define leadership? what is it that makes somebody tick? let me ask you a question at the beginning. how does it feel to get up in the morning and know that 330 million americans want to know the state of your health that day? [laughter] jus. ginsberg: it is encouraging. as cancer survivors know, that dread disease is a challenge, and it helps to know that people are rooting for you. it is not universal. [laughter]

when i had pancreatic cancer in 2009, there was a senator whose name i don't recall but he said i would be dead within six months. that senator is now no longer alive. [laughter] [applause] david: but you can't remember his name? jus. ginsberg: no, i don't. david: your current view is as long as you are healthy and able to do the job, you intend to stay on the court. jus. ginsberg: as long as i am healthy and mentally agile. [applause] david: justice stevens and previously justice oliver wendell holmes, they retired when they were 90. would you like to break the record? jus. ginsberg: i spent the first weekend in july with justice stevens in what turned out to be

the last week of his life. he was remarkable. he was 99 years old. he left the court at age 90. he had written four books. so yes, he is my role model. david: today many people think that the court is very political, the people appointed to the court by democratic presidents and those appointed by republican presidents follow the political desires of the republican or democratic party. is that a fair assessment and if it is not, why do people have that view? jus. ginsberg: because agreement is not interesting. disagreement is so the press tends to play up 5-4 or 5-3 decisions. if we can take last term as a typical example, you had 68

decisions after full briefing and arguments. of those, 20 were 5-4 or 5-3 divisions, but 29 were unanimous. so we agree more often than we disagree. that is something i would like the audience to take away. that the division, yes, there are important questions, but the agreement rate is higher. david: if you have a 5-4 decision, does one of the justices go to the other justices? jus. ginsberg: there is none of that at the court.

david: if you vote for me on this one, i will vote for you on that one? [laughter] jus. ginsberg: it never happens but we are constantly trying to persuade each other and most of the time we do it through our writing. every time i write a dissent, i am hopeful i can pick up this vote. david: many people are surprised the civility that exists between justices even though they write not such favorable things. justice scalia used to say not such wonderful things about your views, but you still went to the opera with him. was that hard to do? jus. ginsberg: not at all. justice scalia and i became buddies when we were on the d.c. circuit. what did i love most about him? his sense of humor.

on the court of appeals he would sometimes whisper something to me. it would crack me up. [laughter] i had all i could do to contain hysterical laughter. but we had much in common. our styles were different but those we hear a lot about, but both of us cared a lot about writing opinions so the lawyers and judges will understand what we are saying. david: both of you and you still are a great opera lover. where did you get your love of opera to begin with and where did the opera scalia-ginsberg come from? jus. ginsberg: the love began when i was 11 years old. i was in grade school in brooklyn, new york. my aunt, who was middle school,

junior high school english teacher, took me to high school in brooklyn where an opera was being performed. it was la giacanda. not a likely choice for a first opera. there was a man at the time named dean gibson who wanted to turn people onto beautiful music. he took opera performances around to various schools and then condensed them into one hour, narrated in between. there were costumes, staging. my introduction, it was in 1944. david: so the scalia-ginsberg opera was written by a law school student? jus. ginsberg: he was a music student.

derek wang is his name. he decided it would be useful to know something about the law. so he enrolled in his hometown law school, university of maryland. in his second year he took a constitutional law course. he read different opinions on one side, ginsberg and scalia and thought this could make a very funny opera. [laughter] jus. ginsberg: i will give you a taste of scalia-ginsburg. it opens with scalia's rage aria. it is a very undelegated in style. he says the justices are blind. how can they possibly spout this.

the constitution says absolutely nothing about this. and then in my coloratura soprano voice, i answer, dear justice scalia, you are searching for right lines, but problems don't have easy answers, but the great thing about our constitution is like our society, it can evolve. that sets up the difference between us. the plot of scalia-ginsberg is roughly based on the magic flute. [laughter] jus. ginsberg: scalia is locked up in a dark room. he is being punished for accepted dissenting. [laughter] jus. ginsberg: i then emerge from a glass ceiling. [laughter] [applause]

jus. ginsberg: to help him pass the test he needs to pass to get out of the dark room. then a character left over from don giovanni. he said, he is your enemy. why would you want to help him? i say he is not my enemy, he is my dear friend. and then when we sing a wonderful duet -- [laughter] jus. ginsberg: that goes, we are different, we are one. different in our approach to reading legal text, but one in our reverence for the constitution and for the institution we serve. david: you are extremely well known around the country now but you weren't when you went on the court. but now you have become more or less a rock star.

rbg. jus. ginsberg: when i was asked what do you have in common with the notorious b.i.g., i said it is obvious. [laughter] ♪

david: so most of justices are relatively not recognized by the public, i would say. recent years have changed but you are extremely well known around the country. but you weren't when you went on the court, but now you have become more or less a rockstar. rbg. you have movies about you, "on the basis of sex" and other things. why do you think this has occurred, and is it something you enjoy or something you think comes with the territory now? jus. ginsberg: how was the notorious rbg created? [applause] jus. ginsberg: it was the idea of a second-year student at nyu law school. who was very disappointed in the court's decision in the shelby county case. that was the case in which the

court declared unconstitutional a key provision of the voting rights act of 1955. an act that had been renewed time and again by overwhelming majority both sides of the aisle. but the supreme court struck down the formula. the way it worked was, if you were a state, city, or county that kept african-americans from voting, in the not so good old days, you could not make any change in voting legislation unless you cleared it with the department of justice, civil rights division, or with a district court and the district of columbia.

