>> he talked about the syrian civil war and its impact on iraq. >> reconciliation is the essential piece to moving forward. second because of what's going on in syria. the spill over effects are substantial. the reason why i lay that out is that while boots on the ground is something no one wants, it may be that we have to have a capacity on the ground in syria. how that's going to be organized is an open question. a bill out of the senate recently approved $250 million for rebuilding in syria, but we don't know who will spend it. that's just an indicator of the need of kind of reform that we can learn from iraq that we

propose in learning from iraq and that thankfully is recognized in this most recent piece of legislation. >> they have a tremendous role. without going to camp every winter was huge. it wasn't just valley ford, it was every winter of the ability long years of the revolutionary war. she hated it. she was a prime object of hostage taking. she was key to troop morale. he felt that very strongly she would organize the other officers wives and they would have -- they would cook for the soldiers, they will pray with the soldiers and cook for the soldiers. during the war, the washington

genius was keeping the army together. washington would say he couldn't done it without martha and he begged her to come to camp every year. the troops adored her. >> as we continuer our conversations on first lady, -- from martha washington to michelle obama. tonight at 9:00 eastern on c-span. >> the supreme court issued its final decision last week. this week oral arguments of closely watched cases. tonight the voting rights act. now former hewlett-packard ceo

carly fiorina, doe alternate excess merchandise to charity. this is about an hour. >> good afternoon and welcome to the national press club. my name is angela, i'm president of the national press club and reporter with bloomberg news. we are the world leading professional organization for journalist, committed to our profession future. for more information about the national press club please visit our website at www.press.org. to donate to programs offered to the public through our national press club journal institute please visit press.org/institute. on behalf our members worldwide

i like to welcome our speaker today and those of you in our audience. if you hear applause in our audience, members of the general public are also attending. so it's not necessarily evidence of a lack of journalistic objectivity. i also like to welcome our c-span and public radio audiences. you can follow the action today on twitter using the hash tag npc lunch. now it's time to introduce our head table guests. i'd ask each of you to stand briefly. from your right, kevin winston retired u.s. navy captain. , lynn cooper and founder chief social officer, christopher chambers, professor the media studies at georgetown

university, cindy, president and ceo of good 360, myron, the national press club vice president and adjunct professor at georgetown university, mark hamrick washington bureau chief and the speakers committee member who organized today's event, thank you mark. ellen president of the warton club of washington d.c. and the member who assisted in making today's luncheon happen. our guest today enjoyed a

fascinating and successful career involving technology, politics and most recently as you will soon hear, philanthropy. as members know one of our priorities here at the club is to celebrate women's role in our society and so i'm particularly pleased that our guest today, carly fiorina, agreed to participate in our historic luncheon program. born in austin, texas her own career began as a secretary working in a small business. what a journey she's had since then. as chairman and chief executive officer of hewlett packard from 1999 to 2005, she was the first woman to lead a fortune 20 company. for six straight years she was named fortune magazine's most powerful woman in business. it was during her 10 year at hp, the company acquired compact computer. after her departure, hp failed to capitalize on the move mobile

products. politics is also been central to our speaker's work. having played deal role in a republican presidential campaign of both john mccain and mitt romney. she ran unsuccessfully in a bid to unseat democratic senator barbara boxer in california. she was triumphant as a survivor of breast characteristics. asked whether she might run again, she replied never say never. she received her bachelor's degree from stanford, she dropped out of law school but made up for by getting an mba from the university of maryland. since we are here at the national press club, we should mention as well that our guest is a best selling author having pinned a memoir.

what she been up to lately? good 360 was founded three decades ago assisting firms to donate seasonal items to thousands of charitable organizations. these items include clothing, book, toys, personal care items computers and among other things. today we'll hear more about that work. please help me welcome to the national press club, carly fiorina. >> thank you and good afternoon it's great to be all of you have met some new friends and see some old friends here as well. i was recently asked what i

thought an entrepreneur was. in fact, a member of the press core said to me what is an innovatetor. i had to think about that for a moment. my answer was, an entrepreneur and motivator -- innovator is someone who can envision a future and entrepreneur is someone who sees possibilities and by seizing those possibilities create possibilities for others. because it is almost the fourth of july, i also thought on the way here about what makes this country great. what's so special about this country. as you heard in the introduction, i began my career as a young adult as a secretary.

