[S5E1] The Juggling Act with Pat Gelsinger

How do you live a balanced life, including prioritizing your faith in your family while achieving ambitious goals in the workplace? Christian family man, Silicon Titan and former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has some answers to this age old question. Join us as we talk to Pat about his book the Juggling Bringing Balance to your Faith, Family and Work. Welcome to Business Books and Company. Every month we read great business books and explore how they can help us navigate our careers. Read along with us so you can become a stronger leader within your company or a more adept entrepreneur. But before we get to the book and talk to Pat, let's introduce ourselves.

Hi, I'm David Short. I'm a Product Manager.

I'm Kevin Hudak, Chief Research Officer at a DC based commercial real estate research and advisory firm.

And I'm David Kopec. I'm an Associate professor of Computer Science at a teaching college. This month we are pleased to be joined by silicon legend Pat Gelsinger to talk about his 2008 book the Juggling Bringing Balance to your Faith, Family and Work. Starting his career at intel at 18, in less than a decade, Pat rose through the engineering ranks to become the chief architect of the highly successful and influential i486 microprocessor. In the 1990s, he became the youngest Vice president in intel history, and in 2001 he became the company's first ever CTO. After 30 years at intel, in 2009, Pat joined EMC as its President and COO. In 2012, he became the CEO of VMware, and in 2021, he rejoined intel to become its CEO. From 2021 to 2024, Pat led the turnaround and revitalization of intel through his visionary five nodes and four year strategy, which is bearing fruit with intel expected to leapfrog other foundries with no leadership by the end of 2025. Beyond his technical acumen and accomplishments, Pat is known as one of the few tech leaders to be unabashedly open about his Christian faith. Pat has four grown children with his wife Linda, whom he's been married to for more than four decades. He holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Santa Clara University and a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from Stanford University.

Both of which, we might note he completed while working full time at intel during his early career. Pat, thank you so much for joining us on the program.

Thank you. Great to be with you today.

So Pat, let's start with the genesis of the book. You were the CTO of Intel when you wrote both the first edition and the second edition of the book. Why would the CTO of Intel write a book like this?

Well, it turns out that we. I had helped to start the Intel Christian Bible Network at Intel, sort of the precursor of today's ERGs, right? Employee resource groups and faith oriented groups that support those of faith in the workplace. And they had asked me to give a talk. And the outline for that talk was the outline of the juggling act at the time. So I gave the talk at one campus internally, then another one and another one. And after I'd given the talk like 20 times internally, it became popular externally. So I'd given it like 15 more times externally. And my mentor of the time said, you got to write a book. And I said, I don't have time to write a book. And he says, but you have time to give all these talks. You do have time to write a book. So I spent the next year of long flights and trying to squeeze it in between the already busy schedule that I have. And I remember with glee, I showed up to my wife and says, I want to write a book. And she says, you don't have time to write a book. And I showed her the entire first draft and I was proud of myself. And she said, you duplicitous. How dare you have done that behind my back. So maybe that wasn't the best way to get the outline and first draft done. But that was the genesis of the juggling act. And the book today has gone through two editions, 100,000 plus copies of the two editions, not considering those in some of the other languages, and really has become fairly venerable in the industry. And for those who have a Christian faith perspective in the workplace, yeah, it.

Was really, really great to read and hear your story. You started at intel as a technician with an associate's degree at 18 years old. And you managed to complete, as David Kopeck mentioned already, both your bachelor's and master's while rising through the ranks at Intel. Do you think this is a realistic trajectory for someone today? Do you think that that could actually happen at intel in the modern era?

To me, it's something that any entry level, aspiring individual should be considering such a path, right? If you are starting out as a entry level person and you hear the story about people working in the factory at Coca Cola rising to become heads of bottling companies, I know a number of individuals who are in CEO roles today in the tech industry who were lowly immigrants when they came to the US and now have risen through the ranks and I always am recommending people that are technicians or entry level, get your graduate degree, continue your education, and really, I think the fundamentals of hard work, aspiration, seeking your passions, and having a real desire to constantly improve your own skills, opportunities will emerge. And I think my story is still possible today.

Yeah. And I think part of the strategy to your success. I loved how you broke out the idea of success versus significance. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think a lot of that came from your idea of writing a personal mission statement and really live. And, you know, the mission statement that also includes the mission statement itself, the values that back it up and then the goals that fulfill it. Almost like, you know, Andy Grove's okrs, but for life. And, you know, I'm wondering. I wrote my own while reading the book, as you advised us to, and mine was probably about two times, three times as long as yours, just to try to capture everything. You know, one thing I found surprising about yours was how brief but also how crisp your mission statement was and then how specific and numerous the goals were. And I'll note that one of your listed goals in 2008 was to become the CEO of Intel. So maybe there's something to manifesting that goal as you did. You know, why do you think this format, the mission statement, the values and the goals work so well? But then also, is there a danger of dividing your attention too much if you have too many goals?

