>> rose: welcome to the program. neil gorsuch has been nominated to be a justice of the u.s. supreme court. we'll take a look at the confirmation battle with david boies, paul clement, adam liptak a n d jan crawford. >> this nomination is now before the senate and as adam suggested, they're confronting an eminently qualified individual in judge gorsuch. and i think, i'm sure there's going to be a lot of discussion about politics and pay back and a lot of discussion of judge garland who is also a terrific jurist. t of criticism of judge is a gorsuch because he really is just a top caliber individual and a judge who has really proven, as adam suggested, to be somebody who is admired across partisan lines.

>> rose: we take a look at t he life of a ceo in a conversation of ursula burns, chairman and former c.e.o. of xerox. >> i've never been one to solely identify with my work. i t does consume the vast majority of my time. and therefore, you worry about when it's not going to consume the vast majority of your time. but my interests have never been narrowed to how do i make xerox the greatest company in the world. that was one of the most important things i did. but i have a family i'm i nterested in, i have a social causes i'm interested in, i have a country i'm interested in. >> rose: a new supreme court justice nominee and a departing c.e.o. when we continue. >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by the following: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and

information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: we begin this evening with the supreme court, judge neil gorsuch is president trump's nominee to feel the seat vacated by the death of judge j o y j ust tice antonin scalia. it was broadcast from the whitehouse on tuesday evening. >> millions of voters said this was the single most important issue to them when they voted for me f president. i am a man of my word. i will do as i say. something that the american people have been asking for from washington for a very very long time. [applause]

thank you. today i am keeping another promise to the american people by nominating judge neil gorsuch of the united states supreme court. >> rose: judge gorsuch is a 49 year old conservative jurist serve on the court of appeals for the 10th circuit in denver. speaking at the ceremony he paid h uh module to home age to his predecessor. >> justice scalia was the lion of the law. agree or disagree with him. all of his colleagues on the bench share his wisdom and his humor. and like them i miss him. >> rose: senate minority leader chuck schumer promise the democrats will offer a tough c o n firmation fight. it remains to be seen whether the democrats will filibuster the nomination given the republican's refusal to consider president obama's choice of

merrick garland last year. joining meese adam liptak of the "new york times." jan crawford on the cbs news and paul climate solicitor general j o armer solicitor general and david boies chairman of the law firm of boies, schiller and flexner. it is high, it is not. >> he went to columbia harvard and has a doctor from legal philosophy from a oxford went to a p restigious law firm in the justice department and has been a judge on the 10th circuit for 11 years and earned at meyeration from both sides being a careful serious judge and one who shares justice scalia whom he is to replace a writing style. so he is a pretty solid package. >> rose: so david boies, what's to be concerned about

here? >> if that package was enough to get you on the supreme court there wouldn't be a vacancy because judge garland would w o u l d it. >> rose: it's always judge garland isn't it. >> it's always politics. >> rose: what i mean by that you can't talk to democrats about this nomination without a reference to someone they thought was eminently qualified and didn't get a chance to be confirmed. >> i think that's exactly right because i think one of the principles here is how are we going to select our supreme court nominees and our justices. if the answer is only republican president can select somebody who will be confirmed, we're obvious me not going to have balance on the supreme court. so how is the senate and the president going to work together. president nominates the senate advices and consents. the more the president injects politics into the selection more the senate is going to have the to take politics into account in advising and consenting. >> rose: paul clement where do you think this nomination stands. >> this nomination is now before

the senate. as adam suggested, they are confronting an eminently qualified individual in judge gorsuch. and i think that, i'm sure there's going to be a lot of discussion about politics and pay back and a lot of discussion of judge garland who is also a terrific jurist. but i don't think we're going to hear a lot of criticism of judge gorsuch because he really real is just a top caliber individual a n d a judge who has really proven as adam suggested somebody to be admired across partisan lines. >> rose: jan you must hear from senate democrats criticism of judge gorsuch. >> they have to fight him and they're just looking for how to do it. there's going to be a close scrutiny looking to see any clues where he might be anti-women or anti-worker. we haven't seen the specifics what they would use. it's almost like they're just

