Leadership in the Age of AI with Dina Powell McCormick

On this episode of The Forum, hosted by CNBC’s Becky Quick, Dina Powell McCormick, President & Vice Chairman of Meta, joins Marie-Josée Kravis, Chair Emerita of The Economic Club of New York, for a wide-ranging conversation on artificial intelligence, leadership, and the future of work.

Powell McCormick shares her perspective on how AI is reshaping the way we work, the infrastructure and workforce needed to support its growth, and the importance of American innovation and competitiveness. Drawing on her experience across technology, finance, government, and philanthropy, she also discusses AI’s potential impact on healthcare and national security and reflects on the lessons, mentors, and experiences that have shaped her approach to leadership.

New episodes of The Forum with Becky Quick drop monthly. Subscribe for exclusive conversations with global policymakers, business leaders, and thought leaders shaping the world economy.

Host: Becky Quick
Guests: Dina Powell McCormick (Speaker), Marie-Josée Kravis (Moderator)
Produced by: AMZG Media

To learn more about The Economic Club of New York, visit our website and follow us on LinkedIn, YouTube, X, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm Becky from Equal C N B C and your host of the forum. I'll be guiding you through exclusive conversations among some of the world's global leaders, conversations previously held behind club doors, but today we invite you in. The Economic Club of New York serves as the premier forum for nonpartisan discussion dedicated to connecting the world to brightest minds with pre-eminent Republican private sector leaders. A nonprofit at 501c3, the club is a 115-year-old platform for the conversations that help shape the future of our world. The Economic Club of New York, Brightest Minds, Critical Conversations, a catalyst for innovation.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

So you've really been at the confluence of the private sector, public sector, and also philanthropy. Before and now you're in technology, which is also at the heart of this industrial revolution that we're all living through. And I'm thinking you were on the board of META before you became vice chair and president. What is it that you saw on the board that made that led you to the decision of doing this full-time?

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Sure. So my fellow board member at the time, Peggy Alford, it was really um an honor to serve with her. It's an incredible group of people. And I had been serving for about a year, and I was really struck in my first few board meetings that Mark would start every board meeting with here are all the challenges that I that I'm facing and that the company has, and was so solicitous of us. And there were a few big initiatives that he had us working on, and I worked particularly close to him when he was recruiting Alex Wang and Matt Friedman to lead our new AI lab. And that was a very important decision for the company. And the fact that he had taken so much time with the board really struck me. And I'm extremely, by the way, proud that team has done a wonderful job. The release of MuseSpark has gone very well, and that model is continuing to build on itself and frankly to improve many of the of our products. But I thought you want to work with somebody who actually values your background and will actually engage with you. So when he asked me in December at our retreat if I would come in, I thought long and hard about it, and frankly, I realized that especially in the next three to five years, there are a few companies that are going to have a very big impact in the world as we are living through this transformational technology and the transformation of humanity in many ways. And so I joined the company as president and vice chair, and I've been very focused on a number of things. We built a division that we reports to him. It's called Metacompute. I co-headed with Daniel Gross and Santosh, our head of global infrastructure. And the idea has really been to bring together the capital, the product, the talent, and the compute that is really needed to realize our ambitions and the ambitions that he has laid out. And that is interesting, Marie José, because it does draw on a lot of my background and experience. Because today, this is not a technology that can operate in any silo. Energy is at the center of it, infrastructure, talent, and people, but also government. You know, the intersection of government and the private sector has never been more prominent than it is right now. And so it's sort of been really meaningful to me to have drawn on my experience, a proud experience at Goldman Sachs, working with Sovereign Wealth Funds, Deputy National Security Advisor, and chairing the Robin Hood Board, because the truth is the government is always going to matter in everything that we do. Capital and capital formation and how we use our balance sheet, potential capital partners will always matter. But how we impact the communities that we are living in and serving and building really matters. And I shout out to the Robin Hood Foundation that taught me so much. I think Rich is here and the team is here, and I think of that as time where I learned an enormous amount about how important it is to think first about the communities.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

So, what are the leadership principles that you would say were constant in all three sectors, philanthropy, finance, and government?