Well, it was funny, Kevin, you asked the question that way. I had, you know, one. One chap that I was mentoring, and he showed up, and we, you know, I said I'd help him on his mission statement. And his mission statement was about 20, 25 pages. And, you know, the goals were like 30 more pages. And, you know, he was just all over the place, and it's like, okay, we got to get this much crisper, right? And I'm not saying you have to be as crisp as mine, and other people, in fact, are probably even shorter in that regard, you know, but if it's not something that you can put on the desk in front of you, read regularly, dwell on it, you know, think about it, grade yourself. I, you know, I joke in the book that every tax season is a good time to grade yourself. You're already depressed and, you know, look at, you know, where you are and reflect on it. I think all those things are super important, and I think having aspirational goals is important. You know, when I wrote the CEO of Intel, it was very aspirational, but it drove me to Be better. You know, also evergreen goals, you know, exercise goals and, you know, family goals and things that you're doing. But there's also an aspect to, you know, what I would call the epics that you go through. You think about your goals differently when you're in the child rearing years than when you're in the teenage years, than when you have adult children. And now at the phase of life I'm in, you know, my mission statement is now on Rev Mission 6D.

Right.

You know, my sixth major revision and my fourth minor revision of it, you know, it does deserve to be updated, reflected upon, and have your mentor, significant other, you know, really help and participate in, you know, is this helping to shape you and guide you into the full creation that God meant you to be?

You mentioned you're on, you're on 60 now. I'm curious if, you know, which version was it in the book and. Yeah. When did you last revisit your. Your mission statement and values and goals?

Yeah, I'm not actually sure. I'd have to go back to look which version. It was in the, you know, I think we were on, you know, version four, something in the, you know, the one that we finally published in Juggling Act. I think we were in version three, something in the original balancing book. And I'm now writing the next phase. You know, I've just retired from intel, entering, you know, a different season of life with grandchildren now. And what is some of the things I want to accomplish in this next phase of my career and life now that I'm in my 60s and, you know, it is time to reflect. And Linda and I have been spending a lot of time saying, what's next? I had worked continuously for 45 years. Not a single day was I not employed by a major employer for 45 consecutive years until December 1st. Wow, that's a pretty big life change. And some of that I have to reflect in. Okay, what is the mission that I have and what are my goals for the next couple of decades of life that God, I hope, still is giving me here upon this earth?

And before we go into the next question, I also wanted to bring up something, Pat. When I was reading your book and thinking hard on my own personal mission statement, one thing I've done with my clients, when doing sort of brand or data sessions with them, and we're talking about brand promise, mission vision, values, all of that, I do an interactive session. We're broken into cross functional teams, and I ask them to pretend that they're a restaurant or that their company is a restaurant today or what does that restaurant look like? And it gets them to think apart from themselves and maybe demonstrate some more self awareness and sort of a fun but also effective manner. We go through our sessions and at the end I ask them, now that we've done this and we've charted out our values and goals, tell me what the restaurant of tomorrow looks like. And they go from well, I used to be or the you of tomorrow. I used to be a buffet with all sorts of thing, no tableside service and there was long wait times at the front. Well, the restaurant of tomorrow is dedicated to culinary excellence. We have high customer service. We are. And then I tell them, let's pivot to corporate format to yourself. What does that look like in corporate world now? And I actually found myself when I was doing my own mission statement going through that. If I were a restaurant today, what do I look like and what do I aspire to be in the future?

Yeah, well that's a fun exercise and I'm sure there's different variants of, you know, how to, you know, just how to think about yourself differently. And certainly I think carefully about what my brand is and as I'm, you know, entering this next phase of my own career, what is the brand and who is it I want to influence? What does that look like? And you know, the aspects of who I am and you know, what things get me excited and passionate and what things just piss me off. Right. And really, you know, great against me when, you know, my name is used in conjunction with some of those attributes as well. So it really helps to refine who you are, what you want to be, what you believe you're still left upon this earth to influence.

Well, Pat, I wanted to ask you a question that is very relevant to my students who are all Gen Z. You know, you talk in the book about the development of the 486, which you were the chief architect of and the 80 hour, 90 hour weeks you were putting in and kind of, you know that of course you talk later in the book about reflecting on how that hurt the balance. Sometimes I'm wondering for Generation Z which is very concerned with balance in terms of work life balance in terms of number of hours that they're putting in towards their personal lives versus their work lives. And I know that there's a lot of folks who are in that kind of 18 to, let's say 25 demographic who the first thing when they're looking for a job they're thinking about is, you know, I Don't really want to work more than 40 hours a week. That's, that's not something I'm interested in. Can they still reach high levels of success without putting in those extra hours? In a highly technical career like that that you were in when you were rising up through the ranks of engineering at Intel? Is, or is that kind of unrealistic? Do we have to have, when we're young, have more of that balance be shifted towards work?