now trying to find it. which means again, this is raising the political battle. but i think it's really important to keep in mind when we look at this fight, that this didn't start last year with mitch mcconnel and the republicans. these judicial confirmation battles, the democrats and the senate and the republicans, i mean they are like the hat f i e l ds and mccoys and you go to go back and understand why these fights are so bitter starting with robert bork and going back to the 2000 where democrats for the first time in history filibustered president george bush's court nominees. i remember when they blocked several of those nominees hearing and talking to mitch mcconnel, and he said memories are long in the u.s. senate. what goes around comes around. that is not a fight mitch

mcconnel started last year. you can mix the parties in the play book. republicans believe that democrats would have done exactly the same thing if the parties had been reversed. and president obama, i mean president bush were getting an election year nominee. and then senator joe biden in fact warned that when senate democrats had control he warned if president bush got another nomination, hw bush, that they would not confirm it. this is not so black and white as you think. this goes back much longer than last year. >> rose: how do we get out of this if not this process another confirmation battle. david. >> i think president obama's nomination of garland, if it had succeeded would have been a step in that direction because garland was clearly somebody who was more moderate than many other nominees. and more moderate frankly than the current nominee. >> rose: and more moderate

than many democrats might have wished. >> exactly. i think that's right. there was a lot of criticism of obama because he was not liberal enough. i think it never would have happened, but a great step towards bringing the country back together again and ending some of this politicalization of the court would have been for trump to nominate garland and put him on the bench. he's going to have another chance. >> rose: he couldn't do that. >> he couldn't do that with his base. >> rose: not with his constituency. >> a guy can dream, you know. it would have been a great step. and he could have picked somebody. and nobody doubts that the current nominee is a brilliant legal mind, disciplined thinker, great writer. i've appeared in front of him. he's well prepared. he's thoughtful. >> rose: doesn't it trouble you then to be because of past

things have nothing to do with h i m to be oppose ing him. >> it's not just past things, charlie. >> rose: that he had nothing to do with. >> it's not whether he had something to do with it and he h a s something to do with it. his views are very very conservative views. >> rose: the man he was replaced was very conservative. >> and scalia was i think confirmed unanimously. i don't think there was a single vote against scalia. so times have changed since scalia was put on the court. it is a more political process. but if it's going to be a political, it's got to be political both ways. it's not a question in my view as pay back, it's a question of balance. because if you don't have, the same kind of scrutiny both sides, you get a very unbalanced supreme court and that's not good for anybody. >> rose: paul clement, would you have had problems with

j udge garland. no. in fact i signed a letter saying he was a very qualified nominee. i did not comment one way or another exactly how the senate should proceed and i would say the same about judge gorsuch. i would say what we need to try to do and i don't have a silver bullet, it's not going to be easiest but we do need to try to get back to a world where when we say a judicial nominee is well qualified, a greater writer and has sterling academic credentials that the person gets confirmed. maybe we're not even going to get back to a world where people get confirmed unanimously. but you know, justice kagan for example was confirmed with most of the republicans voting no. but still, there wasn't talk of filibusters and the like and she was confirmed. i do hope we can get back to a time when once we recognize that somebody is a really terrific jurist, really well qualified,

writes exceptionally well that they'll get confirmed. i think judge gorsuch not just because he was on the list of 21 judges but is exactly the kind of judge that you would expect a republican president to appoint to the supreme court. >> rose: adam, what about this argument. that presidential contest was in part about electing your candidate so he could appoint judges that you liked. and this is one of the thing that goes with winning the presidency, you get to appoint supreme court justices. you win, you appoint. >> true that mitch mcconnel said he want the next president to get to choose and you could say that's what happened here. you could also say that more americans voted for the other candidate. so it's a complicated thing. it's probably true on both garland and gorsuch that the fight is not over their qualifications. in fact, about garland, the republicans didn't go after him personally. they said we're not going to let anyone come through. and now what we're hearing is

the flip side of that where my guess is there's not going to be enormous opposition based on the particulars of judge gorsuch's credentials and jurisprudence but more of what we were hearing from david in particular that if the other side has done this, we have to do it too. if it's going to turn into a political fight, both sides have to play politics. that of course is not good for the supreme court. the supreme court's authority a nd law jut must y and prestige is based on the notion that it's apolitical impartially and how it gets along on political grounds is really bad for the supreme court. >> it's not merely that both sides got to play by the same rules. it's also that part of the advise and consent function of t h e senate is to look at the judicial philosophy of a nominee. although i have great admiration for the nominees' intelligence and integrity, he is somebody