SPEAKER_02 4:01

Well, they're very it's different. You know, I I see uh Bob Steele, Dave Mason, Joseph Konselman, those of us who served in the Bush administration, and many of them came from business. And I think uh Bob would probably say government doesn't operate as efficiently sometimes. And so to actually have had people that had business background, I think made an enormous difference, and I think it makes a difference now. And that was something that I think wasn't always the case. I think you have to learn more than anything how to work on a team. And I know that sounds as simple as uh you know it sounds, but I remember the people that in government that were the most successful had often come from companies that were partnerships, not necessarily companies where there's one CEO and frankly what they say goes, because there's only one boss in government and you have to learn how to navigate. And I also think just more broadly, there's a something we tell our daughters that failure is often the thing that happens right before success. That there's no way you can ever build the chapters of your career that you want without failing, because how else do you learn those lessons? And I think that that's something, frankly, we should talk about more and particularly talk about more with women.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

So, what do you think are the misconceptions that young, talented people have about business and have about maybe even AI?

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Well, there's obviously a great deal of anxiety. Um, my husband and I have six daughters between us. We think of them as the AI generation. They are wondering what jobs we're gonna get, what is gonna happen. And we've been very frank with them. Yeah, the world is changing. But in other moments in human history where there has been this transformation, it has often resulted in a lot of progress. And so the thing that they can do is become as AI literate as they can. You know, one of the things we've been very focused on at Meta is making sure that people are not left behind. Mark has a unique voice. Mark believes that superintelligence is really meant to empower people to reach their ambitions. And we have to be careful that there are a couple of groups that are not using AI. Small business owners are not using it enough in the United States. Only 20% of small business owners are using any kind of AI. There was a study that just came out from Ramp that showed that the 20% who are using, even small, in small ways using AI, are increasing their market share, are growing their customer base, and are hiring more people.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

And women are not using AI.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

And women as the second group. And we've done a lot of research on that actually. In fact, Cheryl Sandberg came out with a report to lean in, and it shows that women are using AI dramatically less than men. And when we ask, you know, we try to understand why that is, partly honestly, it's probably because it is a bit of a foreign technology. Frankly, most of the leaders in it are men, and there is anxiety. But I had a little test study the other day. I was meeting with a group of interns, not meta-interns, and um I was saying, so what are you working on? And the they all said, We're working on a big AI project. Or no, excuse me, I'm sorry, they said we're working on a big research project. And I said, Are you using AI? And the men all said, Yes, we've already finished our project. And the women said, No, we would never use AI. And that just struck me. That was such a focus group for me. And I said, Well, let me tell you something, young ladies. Using AI is not cheating, it's competing because everyone else is using it.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

So you mentioned Meta is investing billions of dollars in AI and especially AI infrastructure in which you're directly involved.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

What does success look like? Well, I mean, first, you know, you asked me about why I took on this role. And there's a really interesting story that I think is not as fully told. Mark is one of the last founders of the Magnificent Seven, and yet I think the top 15 people have been there with him for 20 years. So you have this mix of a risk-taking, innovating founder with a very stable leadership team and very stable, long-serving board. You have a very strong balance sheet, revenue that is growing every year, and frankly, our AI that's improving our products. And so I think we start with being very proud of our position today. Three and a half billion people are on the meta platform every day. Three and a half billion people. If you think about WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and threads. And I frankly feel that sometimes more when I'm traveling. When I'm in Latin America, you know, for example, in Brazil, 100% of small and medium-sized enterprise owners use WhatsApp to actually run their businesses. In Saudi Arabia, almost 100% of female entrepreneurs use WhatsApp to do that. And I see Carolyn Everson there, and she used to be one of the people that shouted this out the most. And this is not just advertising, this is actually using WhatsApp too, of your customer threads, to think about long-term planning, etc. So I think we feel you know proud. And I think we are really proud of the new AI team. And the model that has just come out that frankly exceeded expectations, and these models build on themselves, of course. But I think beyond models, beyond products, I think success is that we really achieve what Mark has often talked about, which is that this technology is really meant to empower human beings, not machines.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

So I know there were questions about social media, and we will stay away from that topic because of we can't get into the pushback and so on that we're we're hearing all around us because of legal issues.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

But yeah, no, well, I mean, I this is personal to me. I have six daughters, so I completely recognize um what a what a uh challenge this is. I would say we we don't disagree, I mean we disagree with those verdicts and are appealing them. We are very focused on this issue every day. And Peggy and I are on a committee that really is just focused on how we make sure this platform is safe. And we're extremely proud of the teen accounts that we have where parents uh have control over what their children are seeing, and uh we've been you know pretty sure that the way to tackle these issues is to empower parents and guardians.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