Maybe two different perspectives on that. You know, one is, and I talk about this in the book as well, that there are, you know, there are periods, there are phases of projects where hey, sometimes if you want to distinguish yourself, you just got to work hard. But then even after those hard, intense seasons, then okay, how do you make sure you're refreshed and balanced as well? And you know, if you want a predictable 40 hour a week job that you never need to work 41, right. And it's okay if you, you know, slip away at 35 some weeks, don't go into tech, right, pick a different career than that because projects, the intensity of this industry, etc. Doesn't lend itself to that behavior. Now at the same time, hey, I just finished a two week cruise, you know, I had a lot of time to, you know, reflect the talk on and vacations and sabbaticals and other things like that. But I also think that you can have an intense career even as a Gen Z year, right, with periods of great focus and other periods where, okay, I need to take a break, I need to step away. As I talk about in the book, if everything is intense and you never back away, then you're just working 80 hours a week for it. Now I do think some are more concerned about that earlier in their career and as you say, some Gen Z years I think fallen into that category. And I think there are different areas of careers and skill sets and so on that enable, you know, career progression with that kind of work life balance. And I think there are other careers that it's pretty hard to do so and you know, not that one is good or bad per se, I think they're different in that regard. And even today, you know, as you would go look at the technology industry and you only want to work 40 hours a week, I don't think you're going to distinguish yourself as a world class leader in that area. And again, that may be okay for you and what your career objectives are, but you know, what you know, you know, as, as the Bible says, you know, consider the cost before you go out.

Right.

And I think you, you really do want to consider the investments that are required to do that. And maybe they're not as extreme as what I did at that phase of my career, but I do think you have to think about that balance carefully if you want to be the maximum that you can possibly be at a different career area or a particular career progression that you pursue.

So building on that a little bit, how do you recover when you find that you may have failed at the juggling act? So you talk in the book about sort of the value bank a bit and how years of consistent performance can kind of definitely demonstrate, you know, that you are great at what you're doing. So even if you did, you know, step away for family for a period of time, you know, people are still gonna, gonna value you. However, if you, if you were kind of that, that 40 hour a week guy and then, and then you disappear when things really matter, that you might not get that, that grace from others as well. Could you talk a little bit about, about that and, and maybe any other advice you might have on, on ways to bounce back in family or business when, you know, the other priorities might have taken over and, and you know, one of those plates fell.

Yeah. And I, I do think that you, you fail in both directions. You know, you're gonna.

Right.

You know, I mean, that's one of the wonderful things about being a human. You make mistakes, right. And you learn from those mistakes. And that's part of the journey of life. And clearly I've made mistakes on both sides and some of the things, and raising our children, I look back and I just, you know, some of the mistakes that I made, right. When I didn't prioritize family, pain me to this day.

Right.

You know, and just thinking about them. Right. But that also, you know, that pain also, you know, gives me and as part of me and who my personality is, and you don't get mulligans and some of those things. You know, when my second grandchild was born, okay, I made the wrong call that day.

Right.

And that hurt that I wasn't there for the delivery of my, you know, second grandchild and chose instead to be present for an earnings call. I made the wrong call.

Right.

And it hurt my son in that day.

Right.

But again, that reflects on me. And hey, I prioritize my grandchildren now differently as a result of that moment.

Right.

So it also shaped me also some of the work experiences where, hey, it didn't work out, right. The project didn't work out.

Right.

Or some of my faith experiences were chastised. Again, those were hard. Those weren't pleasant moments. But again, it helped shape me and who I am today and I make better trade offs as a result. So I'd encourage the listeners to say the mistakes and the learnings from them really are part of what helps shape who you are. But you must embrace that. And some of those mistakes and learnings you're just going to regurgitate over and over again. They hurt, right? You have to talk about them. You have to put them on the table if you're truly going to grow from them. So my simple advice on those is grow from them. Maximize the learnings and benefit that you get from the mistakes on both sides. And life is a journey and you will make mistakes on both sides.

Oh, great point, Pat. And it, I hope with your son. I just love the anecdotes that you had around breakfast time with your children. And you know, I remember looking back to my high school experience, there was this physics professor, physics teacher, Mr. Couch, who would always, he was very down to business in the classroom, calling us by our last names, Mr. Hudak, Ms. X. But he would always open himself on Fridays to join him for breakfast at 6am and that was when he would, you know, let his hair down and really just connect with us as humans. And it was just so refreshing. And for some reason I feel like breakfast is the right time for that. And he ended up passing away about 10 years ago and he was single and didn't have kids. He ended up leaving about $1.7 million of his kind of career profit through teaching to the school itself. It was a Catholic school in Danbury, Connecticut, I went to. So I just love the idea of the breakfast anecdotes and, and I love the idea of learning from those mistakes. Speaking of learning, you know, you, we know you mentioned mentorship in the book and what makes a great mentor. And since 2008, you know, we've had the explosion of social media we've had including for job networking with LinkedIn. Right. And creating the maybe illusion of mentorship when not the kind of signature candor that you were talking about is involved in. And the political environment is more polarized than ever and hybrid or remote work and Covid changed the way that many relate to the workplace and to their peers. What advice would you give to a company today trying to create a culture of mentorship or a team that's trying to create a culture of mentorship, you know, or even to young professionals seeking authentic Mentors.