with judicial views that are way to one side of the spectrum. and i think that that is something that independent of any history, that it is wise for the senate to take into account when they're going to confirm somebody who is going to be on the bench for 30 or 40 years. >> rose: jan. >> to david's point when he says way to the side of one spectrum that's because it's different in the spectrum that david is arguing from you could say that merrick garland who people describe as a moderate, there's no question he would have been anything other than a solid liberal vote. and presidents are entitled to nominate justices with philosophies that they agree with. so when you're talking about what is mainstream, these are labels that means generally things that you might tend to agree with. i think gorsuch, there's no evidence that he is an extremist, i think people are trying to find that. does he have a solid conservative judicial philosophy, a restrained philosophy, absolutely. but he talks like someone straight out of the kind of

republican, i mean conservative judicial philosophy handbook. and you know, if that can't be confirmed, then anyone with a conservative philosophy would not be confirmed to the supreme court. >> rose: adam how much coy -- do you want to respond to that. >> i don't agree with that. i'll let adam go. >> rose: adam how much do you put to this idea that they wanted to choose someone that would make it easy for justice kennedy to retire so they could then appoint someone even more conservative and not a swing judge to replace him. >> i think there's something to that. i don't know if it's effective, i don't know if justice kennedy can be manipulative. but gorsuch is a former kennedy clerk and someone justice kennedy thinks highly of and you p u t such a person on the court, it may be justice kennedy should he be thinking he's retiring and there's some

evidence he is would say listen my legacy is secure, i could live with such people and i'm hopeful the person that replaces me would be in this mold. and that may or may not be a winning play but i could see the logic of it. >> rose: paul, what's the likelihood we'll see some nuclear option here? >> well, i don't know and it really depends on whether some of the thoughts that david's advancing ultimately prevail. i think what we're coming down to is really a question where right now, the two political parties i think do have a different view of judging. and the question is going to become first of all when the president appoints somebody, if you're from the other party, are you going to vote against that person just because they don't have the same political or judicial philosophy as you do and they share the judicial philosophy of the appointing p r e s i d d a consensus that if the we person was qualified, then the

fact that they shared the appointing president's philosophy, judicial philosophy, was just to be expected and not a reason to vote against them. if we're past that and people are going to vote on party lines then the $64,000 question becomes whether or not there's a real effort to filibuster this nomination. and i certainly hope it doesn't come to that because i think it will be bad enough if we've gotten to a point where every judicial appointment is kind of a party line vote. but if we on top of that insist on filibustering supreme court nominees, then i fear that will go the same way as it did with the court of appeals nominees d u r i n g the last administration >> rose: someone always argued that politic has always been there back to roosevelt and packing the court in a switch and time save nine. >> well that's true, that's true. politics is always part of the process. but i do think if you take the longer historical view, the numb informant -- dominant view has

w i t h cabinet officers and the like, the president gets to appoint judges and we expect judges to have philosophy of the president that appointed them. i would add the irony is back in time when the more sort of restrained judicial philosophy was more associated with the democratic party than with the republican party. so if you take a really long view, these things work out in very strange ways. >> rose: adam -- go ahead, somebody. >> i was going to add on the likelihood, at this point my sense is charlie, that that's pretty slim for this nomination. and i think because democrats will see that it's not in their interest to do it, to filibuster at the end of the day right now. the president is replacing a conservative icon and intellectual giant, this nomination will not change the balance of the court. that's a powerful argument for

republicans if democrats are blocking this nominee. and i think from my sources, they are prepared to trigger that nuclear option for this nomination which would be would mean the filibuster would be out of the way for the next big fight over justice kennedy's seat which is expected either this summer or next summer. so that would be a big help to republicans in some ways and it would certainly enable them to appoint a more conservative nominee to replace justice kennedy. that's why i think at the end of the day democrats will realize that put up a big fight for judge gorsuch but ultimately not filibuster and prompt the republicans then to change the rules and do away with the filibuster as democrats did for the filibuster of lower court nominees. >> rose: will this be a long battle, adam? >> it probably takes the usual kind of time which is about 45 days to the confirmation hearings. about 90 days to a confirmation