So you mentioned you mentioned energy, you mentioned semiconductors, capital, talent. You happen to be on the board of Exxon. So talk to us about the energy situation, the huge demand on energy and the resistance there is in certain circles because of higher energy prices, blaming everything on data centers and so on.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Well, we see a lot of this uh at Metacompute, very specifically. You know, the numbers are almost hard to fathom. Over the next several years, uh there will be $10 trillion of capital that is needed, 250 gigawatts of power, and millions and millions and millions of positions and new talent that is needed. And so there's you know, no success if it's not a group sport and a team sport. So what you're seeing with energy companies, um with amazing companies like ones uh like Bruce Flatt uh in Brookfield, you know, what is so rewarding, I think, for us to see is how much we're working with partners in such a strategic way. What is the best way to think about this infrastructure site? What is the best power, what is the best capital in every single one of those sites? What is the best way to invest in the workforce of America? You know, the thing that someone said is that we are living right now through another industrial revolution. And in the ways that we have come together as a country in important times, we should be thinking of this that way too. During World War II, America came together to literally physically build the arsenal that defeated tyranny in the world. And we should empower a new generation of American heroes to come together and to be part of that future. And we talk about it kind of in a in a way that we're very proud of that the future is for everyone.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

So do you feel there's a lot of misinformation surrounding data centers?

SPEAKER_02 12:09

Uh of course. And uh, when we went to the White House uh with a a group of uh our peers and we signed the ratepayer pledge, we were already doing a lot of that work, but I think it was important to tell the story that when we are in those cities, we actually not only pay for our own electricity, we invest in the grid, which actually ultimately results in often making electricity costs less. But it's important that we have to tell our story. We actually have to be talking about the kinds of investments that we're making in those communities, the kinds of jobs that we're hoping uh will come as a result. How many new small business owners uh will actually start new businesses? I was really honored to see that they came and got tickets. Uh, they're extraordinary New Yorkers who have businesses. I've had the privilege of knowing them for over 12 years through the 10,000 Small Business Program. And, you know, I just have to say their voices really matter in this debate too, as important as thinking about all job transition. And then, frankly, data really matters. The latest job reports uh that came out show that there are more openings for white-collar jobs today than there have been in five years. So that doesn't mean we need to not we must be sensitive to the anxiety and care about how we are talking about these issues, but I think getting the facts right really matters because I think one thing we all know is that it's pretty important for America to lead, for America's ingenuity and innovation to lead in this race. It means America's values will be spread around the world, and it means most importantly, that our economic and national security will be secure.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

So on that point, there are have been suggestions that some of this misinformation is actually coordinated maybe by foreign influences, competitors.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

Well, I've certainly read uh those stories and seen some lawmakers now start to investigate them. I don't have you know any firsthand knowledge, but maybe to flip it around is if you were an American competitor today, what would you do? This is exactly what you would do. You would try to slow down this innovation, this advancement. You would try to find a way, whatever the means are, whether it's it's what you're describing or other things. Because frankly, I think other countries, right now at least, see that we have the best entrepreneurs, that we have an energy dominance that is growing, that we have extraordinary infrastructure and talent, and frankly, a very stable capital market. And so you it you would want to try to figure out how to slow America down.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

So are there areas where you think AI development should proceed more slowly, even if our competitors are moving faster?

SPEAKER_02 14:39

Well, I think I think that's like honest, just genuinely a very challenging question to answer because this is not a technology that you can uh you know calibrate uh so specifically. I think that the president's AIO takes a very good first step in basically saying we don't want to slow down American innovation, but we also want to be very thoughtful about security. And that's something that that Mark and the leadership, you know, agrees with, of course. I think though, what I think we also just have to make it a little bit, frankly, less about all the founders and the leaders because many of them have different views on this technology and empower people more directly to use this technology and frankly to ask the questions around security that that come up. But I think it is hard very very candidly. I think it's hard to overregulate something like this with the pace that it's moving. For those of us who've worked in government, I think it's just a challenge.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Well, you you point to a really important challenge because when we hear many of the founders, not Mark, but many of the founders, it's almost suicidal when you hear their narrative, when you read their narrative that they're going to displace all jobs, that there are national security risks, that we will lose control over this technology and so on. What's going on with that message?

