Keith Krach - Businessman, Former Diplomat, and Nobel Peace Prize Nominee | Navigating Tech & Diplomacy

You were not made for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. Walk me through, and what that feels like. The sky was, uh... It was a shock. Today, my guess is the heat brought. Former U.S. Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth Energy and the Environment, the first and highest-ranking State Department official who had the guts and the strength to visit Taiwan even under China threat, he was the first official in the U.S. to do that since 1979. The things that you deployed in Taiwan in particular. Why does that tie back to the impact that China could have on the U.S.? Taiwan is a linchpin for democracy in a role model of freedom. That's what they are to the free world. Now, to General Secretary Xi, what they are is they dispel his myth that the Chinese culture cannot live under a democracy, but it has to live under authoritarian rule. And he wants it. Talk about the current state of China, what they have under their control, what they're trying to do. How does that impact us? How do we fight back against that? I got asked by Senator Cruz, and he said, Keith, what would your strategy be to combat China's economic aggression? And I said... Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. Now, the HubSpot podcast network has incredible podcasts like My First Million hosted by Sam Par and Sean Perry. They interview some of the most incredible business leaders, Alex Ramozi, Sophia Amaruso, Hassan Minhaj, who shared their journey to success and how they made their first million. On a recent episode, they featured the acquired podcast host Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal to discuss how they scaled their multi-million dollar podcast. Don't sleep on My First Million. If you want to get inspired, if you want to learn from the best, you got to tune into My First Million wherever you listen to your podcast. Today, my guest is Keith Crock. Keith is a former US under Secretary of State, as well as the CEO of DocuSign and Derriba. He's been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his work defending against Chinese techno authoritarianism and leveraging the United States' technology advancements towards a new form of diplomacy. He's inaugurated the Crock Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue. They address emerging challenges such as artificial intelligence, hypersonics, synthetic biology, sourcing of rare earth minerals and semiconductors, quantum computing, 5G and 6G communication networks, and energy and climate innovations. As a tech sector pioneer who co-founded Derriba and led DocuSign's growth in IPO, he was the youngest ever vice president in the history of General Motors and the highest-ranking US diplomat to visit Taiwan since the United States recognized a communist government in Beijing. He is quite the story to tell, and he's one of the few high-ranking individuals that was in the Trump administration that continued to have an important advisory role. In the Biden administration, helping ensure policy continuity with respect to China and US leadership in tech diplomacy. So we spoke about Keith's origin story. We spoke about his humble beginnings in Ohio. He worked in industry, he worked for his dad's business, and he was obsessed with technology and innovation and disruption, which obviously translated into all the incredible companies he worked for and grew and eventually exited. Of course, being CEO of Derriba and DocuSign, as well as all the other things that he's done is no small feat. But over the course of his career, he noticed that innovation and disruption, if you play fair, that's great, but you understand that there's other players in the world that don't play fair, that don't have that same ethical and moral compass that always guided the companies that Keith built. So he decided to take a stand against it. He understood the problem and he worked with the US government as Under Secretary of State to create a trust principle, which fought back against techno authoritarianism. I'm going to tell you exactly what that is, and so will he, and also how it really impacts the US and the battle that he won over 5G with China. The levers that he pulled in order to make sure the China does not dominate the US when it comes to technical innovation. And he did that through a variety of means, but a lot of it was based on galvanizing countries that had the same moral compass as the US and focusing on the things that differentiate the US and make it the greatest country in the world, which is democracy. Then we spoke about the lessons that he learned, actually combating China, 5G, they won that battle, and then the things that we have to look out for in the future, the risks that are very real to the US. We speak about all the things that he has done as Under Secretary of State. We speak about the trust principle, we speak about the clean network alliance of democracies. We speak about why companies have to have a China plan similar to one company's political Russia because of Russia attacking Ukraine. Do you have a China plan for your business? And lastly, what is a technical state craft? And why do we have to worry about it? And this is something that he's very focused on right now. Let's jump right into it. This is Keith