vote. the trick would be, the court would like to see a 9th justice on in time for the last arguments of the term which take place in late april. we'll see if that gets done or not. it may be democrats even if they don'tant motherly succeed in blocking the nomination anyway well try to slow it down. >> rose: when judge gorsuch was up for confirmation as a court of appeals judge he got unanimous or 99 or some huge amounts and they included senators obama, biden clinton and schumer. >> for an appeals court non-nominations those justices are applying the law as it's written or as the supreme court interpreted it. it's hard to say just because he was unanimous there it's a different role he would play -- >> rose: they don't take court of appeals judges

seriously. >> it's a different role. >> they're interpreting the what you not making the law. >> rose: paul what are the big issues coming up before the supreme court this year. >> there are a lot of big issues coming up before the supreme court, and to echo adam's point from a practitioner's standpoint, it sure would be nice to have a nice justice by the time the april sitting rules are in. it's interesting, the supreme court has done something almost unprecedented this year which is it had three cases in which it granted over a year ago that it is carried over and not scheduled for argument even though in the normal course though cases would have been scheduled back in the october sitting. it really seems like the court is holding those cases for april in the hope that there may be a 9th justice. those cases involve property rights, they involve religious liberty and they involve class actions. three areas where the court is often divided five to four. i think those cases kind of show you that there are a lot of

issues waiting for the nominees once they're confirmed. and as i say, just from putting politics aside, from the process of the court, as bad as it's been to sort of proceed with eight justices, to having to through this whole term with eight justices and not have that option to argue at least a couple cases with nine justices in april will really take a toll on the court i think. >> rose: does anybody here think that judge gorsuch will not be confirmed? >> i think he probably will be confirmed but i think it's an open question. >> rose: we're assuming that nothing dramatic is discovered. >> i don't think there's going to be anything dramatic discovered. i think jan was saying is true, he's been thoroughly vetted. what you see is what you're going to get. i think on balance he probably will be confirmed. i think that if the republicans were to eliminate

the 68 vote rule, i think that could cause some problems for the democrats in the current term but i think it would cause over the long term more problems with the republicans. i think the conservatives on balance have been advantaged by the 60 vote rule. and so i think if this were to lead to the the elimination of, that might be an advantage. one way or another he's likely to be confirmed but if he's confirmed by e limb -- eliminating the 60 vote rule, in the long term i totally agree in the short term that disadvantages the democrats because they're the minority. but i think in the long term that's probably something that's good for the country. >> rose: is it likely that they will be able to find some democrats to get to 60? >> i think what's more likely

you're going to see democrats who are going to vote for judge gorsuch. and there's a strategy already in place kind of targeting some of those democrats in those states that went for trump some of red states that may feel some of that pressure. i don't believe they are going to successfully able to filibuster judge gorsuch and it's probably not in their interest to do so. going forward to paul's point and what adam was saying whether the court is functioning well you'll hear the republicans say a lot in the weeks to come we need to have the court at full capacity so it can function well. i will caution to remember what they were saying last year when the court was doing the business just fine with eight and it was democrats who were making that point. >> rose: adam final question. was anybody on that list of 20 that the president had that was more for the lack of a better word moderate, even though no

one is arguing that judge gorsuch is a moderate, that was more moderate than he is. >> political scientists have tried to map that out and there were people they would say is a little more moderate. there were district court judges and supreme court judges. it's hard to get a complete fix on everybody but they were all accomplished able judges almost all of them judges. and there was no question but that they were all conservative. i think most lawyers would say that of that list of 21 which didn't have some legal super stars on it say like paul clement, was a good list from the perspective of republicans. >> rose: on a note of praising you paul, we'll conclude this. >> it's a good place to end. >> rose: thank you paul, thank you jan thank you adam, thank you david. we'll be right back. stay with us.