Well, first I want to say I have breakfast with one of my sons next Friday. The habit continues on.

That's awesome.

Josiah and I have breakfast and so we continue, you know, to do that. And I have dinner next week with one of my, with my son in law. So, you know, he, he, he prefers the evening meal. So you know, we're, we're happy to do that. So it continues on. But as we get to the topic of mentors, you know, to me, you know, social media, you know, is more group think than it is mentorship. You know, mentorship is generally done, you know, small, pretty intense, pretty raw, direct conversations. And my mentor Steve, some of my mentors have passed away now, but I had a mentorship call with Steve this morning and you know, here I am at a phase of my career that, you know, many might say, Pat, you still need mentors, like, Yep, I still do. I need those other voices. And particularly as I'm navigating to this next phase of my own, you know, life and career journey, maybe more than I have for quite a while in this period of time. So I'm still mentoring today and we speak most Friday mornings at 6am and we've been doing that for probably two decades now with Steve and I. So I'm still being sharpened today as a result. And I say in the book, if you want to be everything that God intended you to be, you need mentors. You know, people who are going to challenge you, grow you and, you know, cause you to look at and think about things differently than you know, you would on your own. So I, I don't change much of this aspect of what I talk about in the book. Yeah.

And just to recap for our listeners so that they can glean some good insights from this as well, when we, when Pat talks about mentors, one key point and something that I've said to folks in the past is, and I regret not asking for mentors earlier in my career, I always tell folks what's the worst that they can say to you if you ask someone to be your mentor? They say no because they're too busy or you haven't necessarily put enough thought and planning into that ask. But they're still flattered by your asking them to be a mentor. And then you also have this concept in the book that a cord of three strands is not easily broken. And the three strands that you mentioned in the biblical context are the Pauls. So the St. Pauls who are the mentors, the Barnabas's who are your peers. And the Timothy's who are the mentees. And I like how you break a mentorship culture into having all three of those strands and that that's the healthiest way to go about these relationships. And, you know, one thing I thought was important too was we had Chris Voss from Never Split the Difference, the kind of art of negotiation from the stance of a FBI hostage negotiator. And his advice, and you have the same advice, is only ask someone to be a mentor if you'd want to have their job someday or you'd want to be like them someday. And I thought that you didn't say that word for word, but you sort of had the same, the same thinking around. You want to find a mentor who you want to emulate and have their values and have their position in life at some point.

Yeah. And you know, those three strands for me are active today. Right. Steve, you know, he's my Paul, and Gregory is my Barnabas. And we pray and fast together most every Thursday. And then I have, you know, a number of others who are my Timothy's who are part of my prayer and fasting, and I'm encouraging them regularly. So the habit continues to this day.

That's awesome. You mentioned in the book a number of times Andy Groves mentorship, which was key to your growth at Intel. We actually covered both of his books in our first season, and we were wondering what you think the most important things that modern business executives can learn from Grove's books are. And in addition, would love to have you share any, you know, Andy Grove mentorship stories with the audience.

Well, you know, Andy, you know, as I talk about in the book, he chose me, I didn't choose him. So I was pretty uniquely blessed to have him as a mentor and him wanting to breathe into my life in unique ways. And, you know, I reflect often on different mentorship topics. I joke. He. He complimented me four times in 35 years. He was tough. He was hard. One time I asked his wife, Eva and said, man, Andy is so tough on me. And she looks at me and she says, that's because he loves you a lot. And, you know, mentors aren't necessarily people who are warm and fuzzy and make you feel good because a lot of what they're doing is making you not feel good. Right. Challenge you to think differently, to look at your mistakes and your successes through a different lens. Andy's books are legendary. The people that he's touched are still throughout the industry and reflect on that. And I guess I just hope that I might have that same kind of influence in the lives of others by some of those that I mentor, some of those that read my books and writings, that they too would say my life was just fundamentally changed because they interacted with Pat just like those that interacted with Andy. Yeah.

And I love the anecdote where one of your mentees was the head of the soon to be William Jessup University. And he came to you with sort of a vision and some ideas, aspirational ideas for the future. And you basically said, I can't remember the direct quote, but you were like that. It wasn't that, that's hogwash. But you said something and completely blew that up. But then it, it made him realize what the true possibilities of that institution could be, moving it into a friendlier area, business climate and cultural climate, really growing the program significantly. Did, did Andy ever come in, I mean, apart from all the, the times where you said he suggested areas for improvement, it didn't necessarily complement. But what was an example of Andy Grove sort of blowing up your, your vision and thus forcing you to grow and learn?