i graduated from stanford university with a degree in medieval history and philosophy. in the middle of a recession. which meant that i was all dressed up and nowhere to go. like so many in any situation, i decided to go to law school with all due respect to all the lawyers in the room. only thing is i hated law school. i quit after a single semester and in order to make a living, i went back to doing what i did while i was in college to help pay my bills. i was a heck of a typist. i went back to work as a secretary. i typed, i filed, i answered the phone for a little nine person company. i have traveled all over the world. it is true, still, to this day, that it is only in the united states of america that a young

woman typing and filing for nine person firm, can soon -- it only took 20 something years -- become the ceo of one of the largest companies on earth. that is only possible in the united states of america. [applause] and it is possible here not because i'm so special, it is possible here because this place is so special. it is so special because it was founded on a radical idea. an idea that was radical in 1776 but it is still radical to this day. the idea is that every human being has potential. everyone has the right to fulfill their potential. it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or what your last name

is, actually all that matters is where you want to go. all that matters is that you have potential. all that matters is how you envision your own future. that was a radical idea and it is a radical idea still and it is linked to entrepreneurship. it is the single greatest liver for fulfilling human potential and lifting people out of poverty. it is the genius of this country that we coupled political liberty with the opportunity to build your own future. to imagine your own future, to create something that have a stake in so that you and your

family are better off. entrepreneurialism and innovation is a uniquely american gift. it is the secret sauce that makes this a special place. it is true because so many americans got their start exactly the way i did. i started out in a little nine person firm. an entrepreneur and his partner started that firm because they wanted to imagine a different future for themselves, for their families, for their community. one day while i was typing and filing at my desk after six months of working there, those two partners and said we've been watching you. we think you could do more than type and file. do you want to learn something about what we do. do you want to find out

something about the world of business. because they took a chance on me, they saw possibilities in me that i had not considered, i was able to envision a different future for myself. that happened in america everyday in communities all across this great nation. wave after wave of emigrant has -- immigrant gotten their start as entrepreneurs. you don't have to be a steve jobs to be an entrepreneur, you want to open a taco on the corner, you're an entrepreneur, if you want to open a deli, you are creating a better future for yourself and family and by extension your community. wave after wave of immigrants got their start there. if you look at the statistics you will see that women own small businesses, african-american own small businesses, hispanics own small businesses, asian-american own

small businesses has been the fastest growing segments in our economy. in this great country where we are defined by our potential, it is entrepreneurialism that lifts people up. now while entrepreneurialism may be uniquely american while it may be our country's genius to have provided the opportunity to start our own business and imagine your own future to more people any time and any place, innovation and entrepreneurialism is a fundamental human thing. i know this from my work with the one woman initiative, which i founded six years ago. through my work today with opportunity and international, these are organizations that give a very small amount of credit to women in desperate circumstances. what we know, what we have found

is if you give someone the chance with just a little bit of money, if you give someone the chance to build a better life for themselves and their families by building a business which they can own a stake in, progress happens. people lift themselves from poverty. entrepreneurialism is a human drive but it is in this country where it has seen his flowering. here we are on july 1st in 2013, what is the state of entrepreneurialism and innovation in this country? i actually think the data is a bit alarming. i think entrepreneurialism is in trouble in this country. allow me to give you a couple

statistics. there are more small and new businesses failing and fewer starting. at this time than at any time in the last 40 years. there are fewer small and new businesses starting and more failing than in any time in the last 40 years. this depressed state of entrepreneurialism, i believe is why our economy is under performing. it is why our economy grows at 1.7, 1.8, may be 2%. it is why our unemployment is stuck and unacceptably high. if you look at the data, you know that new and small businesses create two-thirds of the new jobs in this country and employ half the people.

if you have smaller, fewer small businesses starting, if you have more small businesses failing, you have an economy that is under performing and fewer people with the possibility of that first job in my case, perhaps a first chance or a second chance. it was recently a survey published in the washington post and in that survey, 70% of small businesses said they felt government was hostile to their efforts. if you ask people why, you get answers like it's just too hard. it's too complicated. i don't know how many of you saw front page article on the

"washington journal" describing what now known as a list of culture in the united states. the article quoted many statistics with fundamentally what it said was, this is a place where people used to take pride in taking that risk and now we're reluctant to do so. if you comb through all the data, what you kind of find out is that people are saying, you know what, the risk of failure is getting too high and the reward for success is becoming too low. it is a bipartisan comment to recognize that our tax code is now 10 of thousands of pages and it is way too complicated for any entrepreneur to waive through. it is a bipartisan comment to recognize that our regulatory environment has become so complex, there are thousands of

regulations written into law every single year but rarely, if ever, a regulation ever repealed. the consequence of that is a geologic sentiment of complexity. this complexity, this thicket of regulation and taxation is literally, in my view and is represented by the data i just quoted as well as other pieces of data, is literally choking the entrepreneurial life out of our economy. this is of grave concern or should be to everyone from liberal to libertarian and everyone in between. i recently had the great pleasure to moderate a panel discussionen of the clinton global initiative among three very impressive female entrepreneurs. as one of them noted, she said, you know, kids in school learn

how to be employees, they don't learn how to be entrepreneurs. i thought it was a telling comment. how does washington work? i grew up in big business really big business. i would say again, not a partisan comment, i would say it is accurate to describe washington as a place that works well if you're big. if you're a big business that works really well, guess what you can hire, legions of attorneys and accountants and lobbyist. in fact all that complexity helps a big business. if you're a big trade association, if you represent lots of votes whether you're a union or a company or an association, washington works well for you. you have the resources and the time to wade through the complexity and let us speak the truth to in complicated