>> rose: ursula burns is here chairman and former ceo of see ruks. she spent her entire career at xerox starting as an intern in 1980. that was 37 years ago. she was raised by her single mother in a housing project on the lower east side of manhattan. later went to earn a master's degree in mechanical engineering in columbia university. in 2009 she became the first african american woman to lead a fortune 500 company. i am pleased to have her here at this table. unbelievable. for the first time, welcome. >> thank you. i'm unbelievably honored. >> rose: well, is it hard to no longer be a ceo? >> not at all. >> rose: you have led this company, you have set it on its present course. >> not at all. yeah. there's time for everything. so time for everything. this was perfect timing for me. you said it, 37 years in the

company. i know it inside and south. i know the company and the tooling peopling. market the competitors, etcetera. after a while you kind of reap things in your mind or in actuality. and i believe that once you go through two or three times, it's probably a good idea to get someone who has never been through it before. that's all it is. i still love the place, i'm still involved with the place but i think it was perfect timing. >> rose: the late giomani from the president of yale so i think he was president of the national league although he loved the american league because of the red sox. >> don't go there. >> rose: growing up on the lower east of manhattan you weren't a red sox fan were you. >> not at all.

damn yankees. >> rose: there is this. he said after eight or ten years, you are beginning to repeat yourself. >> i actually believe it and see it not only in my career but see it on boards that i served on. it's not that you can't keep going and do well. you're not going to drive the bus off the road or into a ditch. the question becomes at that point can you differentially improve the organization, can you differentially do it. there's a point where it's hard to change so i think when you get to that point it's a really good idea. particularly if you have good candidates inside that you say here it is, it's yours. >> rose: your success is one of the most important things. >> it's really really difficult. it is the most important, one of

the most important things. i think there are three constituents that you have to worry about, three things you have to do when you become a ceo for like many years. one you have to have a great board and the second is you need a strategy and a whole process for thinking about change, value, creation, constituents, etcetera. so that whole piece and the third is who is going to run the place. the idea of who is going to run the place is in some way offensive because you're not really running the place. there's a guy doing something that you have no clue about and he's keeping the power plant going etcetera. but running the place is then and tenor, it's pace, it's risk. it's personality. i call it the soul of the company. and after a while it's probably a really good idea that that changes. >> rose: do you think it's also necessary even if you are the founder to give it up.

>> especially if you're a founder. i call it the myth of the man. by the way they generally have a longer run and probably could have a longer run. but i think particularly for longevity and assurance of the ability to morph and change it's important to, even if you step out and become the chair or something, you got to see this great institution that you created run under many different circumstances. the not by only your eye. and i think the founders is really important, it's a really important thing. >> rose: is it wise for the ceo to be chairman of the board. >> i think it is more than wise. i think it's preferred from my perspective. now that doesn't mean that you have, you don't have a lead independent director. in our company we have it structured that way. interestingly on the boards i

sat were structured that way. chairman ceo individual and then a lead independent director. the pace and specificity what needs to be discussed, thought about, debated, requires a level of proximity and day to day interaction that many chairs, the way that people envision the chair just can't do. and it's kind of a duality that's confusing. independent director is power or as important but narrow to their space of governance and governing not operations and that's an important thing i think. >> rose: you want a vigorous board and you want a board that's independent too. i don't think you want a board, and i'm basing this on what people tell me not because i have any experiene in this. you want a board that depends on the income of being a board. >> i don't know of any of these types of people by the way. most of the board members that i

know -- by the way, we had, we just went through a separation into two companies. xerox into a company called conduit. great companies. fortune 500 found great leaders. we had to sign a new board for the second company. and the board of xerox the combined, if you do the hourly rate that they made below minimum wage for the amount of work that they had to do. >> rose: on what they're paid. >> what they're paid. >> rose: what happens in a great corporation is that through with your colleagues wo are part of the operational side, you get a sense what you're doing and what works and doesn't work and missed opportunities. you then set the vision strategy and the people who help you hammer it out and figure it out to bring a multiplicity of experiences is the board. >> it's the board and your managing team. but the board for sure. and the board actually doesn't

necessarily always bring it. they assure that it is bought. so if they don't have it, they are smart enough to know that this question should are probably be asked and appropriate set of questions. they don't have to be knowledgeable doing business in end yeah per se they have to know india is an important market either we tell them or they know from their person experiences and then assure there is a set of structures and questions and resources brought to bear on that strategic question. they don't have to walk in with the knowledge in their back pockets. and boards are difficult because they have to kind of know their job. i have a board member who told me, i will not say the name but he said it to me and i loved it. please remember to forget 90% of what the board said. remember to forget 90 -- >> rose: why did he say that. >> think about this. the problem is what 90% is, 10%