Wimpy.

Wimpy was the code I remember.

Yeah, Wimpy. The, you know, one, one example of that was I had given a fundamental strategy update for the company. And if you go back and quite a few years, microprocessors were single threaded machines, right. You had one core running one thread of execution. And I had laid out a strategy to shift from single core to multi core, right. And change the peak frequency of operation to a more modest. So essentially, and having, you know, whatever it was at the time, one 1.5 GHz processors, it was to have two 1 GHz processors. And if you understand, you know, CBF squared and you know, the math associated with that, you can get a lot more power, performance efficiency from the same unit area and power budget by that approach. So this move to multicore and, you know, I had worked for six months getting the entire company aligned on the new strategy, the new technology approach.

Right.

You know, laying out the technology trajectory. You know, this was a fundamental strategy shift for the company. And I was so right, you know, this presentation and Andy was in the front row and, you know, I was just seeking his approval for this new strategy. And after it was all over, I asked him, what do you think? Just anxious, you know, just waiting, you know, for, you know, his comments. And he says, good. But you didn't give a marketing plan for the new strategy. I was crushed. Right. I was just resetting the entire development methodology, business trajectory Organization. Out of this came what was the TikTok development model, the legendary development model of Intel. I had just done all of that and I didn't give him a marketing plan. And in some ways I was enthralled. In other ways, I was just crushed, right? But you know, he just demanded me to be better, right? So like, okay, now I got to go work in the marketing plan for this. And that's just the, you know, the kind of influence that he was for me. It was just never quite enough. He was just pushing me harder, making me think deeper. But in this case, I wasn't a marketing guy, so it forced me to really think through the positioning and marketing, etcetera, of this major new strategic direction, you know, for the company. So in some ways, it was one of the best days of my career. In some ways, it was one of the worst days of my career because it caused me to go really dig into a whole new aspect, which again, led me to be a much better leader and executive.

Wow, what a treat. Talking to my students next week about concurrency. And I'll get to say that I talked to Pat Gelsinger a little bit about the transition from single core to multicore later in the book. Pat, you get into the balancing act of being a Christian in public, and you're known for being one of the most publicly Christian technical leaders in the industry. And I'm wondering about some of the simple rules that you share in the book about when it's appropriate to be talking about your faith to colleagues and when it's not as appropriate. If you could share some of those with our audience.

Well, clearly faith in the workplace creates potential antibodies at different places. And some of those may not be looked on favorably by coworkers and may not be looked on favorably by HR departments in that respect. So navigating this is super important because, hey, if you're silent about your faith in the workplace, right, in the marketplace, hey, you've just left the most important thing at the table, right? How can you say I'm be a truly passionate all in employee and leave something that's maybe the most important aspect of your personality at the door when you walk in? So obviously you have to navigate that. And you know, I talked about things in the book that, hey, if they're ready to go to the personal level, then you can too. But if they want to stay solely professional, then you must also stay solely professional. You know, some people in the workplace are going to be very guarded, some are going to be more open, but when it Goes to the personal level, if we're going to talk about our favorite football team, hey, then I can talk about what I'm doing at church this weekend, right? And, you know, it does require, I'll say, you know, we'll win some this as well. But also you have to be wise, right? And, you know, it's crazy, you know, be, you know, you know, be gentle as a dove and wise as a serpent, right? It does require, you know, thinking through it carefully for it. Also, I talk about, you know, may I pray for you? You know, I've used that thousands of times, maybe tens of thousands of times at this point, you know, in the workplace setting. And honestly, not once did somebody say, no, you may not pray for me because I'm inviting your greatest need into my greatest response. May I take your need before my God and pray for you. Now, I'm not asking you to believe in my God, I'm not asking you to pray with me and so on, but may I take your greatest need to the throne of my God and maker, Right? And again, right? It's a win sum. It's a. It's a way to cross the spiritual boundary, you know, that doesn't create antibodies unnecessarily. So those are some. The book talks about, a few more. But to me, it always is. You know, how can I make sure in the workplace that I'm not trying to win a fight, win a battle or win a logic? You know, how do I represent Christ in the most winsome and loving manner possible? And that brings the opportunity for you to be truly your whole self in the workplace.

I also liked in the book how you spoke about the mo. Your most important job, even as a person of faith, is to be a great employee first and that. That comes first and that. And then all of that will follow once that's already been demonstrated and be more understood.

Yeah, and I think that's such an important point, right? You know, if you're in the workplace, but what's your job? Do a great job. And if you're not doing a great job, you're not honoring God and you're not being a witness to others. So you show up, be a great employee and work hard and look past politics. And hey, when you don't get promoted, okay, my God's still on the throne and I'm still going to be a great employee. And if I don't get the assignment that I want to, that's okay. I'm still going to be a great employee in the workplace. And I think if you learn to really do that over and over again.