environment to advantage you and your members. if you are a politician, it's to your advantage as well. because now your job becomes to represent people and to help them navigate through this complexity. but washington doesn't work well. if you're an innovatetor and entrepreneur who is so busy trying to build your future for yourself, for your family and for your community that you do not have the time or the resources to navigate your way through this thicket. what the data says is, too many are just giving up. i will never forget a luncheon that i had in denver, it's talking to a group of small business owners and i was encouraging them to get more involved in the political

process. it was a bipartisan group. one of them finally said to me what was obvious, he said carly we're too busy. we don't have time to figure it out. a small businesser owner, they don't have time. they are literally spending all of their time trying to make it work. you ever heard that story of the frog in the boiling water? you know, if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water he will jump out to save himself. but if you put a frog a pot of water and slowly turn the water up to a boil, that frog will boil to death. it happens so gradually that he doesn't realize until it's too late. i worry that we are gradually, year after year, creating an

environment that is similarly choking the life out of this entrepreneurial economy. little by little, rule upon rule, regulation upon regulation. let's talk for a moment about the nature of bureaucracies. bureaucracies matter here in washington. we're full of them. because the big companies and the big associations and the big labor unions that do well in washington are also big bureaucracies. bureaucracies by their nature whether they're political or business, what characterizes a bureaucracy? it is a rules-based tradition bound institution that seeks to preserve itself and that over time, rewards playing by the rules rather than judgment and

initiative. these are not pejorative comments i'm making, these factual comment. bureaucracy is a rules-based organization. whether it's business or politics. it is an organization that rewards playing by the rules. it is an organization that celebrates playing by the rules more than disruptive innovation. we have lots of bureaucracies. what happens in bureaucracies whether they're in business or in politics, what happens in bureaucracy is they become inward looking, insulated, playing by the rules inside becomes more important than serving customers or constituents outside. this too contributes to an environment where people not only lose face in the institutions which have become bureaucracies but conclude that

those bureaucracies are hostile. entrepreneurs give people a chance. entrepreneurs gave me my first chance. in some ceases, entrepreneurs give people a second chance and a third chance and a fourth chance. entrepreneurs aren't just about for profit businesses. my whole life i have been animated by the opportunity to help fulfill potential in myself and others. it is why i am so proud to be associated with an organization like good 360 which recognizes that society also helps people lift them out of poverty and helps them fill their potential. rather than just have waste going to landfill, we work with good hearted and smart minded businesses with excess inventory and make sure that that

inventory gets to people in need. so the charities instead of worrying about whether or not their members or their needy constituents have diapers for that week, can instead worry about helping those women. i'm proud to be associated with the national center for entrepreneurship and innovation. group of like minded people who believe that it is vital that we restore entrepreneurship as a shared and enduring value in america. it is why i am proud to be engaged in microfinance to help give people a chance to lift themselves and family out of poverty. in the few minutes i have left, what do we do so we don't boil the frog to death? what do we do instead of choking the life out of this entrepreneurial economy out of this very special place, we

actually unlock the potential of all of those frustrated entrepreneurs and innovators out there. there are four basic policy prescription, why i have been critical of washington, first we need tax reform. not just lowering rates, although that's important since our tax rates are the highest in the world, but radical simplification. tax reform has bipartisan support now but i am in particular heartened by the efforts of senator orin hatch and max baucas. two good friend of mine and two good men who are starting with the fundamental notion that they are going to wipe out every loophole and deduction in the tax code. for years i have have been saying the only way to do this is to lower every rate and close

every loophole. because let's face it, the loopholes mostly benefit those in big. may be there are few loopholes that you would let come back in. what hatch and baucas understand if you say they all go, then the burden of proof is on those who must argue to put them back in. we not only need lower tax rates, we need radical simplification of this tax code so that entrepreneur doesn't look at it and say, oh my gosh, i can't possibly understand 26,000 pages and give up before they start. tax reform, we need immigration reform. we desperately need immigration reform. if you set aside the criminal who are coming in or the people who have broken our laws or the human trafficker, why is it that people come to this country. because they envision a better life for themselves and their

families. because they are desperate to imagine and create a different future than they have. i hope that we are at a moment where bipartisan immigration reform is possible and where we recognize that are our legal immigration system is fundamentally grown that we are hurting ourselves as a nation. this has to be the place forever and for all ways. we're hard working people around the world saying that's where i want to go. that's where i want to dream my dream and build something different for my future. third, i think we need zero based budgeting. i know there's a lot of talk sometimes in washington about a balanced budget amendment, i think actually that's less useful than saying, we are going to ask every bureaucracy in the united states government to

literally justify every dollar that they spend. that's what we do in business. i know as a business person, whether you're talking about a very small start up or very huge fortune 20 company, this is true. if you give an organization more money, year after year after year, their performance will deteriorate. it will not improve. because people lose the ability to prioritize. they lose the discipline to justify why they are spending money. they lose the incentive to explain why clearly that they are trying to spend each and every dollar wisely and well. zero based budgeting where congress has the opportunity to ask for justification for every dollar and the transparency that comes along with that. believe me, doesn't matter