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Well, I can only speak from for my boss and uh at Meta and certainly with Mark. We just don't see it that way. We don't see the world that way. We see, of course, a recognition that there is anxiety, there's change, nothing has ever moved so fast. But frankly, this is a company that has been connecting human beings for 20 years. We see people that go on the platform to find a transplant donor. We're seeing today the advances in science, in medicine, in education. You know, one of the things that you'll we'll talk about in a minute is also the democratization of so many fields of healthcare. You know, where you can put your MRI uh into a model and see what it says. When you don't have access potentially to a doctor, you're seeing cancer treatments that may actually grow for people who couldn't afford it before. So I'm just, you know, not to in any way not say that there is very understandable anxiety, but we see this as a huge opportunity for humanity.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Well, let's talk about health care and the areas that you're a better expert. You're more excited about, but no, it's not only Meta, but also the Zuckerberg Foundation has been so deeply immersed in health care and biosciences and so on. Yes. Is that an area there that you prioritize?

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Well, Priscilla and Mark certainly do, and I have to say I'm I'm just so proud of what she has done. She is a pediatrician who practices. She is an immigrant like me, who's uh neither of her parents graduated from college, maybe didn't even graduate from high school, and she has invested so much of her focus and time and care. Now, very specifically on how we think about advancing health care for many more people and advances that would produce um, you know, uh treatments for a more a larger group of people than very specialized ones. So I think not only is it a focus, I think it's very authentic to her, and uh people really feel that. Mark is certainly supportive of it.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

And Mark has spoken very openly about accelerating drug discovery and so on. So that's certainly a very promising area.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Absolutely. You know, when you said what does success look like, I think if we take the question, maybe make it much bigger than a meta question. I think success, we would hope, in the next three to five years, is that we have new drug advancement that saves lives, that we have more people, more children in our country who have access to education that they didn't have before. Uh, and that we frankly have, I mean, I I learned this at Goldman Sachs for for many, many years, that we also have a new way of working that is more cutting edge than any other country in the world. And I think that that would be, I think, success for us.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

And what about, I mean, you spent so much of your time and your energy and your knowledge and wisdom on national security issues. How do you see that sector being influenced by AI? We already see it on the battlefield in Ukraine.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

Yes, yes. I mean, I think there's, you know, we keep using this word transformation, but certainly in, I think in the military arena, I mean, I think the days of, you know, sort of large and cumbersome structures um are gone. And obviously, not I don't mean just in terms of drone warfare and what you've seen on the battlefield in Ukraine. I think that robotics is going to have a big impact, and that's something that will both, I think, change how wars are waged, but also, frankly, that's a that should be something that we think about and the back to that you know, being concerned around security. You know, I I think that uh that's what you're gonna see, I think, at the next big round of defense tech companies that are already doing so well, but there's just this massive, quick innovation that's happening. And the question, I think, for the American uh military leadership today is like can they move as fast as you?

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Would you like to be a part of the conversations at the Economic Club of New York to learn more about membership of the New York City and National Fellows programs and other opportunities for engagement in the club at www.econclubny.org.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

You were center stage in many of these key moments, and you were in the White House on 9-11. Tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