Crock, former US Under Secretary of State, as well as CEO of DocuSign and Arriba. Well, you know, my father had a five-person machine shop in a good times. He was just me and him in tough times. I was well at age 12. The customers were, you know, the big three, three auto companies. And I learned so much from that experience. And I didn't have any great sense of humor. He'd answer the phone, let go industries steal fabrication division. Crock speaking, director of sales, how may I help you? And I would go, hey, dad, you know, there's only three of us sitting here. He goes, that's right, you know, our customers are the big three. And, you know, we specialize in quality service to let them come to the factory. But, you know, it was a great experience. You know, he wanted me to go off and get some college knowledge and become an engineer so I could grow a machine shop to a big company, maybe 10 people. And, you know, although I didn't go back, I think he was, he was proud that, you know, I went to Purdue and studied engineering. And General Motors gave me a fellowship there and also then to business school. And then I ended up going to General Motors. As a matter of fact, you know, that fellowship in business school, they paid me a half salary. So when I graduated, I actually bought my dad for the first time a new car. I bought him a Delta 88 diesel General Motors car way back then. When, when did you, when did you first get fascinated, interested in technology? When did you, because you're, you're working industry at a young age. And you've been in, like every single industry possible that has been transformed over the past, like, I don't know, 20, 30 years. So robotics, engineering, commerce, education, diplomacy, philanthropy, like everything you touch seems to be like, you're always at the right spot, right time. So what was that catalyst? What was that first thing you did that made you understand that you had an exceptional ability to disrupt, to innovate, to influence. And I think if I, you look at your incredible career, that's kind of the, that's that point in your life led to so much more. And I want to understand what that point was. Yeah, you know, I think it was, it probably started in the factory because, you know, I love working on the machines. And, and then when I went off to general motors, you know, my first job at age 19 was as a production form and second shift chassis line for Cadillac. And it was the only Cadillac plant in the world. We had 15,000 employees. So I was, I was fascinated with automation. And then my second year in Harvard Business School, I wrote is kind of like a mini thesis on utilization robotics in the Japanese auto industry. And so when I came out of business school. Yeah, they said, hey, because I'd also work in the New York Treasures office. And they said, hey, what are you interested in? I go robots. And they said, well, we have a super, super secret robot project, the most sophisticated robot in the world at the general motors research labs. And back then GM was the biggest company in the world, 1.5 million employees. And they said, we don't know what we're going to do with it. We don't know what, what we have you do. I go, that sounds perfect. And so next thing you know, I'm presenting to the board of directors of age 24, the general motors should get in the robotics business. And, and to my surprise, they said, okay, let's do it. How should we do it? I'm like, can I come back to the next board meeting? And I mean, it was kind of, and I had work, you know, in the New York Treasures office, that's a staff for the board of directors. I had worked for a guy named Rick Wagner. And it would be the CEO and chairman for like 10 years. And so I came back and I said, well, we need a much broader product line. So we need to join venture with somebody. And they go, okay, yeah, that's a good idea with who I go, can I come back at a month. And I came back. And now understand that the board back there, they're all World War II veterans. I said, we should, we should do the joint venture. We should partner with Fujitsu fan. And they go, you mean the Japanese? I go, yes, the Japanese. And it was a brilliant operation. This day, it's the largest manufacturer of industrial robots in the world. And we put GE, IBM, and Western, out of business, we became an industry leader by a factor four. The average age of our team back then was, I don't know, probably mid 30s. I was 26 when I became a VP of it. And it was a great experience. And that really got me going on technology. And then we were selling a lot of robots in Silicon Valley in the disk drive business. And I was fascinated by that. And that's why on my 30th birthday, I left General Motors, which was unheard of in those days. People thought I was nuts to head on out to the West Point of Capitalism. You know, the United Nations, you know, of business. And then the ultimate meritocracy with the premium on youth and had it, had it up to Silicon Valley. And when you look back at some of the problems that you've tried to solve and actually mentioned, like a few industries, and I, you know, incorrectly didn't even cover the full scope of all the things that you've worked on. Like the next problem you want to solve, you are a disruptor. You look at an industry and you look like 10 years, 15 years ahead. And that's probably how you've achieved