whether you're a liberal, libertarian or somewhere in between, we would be shocked at what we are spending money on. if you doubt what i just said that more money doesn't mean better performance, think about what's going on in the veterans administration. it's not because people are ill-meaning it's the way bureaucracy works, works against performance. the budget of veterans administration has increased 45% in the last five years. we would all applaud that. the waiting time for veterans to receive disabilities has gone from 260 something days in 2008 to 400 something days in 2013. more money is in better performance, zero based budget. finally i would create a task force of small business owners and entrepreneurs. i know somehow we have to keep their businesses going in the meantime. their job would be to look at

etch and every -- each and every regulation on the book today. each and every one. they would make recommendations about which to kill, which to modify. my guess is we can do with 50% fewer regulation. is not that regulation isn't important. when literally no one knows how many we have, when literally no one knows which contradict others when you can't no one in this city who can say i know all of these regulation. somebody finds a problem and they say i need to fix that problem. that particular problem may need fixed and that particular regulation might make sense but boy you add it up with everything else over and over time and pretty soon together none of it make sense. we need a full scale regulatory

review. those policy prescriptions do not think are partisan. you may or may not believe that they are possible. as we approach the fourth of july, i would close by saying this, this is a unique nation in the course of human history. it is a unique nation in the course of human history because of that radical idea that everyone has potential. that everyone deserves the right to fulfill their potential. that everyone deserves a chance and may be a second chance and a third chance or even a fourth chance. the thing that makes that radical idea come to life in addition to political liberties

and protection is entrepreneurialism. the ability to imagine a future and then to build that future. we have so many problems in this world and in this country where one in six people live in poverty today. we have so many opportunities to compete to lead to win. human capacity is limitless. but human potential is too rarely fulfilled. on this fourth of july, what i am hoping is that in addition to the great founding fathers who had the genius to imagine this place, in addition to the veteran who have died and fallen and fought to preserve this place, that we will celebrate the entrepreneurs and the innovator who made this place. thank you so very much.

[applause] >> thank you, you get to stay up here and answer a few questions. you talked in your remarks about immigration reform calling for something to be done, do you support the comprehensive reform package that the senate passed last week? >> so the short answer is yes. i think it must be comprehensive. i think there are some things that the house can and should and hopefully will do before it passes something also in a bipartisan way. for example, i totally understand why people want someone other than the federal government to say yes, the border is secure.

on the other hand, i think we're pouring enough resources out at the border based on the senate bill that it should be quite easy for governor to say, yes, my border is secure. i hope that people will recognize that reform by its nature always requires compromise. i hope that people on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers will not get too hung up on taking credit for anything but will instead, conclude that as the chinese proverb says, success has many fathers and failure is an orphan and embrace the fact what we have today is the worst of all outcomes. we have to have reform. >> on tax reform, we know the housing market is still recovering from the crisis that set off the larger crisis that

our economy has been. you talked about eliminating all of the tax credits and starting from scratch, that would include the mortgage deduction, how would that -- if you eliminate the mortgage deduction, how would that keep the economy from going into another housing crisis? >> the nature of that question is a perfect illustration of why i say we should start with a blank slate and why i think baucas and hatch has it right. there's a justification for virtually every deduction out there. i can stand here and make a wonderful case for the home mortgage deduction and i can say most of that deduction is for people who have two homes. the point is through a process of starting with a blank slate, now the burden of proof is on who can muster the political will to put it a loophole back

in. may be there will be enough political will to preserve the home mortgage deduction that it will be preserved. that would be okay with me. but my bet is that 80 plus percent of the deductions and loopholes and complications in our tax code today, will not be defended or preserved. if we can get rid of 80% of them that will be a huge progress. it's the process that matters because it will cause a different outcome than saying, let's have a political process to debate who loses their deduction. that's a political free for all that will not end in the right outcome. >> questioner asked whether entrepreneurialism and

entrepreneurs are linked. on the other hand israel has a stifling bureaucracy but lots of innovation. what's your take on that? >> i think it's a really interesting question. i think in part, the question illustrates the link between democracy and innovation. i believe there is a link. political liberty is linked to economic liberty. one of the reasons that china as an example has difficulty with innovation is because the innovation threatened the political institutions. one of the reasons that singapore now struggles with innovation is because their society, while there is much about their society and their nation that i deeply admire, it

is by their own admission a society that has celebrated conformity. innovation is not conformity. innovation is disruptive. innovation is by its nature revolutionary sometimes. disruptive, revolutionary ideas generally don't happen in a politically constrained environment. if they do, they are threatening in a politically constrained environment. that is why, to me, it is the genius of this place that political liberty and entrepreneurialism are two sides of the same coin, although both are fundamental human yearning. >> there's been much report regarding the government handling of personal data. president obama says he's trying

to balance national security against privacy. how well do you think the administration is doing with that and should individuals have any confidence that their best interest are being well guarded? >> let me take it out of the context of president obama and his administration and generalize my answer a bit because it is what i believe. remember the old saying, absolute power corrupts absolutely? to me, the question that is raised by the n.s.a., the question that is raised by the i.r.s. is how is it that we should hold these vast complex opaque institutions accountable? how is it that effective oversight is possible. how can we possibly know that if