Right.

You know, it just reinforces both your workplace character and values, but also your Christian character and values.

I did want to ask you about a contemporary issue that I'm not sure there's really a parallel, but it made me think about this idea of balance still, which is politics in the workplace. And we've seen some controversies with that, especially over the last five years or so. One that comes to mind is Coinbase had some employees going a certain political direction that the leadership didn't agree with, and so they banned politics in the company altogether. So where do you think the balance is? Thinking about the juggling act between our. Our. Maybe we're very passionate about our politics and we feel very strongly one way. But, you know, we work in a company where maybe politics isn't the issue. So how do you. How do you balance that as somebody, as an employer who has maybe employees who are in the workplace and feel passionately a certain way, maybe even have created a group within the company for some of those politics? Or as an employee, what's your advice to somebody who has a lot of passion and maybe disagrees with some of the things their company is doing politically?

So let's. First, a little. A little story and a provocative question.

Right.

Was Christ Republican or Democrat? Right.

Was he.

Was he for the Romans or against the Romans?

He did say to pay taxes, so.

Give to Caesar what is Caesar's right?

Yeah. And I think in that we see even at the time of Christ, people wanted to get Christ into political debates. And he handled them in ways that never violated Kingdom principles, but he never got into the debate on politics in the workplace. I was having breakfast with a congressman recently, and a fair amount of this was around CHIPS act and industrial policy and so on. And this, I think, was probably the second or the third time that I had breakfast with this particular congressman. And all of a sudden, halfway through dinner, he says, are you a Republican or are you a Democrat? And to me, it was such a telling question because he wasn't sure. And a lot of that, particularly as CEOs. And I had a lot of work that I did with Chips and the Biden administration, but it started under the Trump administration and so on. Our job is not to be Republicans or Democrats, particularly not in the workplace. Our job is to be a great employee and a Christian witness. That's what we've been called to do. And anytime we let our politics become divisive, we've just diminished one or both of those assignments in the workplace. Now, that doesn't mean we're not going to talk about politics, the implications. In fact, I advise people to be politically very aware. US, China, global trade, implications on business. Read the Wall Street Journal every day. You know, study these things because they'll make you better business leaders and also better Christian leaders in the workplace as well. But if you let your political views become divisive and or neuter your effectiveness in the workplace, you're not the best employee and you're certainly not a Christian witness in the workplace.

You also speak about bringing your whole self to work, and that's a theme of one of the last chapters in the book. And I'm wondering how somebody should approach that who really feels like they can't, but also loves their job. And I'll give you a more specific example. Perhaps somebody working in academia. And there's certain areas, certain departments in academia where we know there's a certain kind of intolerance for certain people of faith and also certain political views as well. And so there are people who've worked in academia and truly don't feel comfortable sharing their views at all with their colleagues and even are afraid that their colleagues will find out about things they say outside of work that are related to that. But what if they really do love their job? Because one solution is, okay, maybe work somewhere else where you can be your whole self, but you might really be passionate about whatever that discipline is that you're working in. Is there any way to navigate that conundrum?

The journey of life is not one. And Christ never said, hey, you know, just bring your whole self to work and it's always going to be a good day. Now get real, right? It's called work, right? You know, there's conflict, there's sin, there's bad people, there's evil people. You know, there's good people with different points of view who are equally passionate on different things. Again, I do believe there could be intolerance to the point that it's the right thing to change your place of work for different reasons, but generally it's work. Show up, do your job, bring as much of yourself as you can be. You know, don't be fearful to bring your whole self to work. Right? Don't be paralyzed by it, you know, but also, hey, as far as possible, be at peace with all men, right? You know, you're seeking ways to make this work, but you also don't want to compromise, right? You know, if you, you know, show up and there's a bro conversation and they're using inappropriate sexual language. As a Christian, speak up.

Right.

You know, if they're, you know, taking political views that you think are not the right ones in the workplace and, you know, Demine, you know, demeaning the results of work and so on in the workplace. Yeah, speak up. You know, but also your job is to do your job right. And if your own right self in the workplace is preventing you from doing that, then figure out and make adjustments, you know, get your job done, be a winsome Christian in the workplace and as far as possible, make it a good place for everybody that you work with. But, you know, it's not going to be easy and it's not always going to be a bed of roses. So if that's what you wanted. Right. Okay. Then you should, you know, start your own company and never hire anybody. And you probably can't have any customers either because they're, they're going to have their own opinions, too. And you probably can't have any suppliers because they're going to have their own opinions, too. So anyway, get real.