most of your success. And that's thinking different. And you were wired that way from a very young age. So when you go into a variety of different industries and categories, we don't have to go into all of them because there's been a lot. But how do you look at an industry? How do you, how do you pinpoint? Because the serial entrepreneurship across multiple categories, that's incredible. The very few people achieve. You see people that go into same categories again and again. But you've done it in so many different industries. What's that secret? What's that lens that you look at the business through? Well, in a phrase, I would say it would be challenged to status quo. I would also say it would be look for a technology paradigm shift. So for example, the one after general motors was in engineering design software. And back then, they had just come out with a thing called workstations that had the power of a mainframe. So you could do all kinds of things with that. And we developed this new technology called mechanical design synthesis where you could optimize designs. You could literally press a button and it would redraw for you. My son, my oldest son who works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, utilize that technology. And for example, when we started this company called the REBA, where we invented business to business electronic commerce. This was back in 95. And the internet had just come out. So it was the first enterprise application written on the internet. So it's always kind of on the cutting edge. You know, DocuSign was, it was, you know, cloud computing and mobile had just really come into it. So because when there's a paradigm shift, what that means is all the old legacy players go back to kind of ground zero so you can disrupt them so you can challenge that status quo. So that's, you know, I think that's been the key. But at the end of the day, you know, the number one job of a CEO is to build a high performance team. And I really believe the company with the best people wins. The key is getting them working together as a team. And especially the key is to have different temperaments, talents and convictions because that diversity of thought is the catalyst for genius. I love that. And as you, you know, you go through your career, you've had multiple successes taking multiple companies public. The concept of tech diplomacy, which is now what you're focused on mostly, how did that, how did your career in private industry, in public industry, in government? How did that inform and help you understand that this was something that you wanted to take on at this point in your life? And I want you also describe what tech diplomacy is because candidly, there's a lot of subjects that I speak about on this podcast and tech diplomacy. I've actually never heard it before I, you know, started researching for our show. We were, you know, trying to do the research and figure out what exactly this is and why is it relevant? And what does it mean for the average person? So let's understand where this, where this passion for tech diplomacy came from because it's highly relevant now. And what is it? And why are you working in it? Sure. So where it really came about was when I was running DocuSci and we were up to about 500 million unique users around the world. We had entered every major country except for China. And I went on a two week listening trip. I usually would do that if we were going to a big country. And I've been going there since 1981. I mean, I'm a lover of Chinese history, culture, the people, of course, the food. But this time it was different. I could see that their traditional market competition was amped up into a new form of techno-economic aggression. Under General Secretary Xi, you know, I had a chance to see their drone, their drone swarm technology. I learned about the one belt, one road initiative, which is look like a military supply chain to me. They were telling me to download 10 cent every 30 minutes. I met with five of the top seven puller bureau members. And as I was getting back on that plane, I'm like, on, you know, the guys with the best technology went to war. These guys don't seem like good guys to me. And I go, I wonder if the guys in Washington know about this. And I really, I didn't know really anybody in Washington or in the administration. So a week later, I went out there. I made my mission to do that. Next thing you know, I'm in a room and explained about China. And they go, have you ever thought about serving your country keys? And I go, well, that's a dream I never knew I had. I'd be honored. They go, can you move? I go, I can move anywhere in the world. It's the fastest decision I ever made in my life. So that's when they set me to the State Department to run US economic diplomacy. And my mission there was to develop and operationalize a global economic security strategy that drives economic growth, maximizes national security and combats economic aggression. And so one of the first things that I did, as always, is I brought in a great team. And it was kind of unheard of in the State Department. I brought in 12 folks from Silicon Valley, results oriented execs, entrepreneurs, technologists, and we combined it with the greatest foreign service officers and civil service. And it ended up to be just a dynamite team. And so tech diplomacy with that