a few people with vast power, whether it's honestly the federal reserve chairman or the head of the n.s.a. how can we know that they are always competent, ethical, well meaning? the point is i think we need a fundamental re-examination. i would hope on a bipartisan basis, prompted by these events at n.s.a. and i.r.s., we need a fundamental re-examination of how do we conduct effective oversight. how do we hold these institutions accountable. perhaps in the course of that fundamental re-examination, we will conclude that some times there is just too much power invested into few people. sometimes bureaucracies have

simply become so large, so complex that they are unmanageable and we need to do something different. those are the profound questions that i hope will be raised by these twin events this summer in washington. [applause]. >> on the cybersecurity front, last fall when he was still defense secretary, leon panetta warned at the nation was facing the possibility what we called a cyber pearl harbor. is that true? if so why haven't we done a better job to protect against this threat since the solution probably involve the partnership between government and industry? >> i think it is true. i served for a time as the chair of the external advisory board

at the cia and on the defense board. i have top clearances. there is no question that the chinese invest heavily in hacking all kinds of things in this country from business to industry. there is no question that cyber espionage has been a tool of the chinese and others for some time. there is no question that it is the new front, the new face of t century economic as well as political conflict. i agree with the questioner that solving any one of these big problems requires private public partnership, cooperation between the private and the public sector and i think there has been a fair amount of this.

i also encouraged by the fact that there is a huge community of entrepreneurs here in the northern virginia area who are focused on the cybersecurity threat. and from whom we might over time see some terrific inventions that will keep us ahead of this threat. but the first step towards solving a problem is always to speak it, publicly. i'm encouraged that we are actually saying, publicly, we have a problem. china is part of the problem and by the way, whatever you think of the n.s.a. program, there is no equivalence between what the chinese are doing in this country and around the world and the n.s.a. program. let us not allow any one in this country or around the world to say, see, the u.s. are doing it too. it is not equivalent.

>> young person in our audience asked, how have you combined passions in the for profit world and nonprofit world and how would you suggest those of us beginning our careers balance both of those? >> you know one of the things that i find so encouraging is the number of young people who are going into what are known today as social enterprises. enterprises that aren't exactly for profit, aren't exactly not for profit but there's something in between. there are investment opportunities focused on achieving not only success but doing good. the truth is that there are too many businesses that missed the

opportunity to do good while they are doing well. there are all kinds of opportunities in business to do good while at the same time doing well. it's true of the corporate partners we have at good 360 company that's are doing well but also doing good. we had a whole series of investment when i was at hp that was focused on building communities, doing good in the community but we got something out of that too. in better employees, better partners, better customers. businesses can do well and do good. it's like wise true that there are some philanthropies and charities animated by passion but are not sufficiently disciplined about how they run their operations. if you are trying to do good in a community with donors money, you need to be thinking really hard about spending every single

dollar wisely and well. the discipline that comes from business i think is incredibly helpful in philanthropy. the heart of philanthropy is helpful in business. to a young person i would say this, my life is not exactly the right road map. i can tell you my parents were exceedingly concerned when i dropped out of law school. here's what i would say if you're a young person. don't worry too much about what your first job is. work hard at every job. there is no substitute for hard work. the person who is most likely to get promoted wherever you're working is the person doing a really good job at the job they have. find where your heart is. what excites you.

what do you have fun at. what's your passion. you're not going to be any good at something that doesn't get you going in the morning. [applause]. >> as far as your next career move, as noted in the introduction, you are asked on television whether you might run again for elected office and your answer was never say never. you noted there's a new opportunity because now you live in virginia. we're here at the national press club where we like to make news. tell us if you have any interests in trying to again for elected office. >> sorry, i won't make news today. i do believe never say never. i have a wonderful opportunity in my life. as was mentioned in the introduction. i'm a cancer surviver.

we lost a daughter in the last several years. i know how fortunate i have been in my life and how blessed our family has been. i know how short life can be. for me now it is about how do i make the biggest contribution i can in the saying that gets me going in the morning. which is to unlock human potential. help people unlock their potential. for me that's about can i be associated with not for profit that's helped do that. can i help restore the entrepreneurial spirit in this country. can i help women fulfill their potential. women the most underutilized resource. can i help resources and capacity with the organizations that i work with. i have also believed that when opportunity knocks you need to

answer the door. so never say never. [applause]. >> that leads to next question which is cheryls book in advice containing lean in have generated controversy. as someone who's made empowering women a priority, what's your take on what she had to say? >> cheryl sendberg is a good friend of mine. good for her that she has decided to spend her time and her talent and her money to help inspire other women. there's some things that i disagree with her on, however. one of the things that was kindly mentioned in my introduction. i was number one most powerful business six years in a row. it was a great honor of course.