you keep. obviously he doesn't mean ignore the guy. board meets six or seven times a year. maybe seven times a year. they come for maybe ten, if you're luck e 12 hours. if they're good board members they have a life. they probably work in some kind of industry or some kind of not-for-profit. they work somewhere else. they have other interests and other things. i spent all day and just about all night on these topics. so people who kind of come in and say by the way the water should be two degrees hotter. when they say that you should probably say got it thank you very much but we're probably not going to heed your temperature suggestions. if they say watch the venezuelan market, i have some experience so i've been dealing or reading the venezuelan marketwatch, make sure you can talk to me and so

and so and that's when you say got it. what happens in a board meeting everything gets discussed, the temperature in the water like whether or not we should go into a new market or invest a whole lot of capital in certain ways. you have to be able to sort through all of this and you do that times eight or nine people. it's a lot. >> rose: you don't want to just walk away. here you are the former ceo hang are around. >> not for long though. >> rose: you'll be gone. >> annual meeting of 2017. already declared i'm out of there. i am the chairman of the board. by the way i had an unbelievable set of examples before me on how to do this. and i am not, i am a good forward person not necessarily the best planner in the world. ago forward person and i don't like hanging on. the great example is when i was made ceo and the ceo before me she stayed on as chair told me i

would stay on as chairman so you'll see for a while, the first couple weeks or a month. then you'll see me less and i'm out of here. her point was, and she told me once as well, usually you have to make sure you're ursula because the company doesn't need ann now they need an usually now. and the company doesn't need an ursula now they need jeb now. and their management team. of whom i selected or grew up with. the chance to take the company to the next level. the companies to the next level and that's what it's about. and i don't have, i have never been one that solely identified with my work. it does consume the vast majority of my time. and therefore you worry about when it's not going to consume the vast majority of your time. but my interests have never been narrowed to how do i make xerox

the greatest company in the world. that was one of the most important things that i did but i have a family i'm interested in, i have social clauses i'm interested in. i have a country i'm interested in. i somewhere other interests. i read. there's a whole bunch -- >> rose: does it get your attention now. >> the country has had my attention before. >> rose: you have more time. >> i have more time now yes. i don't think the intensity for me will change very much. >> rose: you were a good citizen. >> i was a good citizen. i was very actively engaged. didn't matter what administration i just happened to be ceo during the trying -- the democratic administration. so it doesn't particularly matter who is running but there are certain things i do know about what enables business to be better and what enables business across the board to be better. how government can help and how it can hinder.

and we have a situation and a set of circumstances in this country. so muchly that actually. that the government engages business. they don't always listen but we can have an audience. when somebody says you can have an audience, i'm willing to talk so let's talk about what your proclamation or potential proclamation can do and will do to business. that's what part of your responsibility of the business is. >> rose: was leaving the company the biggest decision you made. >> two big decisions i made. one was combining it and the second was splitting. in and out were both big. i think both were propose. >> rose: were they market driven. >> for sure. for sure. the in was a great brand with all of the software of the brand. i don't mean technical software or the emotional software. unbelievably well foundationed

in all the right foil. great innovation, great customers centricity, an awe maiding employee base who believed that problems could be solve, complexity was something they could deal with very well. and just the history was amazing around the innovation. that brand company business was one that had run to the end of its natural ability as far as it could run without doing a big morph. because technology's changed. everything was changing so quickly that one of the choices that we had was do you, just inch along a little bit and let this stuff atrophy while you're trying to find your way in the dark or do you take something back and try to extend yourself into a new set of markets with the same foundational element. >> rose: and you chose. >> we chose to do that. literally opt to go forward to

lean forward and take a chance. at the end of the day the journey was hard. at the end of the day, and i think it's showing up in the short term in the market and show up in the longer term of the market as well we ingested a company called acs made it part of xerox. we rejiggered acs. some things that were acs are no longer there because we sold them off and brought other parts in and we had it with letter policies that were better etcetera. we're at a point now where that company is strong enough and needs and has a different rhythm, different enough rhythm that's keeping it with the old company, with what we call xerox was distracting to both. so part of the choice we had to make as a board and me as the ceo and the management team was do you take apart what you just put together. do you take it apart.