does is that combines Silicon Valley strategies with foreign policy tools based on a thing called the trust principle, which was a doctrine we created to defeat China's master plan to control 5G communications. I'm going to take a second and thank the sponsor today's episode, HubSpot. Now, if you're growing a business, you've got a ton on your plate. You need more leads. You need to close deals faster. You need to get better insights to connect with your customers. You need a CRM. One that works from day one gives your teams a central source of truth and helps them do more faster. That's why you need HubSpot. HubSpot is an all-in-one CRM platform that will accelerate your business growth without slowing down efficiency. With thousands of customizable tools like ad tracking, social media management, and an AI content assistant, your teams will have everything they need to convert prospects to qualified leads. Plus, you can customize your CRM with apps and integrations that meet the needs of your business at any stage. So as your business grows, HubSpot CRM grows with you. Get started for free today at HubSpot.com. It's incredible what you did because everything that you just said that you did is something that I speak about in regards to the issue with government is that they don't move quick enough. They don't have outside thought coming in. So you effectively brought in some of the top talent in Silicon Valley. You applied that to an actual administration and you brought them in and now you're actually solving problems at the speed and with the lens that Silicon Valley exec would look at a problem versus a career politician. So that's something that can actually make incredible moves. Now, when you go down this path where you move from private and public and you move from that into government, talk about the current state of China, what they have under their control, what they're trying to do. How does that impact us, for example, even if I think about foreign investment into startups in the US, what do we have to be wary of? How do we fight back against that? Sure, sure. I kind of had a chance to see it my whole life because, you know, what I could see through the years, you know, through my dad's company back, you know, in Ohio, in the Midwest. I could see that China's weapons of mass production had devastated the heart of our economic engine. That's, you know, small and medium sized manufacturers. When I was a vice president general Motors, I could see if you built a plant in China, you weren't just giving them the blue prints. You were giving them the process engineer how to build it and also training their people so they could come back and compete against you. I also when I was at Arriba, we had an intellectual property stolen from Ali Baba. And now what we see, the reality we face as a nation and as a free world is seemingly ceaseless intense variation of weaponized economic competition. Because our rivals are playing the long game, they're playing for keeps, they're playing a four dimensional game of military, economic, diplomatic and cultural chess. And at the intersection point and in the primary battleground is technology. And worst of all, these authoritarian regimes have no respect whatsoever for rule of law, for property of all kinds, for sovereignty of nations, for human rights, for the environment, for the press. And, you know, we have to raise our game. And there is nothing static about superpower advantage. And so we, and the world needs American leadership. So that's what, you know, this was all about. And when, when I had my Senate confirmation here and I had a good fortune, the rare fortune of being unanimously confirmed was, I got asked by Senator Coons and he said, Keith, what would your strategy be to combat China's economic aggression? And I said, I would harness US's three biggest areas of competitive advantage by rallying and unifying our allies and our friends by leveraging the innovation and the resources of the private sector and by amplifying the moral high ground of democratic values. And that turned out to be an enduring model now that is used in the Biden administration to combat that aggression. And it was that strategy combined with that trust principle that enables to defeat that master plan for 5G. We also used it to create a thing called the blue dot network, which is an equitable and unifying alternative to what China has called the one belt, one road or a Malaysian finance minister called the one belt, one way toll road to Beijing. This is where China goes all over the world and creates these debt traps with these low income nations takes advantage, build their infrastructure, puts their, you know, literally devastates the environment. They also really take advantage of the people in that country. They don't leave them with any skills and they leave them strapped for cash. So we also used it in strengthening US Taiwan ties. So I was the highest state department official to visit Taiwan in 41 years. I was greeted with 40 fighters and bombers. And we use that trust principle put together a thing called the economic prosperity partnership and a number of other things also use that to call out the human rights abuses against the weaker Muslims in a Western part of China called Xinjiang. And on July 4, 2020 on national TV, I called it called out that genocide. It was first