every year i will say to the editor and publishers of fortune magazine, why are you doing this. why are you rank ordered women 1 to 50. if you want to celebrate women, wonderful, good. but don't rank us like business is the gulf, ladder or the tennis ladder. this isn't sport. this is a game of life and in the game of life and business, it's better when everybody gets to play. the thing where i disagree with cheryl is, i think it is about women and men. let's talk about women for a moment, fulfilling their potential. some times it is true women become risk averse. they don't want to take a chance on a job they've never done. i know when i took various jobs, people would always say to me,

don't take that job. don't take that job. it's too risky. what i found out is that when you go into a job that's really messed up, if you fix it, people notice. it's true that some times women are a risk averse. on the other hand some women don't have the opportunity to take a risk. their single mothers trying to raise a couple kids. they don't get to taken a risk. some times men are not willing to take a risk by hiring someone who's different from them or listening to someone who has a different point of view. i think feminism is when every woman in any woman has the opportunity and the tools and the chance to live the life she chooses. not every woman will choose to become a ceo. some women decide to give back to their communities in way

that's are inhurled and unsung and have a huge difference. feminism is when every woman has the opportunity and the tools and the chance to live the life that she chooses. whether or not men, approve or would make the same choice. >> there may be more women ceo's but technology, management and boards still dominated by men mostly white men. do you think this will change in the next 10 years? why or why not? >> so it's an interesting dichotomy when you look at american business today. on the one hand when i became the ceo of hewlett packard i was the only woman running a fortune 50 company actually. the scrutiny and criticism were

unbelievable. today, ibm is run by a woman, hewlett packard is run by woman, yahoo! is run by a woman and pepsi is run by a woman. it's wonderful. yet, less than 20% of board members are women or people of color. that statistic hasn't moved in 10 plus years. it is true that technology is still dominated by men. it is true that the financial sector is still dominated by men. it's funny because on the one hand progress on the other hand not so much progress. i think the reason for that is because we're coming up against it. it is no longer that there aren't qualified people in the pipeline. it used to be they're not qualified. then it was they didn't have enough experience. it's not that. i think now we're coming up

against what it really is and what it really is, is people have to take a risk. they have to take a risk on someone they don't know. they have to take a risk on someone who thinks differently than they do. they have to take a risk on someone who will challenge them. they have to be prepared to have an environment that is some times uncomfortable. you see i think diversity is a business imperative. it's about being inclusive and doing the right thing, yes. but more fundamentally, it's a business imperative. i sat around lots of tables where decisions were made. all kinds of tables with all kinds of people. i will guarantee you this, if you have a group of people that is mostly alike, they think a

like, they look alike, they probably known each other for a while, you're going to make a decision. but it will not be as good a decision as one that is made by a group of people that are different from each other and challenge each other. by the way that decision-making process is going to be little messier, harder. there's going to be some conflict. you will consider more alternatives. this is china's great vulnerability going forward. they all think alike, at least those in power. i earnestly hope that it will get better in 10 years. i believe it will not truly get better until people understand this is about what we have to do it to perform at our best. as a nation and as companies.

>> we are almost out of time. just a couple housekeeping manage to take care of. i like to remind our next luncheon speaker which is jim rogers the president and ceo of duke energy. i like to present our guest with the traditional national press club coffee mug. >> thank you. >> for the last question, let's go back to our speech. you worn a lot of hats during your life so far and you seen regulations from many different angles, if you could choose only one federal regulation to rescind, what would it be? ...

[applause]

>> thank you for coming today. thank you to our audience. i would also like to thank the national press club staff. here is a reminder, you can find more information about the national press club on our website. if you would like a copy of today's program, lease check out the website. thank you, we are adjourned. >> tomorrow night, we will show you other business leaders from ups, goldman sachs, american

express and other companies and take your calls on what it is like to work for a company or run your around. tonight, we will show you what southwest airlines ceo has to say about u.s. air travel. we will open our phone lines to get your thoughts. at ronaldhe questions reagan national airport. >> the most significant thing i ,ave seen over the past year obviously, security checkpoints. having more of the preflight checks in more cities would be fantastic. linking that up against potentially increased number of routes for cheaper prices, that is significant. if you are a last-minute traveler like i am.

those are the two big things i would likeee, more regulations across the pricing metrics. that will have a significant impact. beyond that, security checkpoints. fares -- i live in detroit and i fly mostly dealt up. there can be almost a $600 -- i fly mostly delta. the airfares are all over the board. upseems like they could be -- they could do a better job in standardizing the fares. is a rolethink there for the government in all of new rules orany

regulations that would help that? >> all of these airlines merging has been a detriment to the general population. travelers are at their mercy now . with fewer carriers, they can charge higher prices. particularly business travel. the fares are outrageous. the government could regulate airfares. it would be in their best interest to do so and make the experience go a little bit smoother. what yout to hear think tonight. after southwest airlines ceo remarks in about two hours at 8:00 on c-span. or leave a comment on our facebook page. kentucky secretary of state announced today that she will run for the u.s. senate against republican my learned the -- minority leader mitch mcconnell.

tired ofkentucky was the senior senator who has lost touch with kentucky issues, voters, and values. she practiced as an attorney in lexington. >> they had a tremendous role. going to cap every winter was huge and he thought so. it was not just valley forge, it was every winter of the eight long years of the revolutionary war. she hated it, it was dangerous, the roads were dangerous, she was a prime object of hostagetaking, but she was key to troop morale. he felt that very strongly and she would organize the other officers wives and they would

cook for the soldiers, they would nurse the soldiers, they prayed with the soldier during the war, washington would say he could not have done it with out martha. he begged her to come to camp every year. >> as we continue our conversation on first ladies, leslie stahl, cokie roberts, discuss first ladies from martha washington to michelle obama summit tonight at 9:00. obama, tonight at 9:00. year's new york ideas forum, this is 20 minutes.