You know, you mentioned, I love that, Pat, and you mentioned earlier the differences between political identity and faith identity and the depth. And I really do feel that your success and your significance comes from grace and from that faith identity and your religiosity. And I was wondering, you presented some areas in terms of bringing your true self to the workplace. You mentioned some anecdotes where your peers would sometimes denigrate that or be unkind when it came to that. There was that one example, though, where that one person found their road to Damascus or on the road to Damascus and came came around in the end, which I thought was impressive. But I'm wondering when, you know, and I think even Andy Grove recognized that your faith made you as successful and significant as you are and embrace that.

Right.

When you kind of coached him on his profanity at that one point. So he kind of saw that and many of your peers did. But I'm wondering about when you talk about the board of intel, major investors, major partners that you were talking with, did. Did they treat it in your faith as kind of a byproduct or something to keep in mind and deal with, or did they treat it like that part of you that helps you to be successful and significant? You didn't really mention anecdotes around some of those professional connections. The board, the investors, the folks at the top. How did they view your faith and how you operated in the workplace?

I could probably talk about this for the next two hours. And I don't think our podcast has enough time for it. So let me give a fun little anecdote or story and then an anecdote. So I'm having lunch with one of my board members at VMware at the time, number of years ago. And in the middle of lunch, he says that face stuff, we weren't sure. And I'm like, what? And he says, oh, yeah, yeah, we debated that more than anything before we made you the VMware CEO. And I'm like, really? He says, oh, yeah, yeah, you were qualified. But you know, a liberal Silicon Valley software company, right, With a conservative Christian CEO. We weren't sure that it was going to work. And I'm like, really? I'm just like jumping out of my chair in the restaurant at this point. You know, I'm just flabbergasted because I'm now three years, four years into being the CEO of VMware. And, right? And he says, yeah, but it worked out just fine. And I was just, you know, I was just so shocked, you know, by this, you know, conversation at the time that I had no idea that the conversation had even occurred. And God was upstream and everything worked out. And at VMware, I became recognized as the CEO of the year, measured by different organizations, Glassdoor, etc. On a couple of occasions. So I'll just say a lot of that was, yeah, you can be a values based Christian CEO in Silicon Valley.

Right.

In companies that, you know, aren't faith based.

Right.

You know, it is possible. I know from the investor perspective. One time I had an investor say, because you're a Christian, we chose to invest in your company because we trust you. You're a man of integrity. Well, you know, then I had somebody else say, well, does that mean anybody who's not is not a CEO of integrity? So it's sort of like, okay, this could be a 2 UN sword. We better use this carefully. And then I at one time had a press person come to me and says, yeah, yeah, you're the only person in the tech industry I even trust. You know, the rest are thieving liars. But you can't lie because you're a Christian. And I'm sort of like, well, okay, so, you know, I'll say, know it's just part of who you are, right? It is part of the character that you want to represent. You want to represent Christ in absolutely the best way possible. But I too am a flawed, sinful man. I too, make mistakes. I too, right, you know, will do things that I'm not proud of at the end of the day. So none of us in any role as a human being, Christian or not, should represent ourselves and our actions in ways that aren't true and aren't valid. I too am a sinner, failed in the sight of God. And if I had one purely perfect thought in my life, that would be the first one, because we're failed sinners.

And I think what you just said is so important in the context of the book as well, because I was surprised in the book when there was the strategy meeting that you discussed the CDS or the csd, I'm trying to remember the abbreviation for it.

Csd. Yeah.

Where you had a bit of a failure there. There was then the intel teleconferencing platform. And you were able to get over those missteps or those quote unquote failures. And you learn from them, of course, but I feel like the way that you were able to get over them, in part was your Christian identity, because it is about not failure per se, but there's sin, there's forgiveness, and there's moving on. And now that you phrased it that way, I can see how that can contribute to your success in overcoming those. Those missteps.

Amen.

So your story was. Was really inspiring. Going from, you know, a farm to being a QA technician and engineer, ultimately for CTO and then, then actually CEO. Can you talk a little bit about bringing the skills of an engineer to the CEO role and not an MBA or some of the more traditional CEO paths?

I've said this before, and I'll continue to say it, that I believe that tech companies should be run by technologists, just have a better, deeper view of what's really going on in the business. And when you look at the, you know, the tech companies today of Silicon Valley, you know, Satya Nadella.

Right.

At Microsoft, he was an engineer.

Right.

Zuckerberg, he wrote code.

Right.

You know, Ellison, he was electrical engineer. Right. So many of these were, you know, people that, you know, have, you know, true technical skills. And I think those that were, you know, MBAs, business leaders, CFO, you know, they just have way more challenges. It doesn't mean they're not good leaders. But I think the technology industry is so driven by the trends and directions of technologies that being a technologist just gives you an asset that's super important in those environments. So, you know, I think that's important. I think that's always been part of my success as well. You just have a Deeper intuition about strategy directions, et cetera for it, and the ability to talk to motivate, etc, the people of the organization that truly are setting those technical directions. But then again, I'm an engineer. I'm unabashably engineer biased, right? As you know, they're the best, right? You know, physicists think about things, right? Marketing people lie about things, engineers build things, right? So we make it work.