government official do that. And so that trust principle was really the basis of everything. And why was that, you know, I think it's because you've dealt with and observed China for so long and maybe that's the answer. But why were these particular causes so important to you? Because there's a lot of other things that threaten the US in terms of their economic prowess and there's other countries. Obviously China is one of them and we look at Russia as well. And I'm sure there's a few others that probably are trying to compete on various levels. But the things that you deployed in Taiwan in particular, why does that tie back to the impact that, you know, China could have on the US because I think Taiwan is in a precarious position right now. By the way, Taiwan is a linchpin for democracy in a role model of freedom. That's what they are to the free world. Now to General Secretary Xi, what they are is they dispel his myth that the Chinese culture cannot live under a democracy. But it has to live under authoritarian rule and he wants it gone. And by the way, to companies around the world, China, US conflict would be devastated and literally catastrophic for the high tech business because in Taiwan, that's where they manufacture the most sophisticated semiconductors in the world, which is the foundation for all technology. So this is really a big deal. And if you think of China is the biggest threat to freedom and democracy around the world. And you know, it was interesting when I was under Secretary, and this was in January 2020. I came back from Washington to my home in San Francisco. I hosted 36 of the top CEOs in Silicon Valley. You'd recognize all their names, all the companies. They've met him been here before a safe environment. I asked him to go around the room and tell their China horror stories. And you know, I can't talk about the contents of that meeting, but I could tell you this is that they, I'll tell you, it was cathartic. It was enlightening. And it was frightening. All at once got. And at the end of it, I said, you know, guys, we say out here that corporate responsibility is social responsibility. It's also national security. It's global economic security, too, because not only is China real and urgent threat to our democracy and our freedom, but there are also real and urgent threat to our businesses. And so if you think of the things that we are, those things like respect for rule of law and property and environment, human rights, these are things that we honor and authoritarian regimes like Russia and China do not. And they as a matter of fact, they use it against them for their strategic advantage. So think about this got. So let's say you're a Silicon Valley CEO and I'm a Chinese company. So if I could steal your intellectual property, if I don't have to be transparent, if I can use slave labor, if I can use cheap, huge energy, coal fired power plants, if I don't have to be reciprocal with my market. If I either am the law, or I don't have to obey the law, I'm going to beat you every time. And so, and they use co option, coercion, all all this stuff, no respect for human life. That's what we call the power principle. So what we did is we created this doctrine called the trust principle, where we actually used our advance, so one jujitsu move, we flipped them on their back. So we actually weaponized the very principles that protect our freedom. So I'm super curious because you were successful in the campaign when they were trying to basically control 5G. So if you wanted to deploy this strategy against future tech, because obviously this is going to be a recurring thing. It's not like a one and done. How do you actually, how do you actually, because all the things you mentioned before are great and they're nice and they're high level, but tactically that you're allowed to talk about, how do you actually deploy this principle to safeguard this to protect the US? What are the levers that you pull? Yeah. So, by the way, it applies across all areas of technology and all areas of economic competition, maybe even some military areas. So what was going on with 5G, because it's a great case study. And by the way, we extended it to cloud computing, we extended applications, we extended it to underwater cable. It can be applied to clean currency, it can be applied to electric vehicles, all of that. So this was back in early 2020. So it was, China had a master plan to control 5G and 5G is way more than a cell phone. The speeds are so fast that it can control power grids, utility systems, sanitation systems, manufacturing processes, Internet of Things. It carries people's most personal data, government's most precious secrets. And it looked like their national champion, Huawei, who's the backbone for their most important company, and their backbone for their surveillance state, and their neighbor genocide was going to run the table. They had just announced 97, 5G deals, 47 of them in Europe, and US efforts were failing. And we got the authorities within the government to go make a last ditch up. And the reason why the previous efforts were failing, the predecessors were going around different countries banging on tables saying, don't buy Huawei. So as guys from the private sector, we said, hey, why don't we just treat them, you know, these other countries, these telcos, like customers, and the customers