>> hi, everyone. this will be a slightly different strategy. this will be a little bit like speed dating or overlapping venn diagrams. we will talk to three wonderful innovators. of them alone one and then we will bring up another one and then kick this one off the stage and i will talk to the second one and then we will bring number three on, cake number two off and finish the discussion with number 3 -- kick number two off and finish the discussion with number three. it should be fun for everybody. the clock is starting.

the first question i need to asked, what exactly is beta works? is it a startup factory? and think about beta works what i am trying to build is a media company for the century. we are a company come and not a fund. we build stuff. from the ground up, we build companies and we run them and operate them. second thing, we buy things. we have made a bunch of .cquisitions all of them are tiny acquisitions. is biggest one we have done $500,000. we do corporate development. we invest in 72 companies over the five years we have been in existence.

beta works itself is a single company, but what i wanted to do, i am an entrepreneur. i wanted to create a platform to do that. those people have incredible depth of experience in building companies. in parallel. >> name some of the companies. we got on people's maps in the early days because we were involved and helped run a company that twitter acquired. doesilt a company which all of the short links on the internet now. they are easier to navigate. we built and analytics company that does -- analytics company.

fast forward, last year, we mentioned before for half $1 million. a wonderful company,in cloud source news, maybe flew a little bit too high and got funded too much and fell on hard times. we saw this opportunity to acquire it and turn it around. in six weeks, we relaunched it. recentlywe have acquired insta paper. we are building this ecosystem, it includes everything from newspaper to other things. >> you have an internet school blocks that your -- school

blocks that your company owns. whether it is to read tweets, check traffic. these are somewhat different companies. how do you choose what company to invest in or what to build? >> we are serial idea people. people say, how do you come up with these ideas? we are first and foremost users -- people who use all of this stuff. we wanted to use -- this is five it was a wonderful service. it was breaking all the time. we felt like it is a little bit

part of it we felt is about branding. it is also about building a scale business. we are product people, first and foremost. we run beta works like a studio. creative whole set of people who are building things all the time. our firstd last week game because we have been -- become fascinated with engagement. the habits people form? how can we create something that people want to come back to every day? we launched this game called darts and we are number two in the app store now. have about a million users in the which is remarkable.

you can see the engagement, how quickly it can happen. >> you build things that not only people want, but things you want. one of the things you want is a replacement for google reader. it has been killed unceremoniously and a lot of people are upset about it. what are you doing to fill that void? >> i will not say much more than what we have said publicly. google came out a little bit earlier than we expected, but we understood they were going to kill the reader product. it is a very important product. it, peopleiters use who follow and track the news use it. investeds marginally in it over the last few years and google's presence in the market has wiped away all of the competition.

google was the de facto product in this space but yet they were not funding it. it is unfortunate that they are no longer -- they are shutting it down. it will makeun, for market more competitive. it was a little bit of screwed -- it was a little bit skewed and nobody was innovating in the space. shutll do that before they google reader down. >> this becomes like speed dating. could we have scottie griffin? [applause] scott's company was acquired in march. he would like for me to tell you that he is looking for a job. >> thank you, my wife thanks you. >> you build things that are not just -- they are truly popular.

asked, maybe you think about how using the internet and you fill in the holes. what sort of variables did you look for when you were thinking about starting the company? >> how do we do that? >> what is going through your head when you are reading the internet and thinking, there is a part of this puzzle that is missing. -- it is ae internet new emerging platform which started off in a very read centric way. although the metaphors were about reading. you can write and annotate any page. it has been somewhat delayed in its evolution. with mobile and tablets, it is becoming a lot more personal and

becoming something we are interacting with all the time for my carrying it around with us, it is gathering data about our movement. we start and we build say, instead of adding a new feature to something, can we make that into a product? users have a set of products that they use every day. they want to be able to move the data between those products. they want those products to connect. in one are not trapped product or their annotations are not locked in one blocks. what we try to do is create this ecosystem of products that people use every day. >> scott?