And this is our last question of substance before we wrap up, Pat but we also just saw the other day on X that you invested in a startup called Fractal in the AI space or the AI hardware space. And you mentioned in the book briefly about prior experiences investing in startups. So that's a role that you've been involved in for a while. Can we expect to hear about more startup investments? You know, what's next for you, Pat?

Well, what's next for me I'm figuring out and you know, do I take on another operating role? Do I participate with venture capital, PE or take on government and more active policy roles? Do I truly step back a bit and retire more and spend more time with grandkids? I say, you know, we're figuring it out in this phase of life and anxious to see how God uses Linda and I and the capacity that we have both, you know, the energy technology, but also, you know, the wealth and the ability to engage and mentor as well. So broadly we're figuring it out at this phase and As I said, 45 consecutive years haven't had to think about this a whole lot and now we're thinking about it. The Fractal investment was one I was excited about. In fact there were some, you know, I had three sort of core ideas when I was doing my PhD work at Stanford and two of those three ideas are now part of the mainstream computing and EDA and one of them has never made any progress and Fractile is using some of those ideas. So I was particularly excited, hey, you know, 40, 40 years later, maybe some of these ideas come to fruition. And I think in the AI space where you're doing a lot of low radix arithmetic, I do think there's opportunity for some of these in memory analog computing techniques to be much more energy, power, bandwidth efficient than today's AI approaches that I think are grossly expensive compared to what we want to do with AI going forward. So this one in particular excited me. I do have a number of others, friends, other companies that are motivated for me to get involved and help them with their companies and the directions they're following. So, yeah, I expect you'll hear more about a few more of that activities. But I don't know if I'm going to be a full time venture seed investor or quite what direction Linda and I will go in at this point.

Well, after reading the book, Pat, I can't really imagine you fully retiring, but I was wondering at the end here if there's anything else that you want our audience to know about the book. We had a pretty wide ranging discussion, but we only scratched the surface. There's so many great strategies in the book. But as a generality, is there a certain kind of reader that you really want to make the pitch to about the book, or is there something about the book that we really didn't touch on that you want our audience to know?

Well, one thing that I've said that if I had another chapter to write in the book over the last several years, one of the practices that Linda and I started to do was weekends away every quarter. And you know, satisfaction equals expectations minus reality. Okay.

Right.

There's a new formula for you to think about. And you know, every quarter we're now taking time, we're reflecting on the last 90 days. Okay. Did I feel supported?

Right.

Was I a good husband? Did I set expectations right? You know, what was good, what was bad? But then also talking about the next 90 days. What's the schedule, what we're going to do? Let's talk about our calendar. How are we going to do better on the things from the last 90 days in a very bi directional way. And you can't do that every week. Also, if you wait a year, it's too long. So we found there's a certain, you know, benefits every 90 days, getting together, having these weekends away and really reflecting back and planning forward. So if I were writing another chapter of the book, this would be one that I would be adding right now. So I guess I'll take this podcast to at least add the idea.

Right.

Without some of the analogies and stories around it. But I think this idea of with your significant other, really reflecting on how things have gone and talking about how we want things to go. And it is a powerful idea and one that I'd recommend all of our listeners to think about with their significant others.

Thank you for that, Pat. And what's the best way that our listeners can follow you on social media? Of course, in the show notes, we'll put a link to your X account and to your LinkedIn. Are those the best places?

Yeah, those are the best places. I'm lousy on social media. So, you know, now that I'm retired, I'm spending a little bit more time on them. But you know, those are the best places to keep track of me. And there may, may be some others in the future, but at this point that's the, the best avenues that listeners might have.

Well, Pat, thank you so much for joining us on Business, Books and Company. It was really a pleasure and we all love the book and we encourage all of our listeners to check it out.

Well, thank you so much and it really has been a pleasure to chat with you today and reflect back on some of these things that have shaped me and who I am today and hope to help shape some of our listeners as well.

Okay, and David's going to tell us about what we're reading for next month. David, over to you.

So next month we will be reading Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. This is a best selling book from the renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in economics. It focuses on system one fast and System two slow thinking. And the book is incredibly helpful, including a lot of practical examples you can perform as you're reading along to see the interesting ways your brain works and sometimes tricks you. Kahneman also provides practical advice on how you might avoid some of the pitfalls our system 1 thinking may lead us into. Really looking forward to reading it with y'all.

Thank you for that, David. Okay, David and Kevin, how can our listeners get in touch with you or follow you on social media?

You can find me on X at davidgshort.

You can find me on X at Hudak's basement. That's Hudak H U D A K basement.

And you can find me on X avecopec D A V E K O P E C okay listeners, if you want more great interviews like our interview with Pat and discussion of other interesting books, don't forget to subscribe to us on your podcast player of choice and we'll see you next month.