always write. And nobody likes to be told what to do. And we need a value proposition. So the department with us. And that was key. The other thing too, the biggest key comes back to this issue. It wasn't a technology issue at all. It was about trust. And in my first 60 bilaterals is under Secretary of State, or me with foreign ministers, finance ministers, economic ministers, you know, I'd be in a meeting and I'd say, hey, how's your relationship with China? They would say, well, they're an important trading partner, you know, they're number one, number two. And then they kind of look both ways, like some are in the room, they leave, they go, but we don't trust them. And that rang bells in my head because just a year before I'm standing up in front of all the doctor signed employees go, we're not an insult for business. We are an trust business. We deal with people's most important documents. Those are the ones you sign. And trust is the basis of every relationship, personal business or otherwise. You do business, people you trust, you partner with people you trust, you buy from people you trust, you love people you trust. And boy, 5G is the trust business. So when we go around to these companies, these telecos, we would say, who are you going to trust with your citizens, personal data? Who are you going to trust with your company's proprietary technology? Who are you going to trust with your government's most precious seekers? And that was what we deployed. And it really was a successful strategy. Now, we did a lot of things that were nontraditional in government. In example, we called on foreign company CEOs because we knew so many of them. We were calling on the telecos, like Deutsche Telekopf or there's one in Australia, Telstra. These are the AT&T's of these different companies, NTT, to get them on our side. By the time we were done, in less than a year, we had 60 countries representing over two-thirds of the world's global GDP at 200 telecos. And a host of industry leading companies on this clean network, and this is what defeated them. And in that process, we exposed their biggest weakness, which is lack of trust. Nobody trusts these guys. And that was the key strategic position. And this ended up being the first government led initiative that actually defeated China Inc. And now has turned into this bipartisan model that has bridged from a Republican administration to a Democratic administration. And you know, when you look at what's going on in Ukraine right now, those courageous Ukrainian heart-breaking atrocities that Putin's commit, this is what we need more than ever, is this alliance of democracies. Because if you look at, if you look at these authoritarianism, and see in particular, what is his strategy? His strategy is to divide and conquer and pick off the weak as all from the herd. And you couldn't even believe how intimidated that countries and companies are of China because they have a formula of intimidation, retaliation, and retribution. So what the clean network provided was a security blanket because there's strength in numbers, and there's power in unity and solidarity. Do you feel like the fact that you deployed this and now you have the clean network and there's a model that we can work off of? Do you feel like countries, private companies are going to feel safer collaborating on similar things in the future? Do you think we've sort of seen a paradigm shift in galvanizing people? By the way, absolutely, because they can see how powerful it was. And by the way, you can see what's going on over in Europe. You can see, you know, these democracies rally because these authoritarian regimes, these are guys that care only about two things. One is regime preservation, and the other is domination, and they have no regard for human life. And you know, one of my other responsibilities, the State Department, was infectious diseases. And I can tell you, in terms of the pandemic, all roads lead to wool hot, and the emperor has no clothes. And these guys covered this thing up so bad. I mean, they destroyed all the original samples. A lot of the data killed people, you know, rolled out their propaganda machine. And it's, you know, I mean, one of the biggest crimes ever committed in the world. So everyone just want to take a second. Thank the sponsor of today's episode, Brevo. Now, Brevo is a game-changing platform that has the potential to supercharge your business. If you want to expand your customer base, supercharger revenue, who does it right? Brevo is the go to platform. 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Because now you see other nations are very scared of what's happening in Ukraine. Yeah. Yeah. You know, as a matter of fact, I think it gets back to those three key principles of unifying and rallying are allies and leveraging the innovation of the private sector and have to find those moral high grounds. I just wrote a piece. It came out in fortune today that is called present your China plan at the next board meeting because here, and this is all about the private sector. So if you think about what happened in Ukraine and Russia, there's over 300 big companies that pull up their operations out of Russia because of Ukraine. And this is expensive proposition called everybody off guard, nobody had a plan. And so what I'm seeing now in the board rooms with the most respected board members around the world are asking from their CEO, what's your China contingency plan if there's a U.S.