and the answer was really simple. a lot of questions were the following. the answer was simple because it was the right market thing to do and the board did every step of diligence that you could imagine, e ton people looking at it external people, bankers, lawyers, everybody you could imagine. for the market for our customers for our shareholders, it's definitely the best outcome. particularly if we can do it well. so a year about we were told if you can do this it's fine but i don't think you can get it done in a year. there's no question that you can get this done in a year. and then there was so much breakage when you separate. i call it like a friendly divorce. even in the friendly, i don't have a lot of experience here but even in the friendly divorce it's kind of messy. so but we went through a really friendly divorce. a lot of acrimony inside but

every decision made is it good for the shareholders -- >> rose: when you pull it apart. >> right. >> rose: when you bring it back together. >> we're now in the pull apart phase. we're never going to bring it back together probably. i think we've done it well. i think thatouwill, i'll eliminate the word think. we have done it well. >> rose: it can turn out in surprising ways. i'm thinking of viacom. no one predicted it would end up the way it did. >> we're going to find that there will be all kinds of oh we didn't know or some small thing here or there. but it will not, you will find that from this point forward you're going to see two companies that could not operate as well as they are operating in their modes if they were together. >> rose: do you think people

know what xerox is? >> absolutely. i don't think people know what it could be. >> rose: what do you think it is. >> i think they think it's a copying and printing. and basically we don't, nobody makes copies anymore. but generally or simply what it is is it takes many forms of communication. what we handle it is this way on paper but that's not the predominant way anymore but it's the way that is still the most easy to describe for a customer and help them manage that in a secure and safe way. it doesn't create, it doesn't really do a lot of manipulation management in the eyes of the

customer but it takes a lot of pain that you have in all these different medias and makes it significantly less painful and help you manage your infrastructure. it also when it was together managed something like easy pass. is there a way to do that in an automatic way to manage this business process across everything from order through collection, i have to pay for it. can you do that seamlessly without you thinking about it without government infrastructures and that's what we do for both sides. the conduit does that and xerox does the document piece and we bought them together. >> rose: you're confident that you left this company and handed it over in great shape and in a good place and you did

what you came to do. >> i am. i'm very confident. >> rose: so here's somebody who comes in as an intern and ends up as ceo and chairman of the board. >> i didn't think it's going to be there. >> rose: what did you think -- >> i didn't know what a ceo was, chairman of the board was. i joined the company in 1980. when i joined the company, i had just entered my final year of undergraduate school. i just want a job to be an engineer. my thing was and largely still is, my team will tell you that this is my management style. i'm a technical person. you give me a problem, i'll try to wrap some math solution and try to implement the solution. that's what i do. >> rose: it's a full scale event. >> that's what it was then and interestingly enough when things get tough that's what you go

back to at least. so when i joined the company and for the first probably eight to ten years, recall that we didn't have google. if you wanted to get the annual report, you had to go to the library and get it. so who the heck knew who was running the place. it just became nowadays my daughter, my son. we were arguing about something, it takes a nanosecond to find out who the head of the company is, who the management team is how long they've been there what they make, everything. that's not how i grew up. i entered xerox. my goldman -- gold -- goal was to be leaving in four or five years. i was in new york f i didn't know how far rochester was. i was good at engineering not geography. i got there and i was lucky. luck is an amazing blessing. i was lucky.

i picked this great company or they picked me. one that allowed me to kind of even in up state new york feel like a new yorker, how i looked. the things that i thought were core and key to me being ursula burns. they didn't flush it out of you. you got to look like this and act like this and speak like this. it was perfect for me and they gave me lots and lots of chances to do all kinds of things. just insane. we're doing a product in japan. here i am from the lower east side of manhattan. the fartherrist i had been was to florida. the fartherrest i was on a plane was to washington d.c. they said we have this big product development thing in japan. you have to go there and spend a couple weeks. i said japan, that place over in asia. i just ended up in great place and they curated, the word i hate to use but they did curate