I was. I was at the White House, it was only seven months in. I think people don't remember that, you know, it would it was seven months in. If you think about what President Bush campaigned on, it was Leave No Child Behind, a big education platform, and engaging with Mexico and the region. And so seven months in, I was, as Bob said, working in presidential personnel, which is a very tough assignment, especially very early on in the administration. We were working around the clock. And back then people didn't have TVs in government buildings. So we were working, and the door opens, and it's the Secret Service who are usually very polite, uh, and they're screaming like really loudly and cussing and saying, take your shoes off and get out of here now. And um I was sort of jolted. I went and literally remember grabbing the interns because they were in a back room, and I was running as fast as I could, which was challenging because I was eight months pregnant, and we walked out of the White House, and frankly, obviously, the horror that happened here in this city, how many people and lives that were lost, the fact that America would never be the same again, you know, all those things just began to hit you. And of course, back to my sweet parents, they're like, You can never go back to the White House, it's so dangerous. And I said, Well, President Bush has an 8 a.m. meeting with all of us tomorrow, and we are gonna go back because that's exactly what the terrorists would want. And so I I, you know, it was a jolt and a and a thing that actually eventually led to um my working more on national security given my you know background and language abilities, and that's how I ended up working uh with Condi Rice during that long period of time. Is she probably one of your quiet mentors? Loud and quiet, and in every moment of my life, whenever there was a big decision to make, I had the privilege of being able to and still do to call her and say, Do you think this is crazy? And she has always given me the most sound advice. You know, my husband and I wrote a book called Who Believed in You about the mentors in our lives, but the stars of the book are really the people that you've never heard of and that brought us people like Condi Rice. For me, I think she taught me at a very young age. In a male-dominated industry, if you will, that was government at the time, you know, how you have to really learn to navigate and learn to succeed. And there's a story that I tell in the book that after, you know, a couple of years after 9-11, we were traveling to the Middle East and we were going to meet a very important head of state, and we entered this palace, and Secretary Rice sat down next to him, and he looked at her and he said, You know, Madam Secretary, welcome to my country. I'm so thrilled you're here. But I hope you didn't come here to preach to me about freedom and democracy. And I thought, oh boy, I think he really made her mad. What is Condi Rice going to say now? And she looked at him and she said, Well, Your Highness, how could I come and preach to you about freedom and democracy, or calling my country perfect, when it wasn't all that long ago in America's history that my ancestors were considered three-fifths of a man. And yet today you are looking at the first black female Secretary of State of the United States of America. And we, unlike you, are on an imperfect journey to hearing the will of our people, and that is something you will never do. So, in one fail swoop, she she kind of, you know, in her way, uh explained with humility, with grace and dignity, but fierceness. That's that is uh I learned a very important trait that day, fierceness.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

So, what advice would you have for young leaders today and how influence is built?

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Well, I think that my training in a few places in my life, uh, certainly, and there's so many of my friends here from Goldman, and I'm so proud, I learned a lot of excellence. Excellence matters. And you you better be the f best person when you show up in that meeting, and there's just no excuse. Also, with Condi, if you hadn't read your briefing books and could answer every single question, you know, that that's just there's kind of no excuse for that. I think the second is when you think at the end of you know your career what your legacy really is. Um, you know, obviously it's to have competed at the highest levels, to have achieved great things, but I also think it's kind of how you had an impact and where you worked and where are the people that worked for you. You know, I think if a number of us would just say, where are all the people that worked for me today? And I would say one of my greatest sense sources of pride are the incredible women that I worked closely with, from Margaret Anadu to Kara Gustafson to Perry, they're all the all throughout Nicole Sharps, all throughout this room, because and Sophie, I think of them as sort of a great legacy because they've all gone on to do way more important things than when they worked with me. Although I've stolen many of them back now. Now they're back at Meta, thank God. But they went on and advanced their careers and did so many extraordinary things. And to me, I think if everybody asked themselves that question, it would have an enormous impact. Who, not just what we hope people will ask around the book, which is who believed in you? Have you thanked them? And who do you believe in today? And how will you change their life?

SPEAKER_01 24:59

That was my question. Who do you believe in today?

SPEAKER_02 25:02

Well, I I feel like genuinely fortunate to work with an extraordinary team. I feel like I may be one of the older people, and so this very young, dynamic entrepreneurial team I really believe in, and I feel I'm working with one more smarter person than the next when I when I am at work. Obviously, I'm very proud and believe in our daughters. I also believe that there is a new generation of leaders emerging that are asking different questions than before, that it are asking what does success really really mean, and remembering to thank the people that brought them here. You know, Christine Lagarde is a chapter in our book, and she talks about this one woman in France who believed in her. I believe, wasn't she uh Baker, I think, was her firm. And um, this woman was the only female partner at a law firm in France. And she just said, Christine, I'm gonna mentor you, and you are going to be extraordinary. And we actually, this was during COVID that we interviewed Christine, and she got very emotional. And she said, Um, she was my mentor. She's the one who believed in me, and she died very suddenly, and I never had the chance to thank her. I never had the chance to tell her I am only here because of you. And so I think that's that's been a really great lesson that's come out too from the book.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

You've been listening to the forum by the Economic Club of New York, a nonprofit 501c3 dedicated to connecting the world's brightest minds for critical nonpartisan conversations. Be sure to subscribe now to be alerted to future new episodes. Would you like to be a part of the conversation at the Economic Club of New York? Learn more about membership, the New York City and National Fellows programs, and other opportunities for engagement in the club at www.econclubny.org. I'm your host, Becky Quick. Thanks for listening.