>> i have been transportation for a lot of my life. i started my career in the boeing company. there is a whole emerging group of companies that are really exciting. the way we saw the world was the intersection of interim ash information, data, technology, and the automobile. rainbow isof that google's vision for driverless cars or other things coming 10 years out. the car -- zipcar was the first stage of that. we are seeing companies like lift in san francisco where you can take your personal vehicle and turn it into an uber car. when we started the company, we were 100% web driven company. we have gone from 98% of our interactions on the web to about

70 plus % of our interactions are on a smart phone. are at this interesting juncture in transportation that is probably as important as the model t. we are seeing so many things happen and it is all the intersection of technology and cars and transportation. >> i was opposed to kick you off. it does not make any sense for you to leave. the founding general partner of revolution growth and the co-ceo of groupon. [applause] calling an audible on the speed dating game. growth, you have a lot of companies -- investors.ery happy >> you look at idea that caps on

to this idea of the sharing economy. -- taps into the idea of a sharing economy. an ownershipaving economy, you have a sharing economy. why was this the right moment for car sharing? why not the 1970s or the 1980s? >> a lot of it was generational. for zipcar was changing the way insurance work and allowing students to be able to get rental cars. it grew up of wrong -- they grew up along campuses and it became a phenomenon. company, thehn's first local commerce company called total new york. john was my cto at aol. internet enabled technology

creation to make money, but to find big categories awaiting to be transformed. you could not dozipcar without mobile -- you cannot do zipcar without mobile. we were able to mash and create a whole new category. >> ted has talked mostly about the technologically -- technology impact. it was a virtual company. we are a technology company come a a branding company. we had very low headcount, we did not clean the cars ourselves , we do not jockey the cars around ourselves. we use lots of third parties.

we as people from a company called task rabbit. our company was focusing on using technology in the backend. that was not possible until we have the internet and mobile phones. our fleet services are all run through smart phone apps. this is something that is changing our business. >> i was going to make two general points. zipcar andee how other businesses that ted has built have completely -- they are ripping out all of the infrastructure, the industrial infrastructure behind how we used to do things. thing, zipcars are not quite connected yet.

as all of these -- as the physical world becomes part of the network, we are defining the way in which we are building companies. >> there has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur because of that. money,ntioned revolution which we sold to american express. aswas positioned originally paypal meets mastercard without the high fees. rather than building a private network, we were able to use the internet, put it out onto the cloud, cap the cost down and we were able to get to scale likely. lot of their prepaid card business. it is the fulcrum of an

enterprise group. they just launched bluebird, which is aimed at an integrated program to get the unhappily bank online. it was a great acquisition, a gray business, but all empowered by the web and the cloud. >> the thing i find interesting, if you look at who is adopting these technologies, it is pretty much -- they are the earliest adopters and it is a phenomenal shift in behavior. they are thinking very differently. this is the most underemployed generation and many iterations. they are very smart consumers, they are not nearly as brand associated as their previous generations. they're much more open-minded to sharing business models.

access versus ownership has become their mantra. they are happy to get together as a group and do something smart. >> the coincidence of the spread of mobile technology and the recession created a heyday for the sharing economy in the way that makes someone wonder whether the goods will keep rolling. it makes sense for young people to share a car. it makes sense for young people who want a pedicure but cannot afford it to get a groupon. that a generation that gets more and more money might turn away from the sharing economy. with groupon, we called it the fastest-growing company in the

world in 2011. in 2012, it was a very different story. happened.rough what scott, if you could talk about -- you see to the shinning positioning zipcar? >> your speed date is over. >> i have to be circumspect because we have earnings tomorrow. groupon is a good proxy for young people that are living their life in a very mobile setting. our mobile business has been growing dramatically. i can see a day where the majority of our business is .eal-time it is also a global phenomenon. it is not just a u.s. phenomenon. we are in cities around the

world and the business has morphed from being a daily deal business that is delivered via e-mail, though that is a very strong business, to being a curated commerce business where these deals exist out on the web. year as abillion last fourth-year business. it is a phenomenon. our goal right now is to manage it and have more focus to make whatwe are delivering on the forecasts are. the company is a strong operating company and i am proud of the benefits that we deliver to merchants and consumers. x god, the clocks is 15 seconds. scott, the clocks is 15 seconds. >> where do you think we are going with our business?

we are thinking the same way we have been. we are listening to the consumer . from our business, they are looking for more convenience. we have a very strong value proposition on the convenience position and how we save money for people. we have to keep pushing out to the efficient frontier. have put cars and airports if you are traveling, you can use our brand. we are doing that in an environment that feels very much does.ipcar we will add flexibility to pick up and drop off. we are investing in the technology. we will have a whole new platform in the car in about 12 months. car is like groupon.

if you own a car in the city, it is not just the cost of the car, the parking and the insurance. it is a non-economic value to an individual. if you can share the ownership on that car and have access to all of those cars and find it conveniently, it is a very compelling consumer proposition. car was soy zip successful and grew so quickly. >> thank you. [applause] >> up next, some of this year's annual cable show here in washington. kelly, the ceory of southwest airlines on u.s. air travel. want to hear your device to the u.s. government on how to improve air travel.

national cable television association president sits down with cnn journalist and executives from showtime, disney, and amc will look at the future of digital needy of this is about an hour. -- digital media. this is about an hour. >> i cannot think of a better introduction, mc hammer and duct dynasty all on the same stage, a true cable experience. >> i really love the duck guys. they have brought great laughter to millions of people this season and we were excited that their finale past american idol in the ratings, another cable milestone. at.e is where it is we were thrilled they were able to join us here. we hope we have brought some real fun to d.c.