experiences for me that were always a tippy toe experience. higher than i thought i could do it. a little bit beyond my reach but if i jumped really high i could grab it. and i was able to just continue to grow in this environment which was perfect. >> rose: was race an issue. >> for sure. race and gender was an issue. gender for me, gender and age for me in the beginning were bigger issue than race because i was kind of dulled to the race issue. i had dealt with it so many times before you kind of know how to maneuver. i was actually surprised with the age thing, too young to be able to do this. really you're going to run the xyz. what exmarines do you have-- experience. i can't fix the age thing only to keep living. i was in an engineering environment and i went to

manufacturer really early. and that is, that back then was totally and completely male. that was it. and so to go there and i looked, i now look old but i looked young, i was young and i was black, which i think they were kind of probably like another one of those guys but then i was really i had to deal with all of this. the good news is we have a philosophy at xerox that check it at the door. everything that doesn't allow you to bring value into the company, leave it at the door. i can't make you a person who understands or wants to have diversity in your life or inclusion. i can't do that. we'll try like heck but i'm not going to be the one, your parents did that. when you walk in the door we have a set of rules that you play by and those rules are we are inclusive and look at the

values individuals bring. we do believe hard but better. so just deal witness. we don't like incompetence so go away with that. but if you're, you basically prove your medal on the playing field not by dressing up to be ready to play. >> rose: does it make a difference that a young black female engineer who arrived at rochester today can say to herself i could be ceo of this company. >> massive. charlie, i tell you what. i became ceo and i was stunned by the fact that this was the story that it was. i was like really. i work, i've worked in this company from forever. so inside, i was just a person who came to work. it was not like so inside and where in my family, i was just

ursula burns, the xerox employee. it was really interesting and even to this day where i walk into places. it took me a while to mature to this where i walk into places and they want to talk to me. or they want me to talk to them. they are women. african americans, minorities, whatever. even white men. and i would say really, really. and now i am you saw me early than just now. i understand a little bit more what's happening here. i am just them and their potential and they're trying to talk to me as if they're talking to themselves, right and their potential. i was in the subway the other day and a woman came up to me, and i do take the subway often. the woman came up to me and said to me i know who you are. my response is so do i know who i am as well but i don't know who you are. so we go and we start a

conversation. i'm going back to school u you're such an icon and motivating me. my daughter complemented me because sometimes i get a little frustrated. i said to her i needed that and she needed that. she was the talking to ursula burns, she was talking to herself and she was trying to say to herself it's possible. maybe not being a ceo of xerox but being farther than anybody thought you could be and being farther than you could be with effort and i get up and i tell them all the time i'm in the subway. so this is all good stuff. so i think i've become more comfortable and accepting. and honored and responsible. >> rose: do you have a plan for the rest of your life?

>> yes. >> rose: in other words your country needs you. you have all this experience as a manager, as a motivator, as a planner, as an engineer, as a figure of respect, as a leader. >> thank you for all of that. >> rose: it's true. how do you use that? where does that go so we don't just praise you. >> the only thing i can assure you of is i will not not use it. i will use it. it will be used. exactly what is where, some things i know already. i'm on the board of exxon mobile, love it, really important company board of american express, love it, really important in the company, energy, commerce. i'm in a board that will actually figure out this triangle, things we absolutely need, food and water.

i'm on the board of the ford foundation. that's the place i go and deal with no way to solve these problems problem. there's no way to solve this problem. there's no way but you literally sit in the ford foundation and we talk about ways to solve the problem with inequity or to solve good things. that will take up about 30% of high time. this is the problem because when you run the company you run cycles that are just insane. so that's 30%. and i will fill the other two thirds, the other 70% for sure and the things i know it will be is running after money. money is pretty good. i have enough. i've done enough. it's not running after money. and i'm almost sure in the next ten years it will not be politics. i don't want to go actively. i don't want to run for anything. i was head of the president's

export council which was really really cool and interesting. and you know, it was a bipartisan public kind of involvement so if i could do that kind of thing i would be interested in it. believe it not the offers are many so i have to not choose poorly. >> rose: you can take up painting. >> i am learning spanish. >> rose: that's good. >> i'm learning spanish. >> rose: thank you for coming. >> i love it. thank you. >> rose: thank you for joining us. see you next time. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. >> you're watching pbs.

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