so it suppressed many laws that would have discouraged african-americans from voting. the supreme court said the formula for who was discriminating in 1965 is now out of date. congress needs to do it over because jurisdictions that were discriminating in 1965 may have clean hands today. the political problem was what member of congress, what senator or representative, would stand up and say, my state or my city or my county is still discriminating. keep it under surveillance that the voting rights act provides.

this wasn't going to happen. the act itself had a bailout provision. if a state, city, county indeed had clean hands for several elections, it could bail out. and that device i thought was all that was needed. in any event, the student was disturbed about the court's decision. she was angry, then she said to herself, anger is not a useful emotion. i am going to do something positive. she took the announcement of my dissent that i read from the bench in shelby county, and she created this blog, hinting at the notorious rbg. a name she adopted from a well-known rapper, the notorious

b.i.g., and when i was asked what in the world do you have in common with the notorious b.i.g., i said it is obvious. [laughter] both of us were born and bred in brooklyn, new york. [applause] david: you were born and bred in brooklyn. you have a bit of a brooklyn accent, you might admit. you were played in a movie by felicity jones who was not jewish or from brooklyn. how do you think she did? jus. ginsberg: i thought she was fantastic. when i first met felicity, i said, you speak the queen's english. how is the girl born and bred in brooklyn?

she listened to many tapes of my speeches, my arguments at the court, and she was wonderful. david: you must've gotten a lot of attention for your exercise routine. [laughter] david: when did that start? and you have your own trainer. are you still lifting weights or whatever you are doing? jus. ginsberg: as recently as tuesday. [applause] jus. ginsberg: i have been with the same personal trainer since 1999 when i had my first cancer bout. and my dear husband said after going through surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, i looked like a survivor of auschwitz. he said you must do something to build yourself up. get a personal trainer.

that is when i started, in 1999. sometimes i get so absorbed in my work i don't want to let go. but when it comes time to meet my trainer, i drop everything. as tired as i may be in the beginning, i always feel much better when we finish. david: did marty's mother ever give you any advice? jus. ginsberg: she gave me wonderful advice. we were married in her home. and she said, dear, i would like to tell you a secret of a happy marriage. ♪

david: ok, so you met your husband marty. you were married for 56 years. you met him at cornell. jus. ginsberg: i met him when i was 17 and he was 18. david: what is the likelihood of a woman meeting someone they marry and that person wants to take care of child rearing and cooking as well as sharing all the other burdens of being married? is that a common thing in your observation? [laughter] jus. ginsberg: it was extraordinary at any time but particularly in the 1950's. we had a 4-1 ratio, four men to every woman.

it was a place parents want to send their daughters. if you could not find your man at cornell, you were hopeless. so then i met marty, and he was in fact the first boy i ever knew who cared that i had a brain. he was always my biggest booster. the cooking, that began -- i had two years between college and law school, marty was in the service. those two years we spent in oklahoma, the principal artillery base. i got pregnant during the first year. when i went to give birth, my cousin sent marty a copy of the escoffier cookbook with english

translation and said this is a good thing to do while your wife is away. marty had originally been a chemistry major at cornell. and he treated this escoffier cookbook as a textbook. [laughter] he started with the basic stuff and worked his way through it. he gave up chemistry because it interfered with golf practice. he was a great golfer. then he switched to government which was my major. he attributed his skill in the kitchen to two women, his mother and his wife. his mother i guess, that was an unfair judgment. but he was certainly right about me. [laughter] jus. ginsberg: i had one cookbook. it was called the 60 minute chef.

that meant from when you entered the apartment to when it is on the table, no more than 60 minutes. [laughter] i had seven things i made and we got to number seven, and we went back to number one. [laughter] david: did marty's mother ever give you any advice? jus. ginsberg: she gave me some wonderful advice. we were married in her home, and she said, just before the ceremony started, i would like to tell you the secret of a happy marriage. i would like to hear it. what is it? every now and then, she said, it helps to be a little deaf. [laughter] jus. ginsberg: which is such wonderful advice. i have followed it assiduously to this very day.

if i am dealing with my colleagues. when an unkind word is said, i tune out. david: marty, who was a distinguished law professor and tax lawyer. you have two children, jane, your daughter who teaches at columbia -- jus. ginsberg: a professor of literary and artistic property law at columbia law school. [applause] david: i understand you and she were the only mother-daughter team to be elected to the harvard law review. is that correct? jus. ginsberg: so far. david: you have a son in the music business? jus. ginsberg: james grew up with a passion for music but no talent as a performer. [laughter] so when he went to the university of chicago he was a

disc jockey on the student radio station. then in the years he was dropping in and out of law school he was also making recordings. one day he told us he liked what he was doing much more than his law classes. we said fine, that is what you want to do. today he has a label and his recordings are gems. david: you have any grandchildren? jus. ginsberg: i have four grandchildren, two stepchildren and one great grandchild. [applause] david: what do your grandchildren call you? rbg? [laughter] jus. ginsberg: i am a jewish grandmother so i am called bubbie. david: you were flooded with job offers from the major law firms? [laughter]

jus. ginsberg: there wasn't a single firm in the entire city of new york that would take a chance on me. ♪

david: from the harvard law review and columbia law review, you were flooded with job offers from major law firms. [laughter] after 13 years, did you think you had a chance to be on the supreme court? jus. ginsburg: no one ever thinks my aim in life is to be a supreme court justice. david: when you first got on the courts, were other justices saying we are happy to see you? let's have dinner together. just. ginsburg: justice o'connor was the most welcoming. gave me some very good advice. >> will you fix your tie, please? david: people wouldn't recognize me if my tie was fixed, but ok. just leave it this way. all right. ♪