-China conflict or a U.S.-China-Taiwan conflict? Because now that probability has gone up and she is obsessed with taking over Taiwan because, hey, if when it happens, it's too late. So don't get caught off guard again and you should have that plan there sitting on that shelf as a matter of fact, the CEO should begin to implement it immediately. So that's one of the really, really big things. It's an expensive problem to solve, but very interesting. And China's economy is 10 times what Russia is. And there's a lot of entanglement there. So that's a key thing. And I've said on a lot of boards. And the number one responsibility of board member in addition to hiring a fire at a CEO is you have to mitigate risk. And you have a plan sitting on the shelf for the one that keeps you everybody up at night. The cyber breach, by the way, you need to plan sitting on a shelf for his China contingency plan because she is not slowing down. As a matter of fact, he is just speeding up and it looks like he's going to be elected for life. So he's going to be unencumbered. Now when you look forward to the future, what are the tactics you think China could deploy that keep you up at night? What are the different things that you think they will go after now knowing that you have a plan to sort of counter attack what they've been doing in the US and with 5G and any other technology develops? Like the only thing that I think of, and maybe you can provide commentary on this or other, would they try and find, for example, startups that maybe don't are a little bit hungry or are a little bit more, you know, they need help more than a large Fortune 500 private company or public company. Maybe they go after people at an earlier stage when they really need that capital and then they sort of plant that seed there. Is that real or is that, or other things that we have to watch for? Scott, they've been doing that for years. That's kind of a standard operating procedure. Is the get guys early on who need that financial capital. So they could take control of the coming, particularly here in Silicon Valley. And by the way, they disguise a lot of these companies. These guys are masters of concealment and deception. You know, what a lot of people don't understand is the average American investor and pressure is financing. China's military bill up their surveillance state enabling their genocide. And the way China does that. You think of all these, all these Chinese companies, you know, they're involved in this. They've broken into an unnatural amount. You never see it in a real world of subsidiaries with different names in the Cayman Islands. And that's for the purpose of concealment and deception. Then what they do is they seduce with money. These index funds like MSCI index funds, FTSE index funds where they're able to bury their companies. Whether they're on a Chinese stock exchange or even in the US stock exchange. And then those go into these big funds like BlackRock is the biggest. There are 431 emerging market funds. These are like ETFs and mutual funds. And then those get buried in the 11.7 trillion dollar pension funds in the US. So one of the big things that we need to do is stop financing China's malign activities because they need hard currency over there. So that's a really, really big one. And that's something a lot of people don't realize. You know, my last press conference is under secretary. You know, I asked the press. They said, you know, send a message to the average American investor. To ask their financial manager, whoever manages their pension. To tell them what Chinese companies are under funds. And if they say they don't know, then ask them to find out. And if they come back and they don't give you the answer or if they don't come back, best find a new fund manager. And this is something that, you know, I wrote to a letter to all university governing boards because it's also in all these university endowment funds. This is big monies in there. I wrote a letter to all United States CEOs and boards about utilizing slave labor and finance and the Chinese intellectual property theft and all of that. Because, you know, when I think back when I was a CEO or when I was also I was chairman of the board of trustees at Purdue, I didn't know any of this stuff. And, you know, so it's time to turn that time because, you know, what we thought, Scott, for longest time, we thought capitalism equals democracy. We're trying to prove, prove, prove us wrong on that. And it's time to take off the rose color glasses and treat them not how we hope they'd be, but how they truly are. Talk to me about you co-founded at Purdue, the Institute for Tech Diplomacy. So I feel like that's in the same vein as what we were just speaking about. So what's the goal with this? What are you trying to accomplish? What's it teaching over? Well, Scott, technology must advance freedom. Technology is powerful, getting more powerful every day. It could be used for good or bad purposes. So that, you know, that mission is to advance technology or to advance freedom through trusted technology by utilizing the trust principle. And also by training diplomats around the world, training the private sector in tech statecraft, how do you compete against somebody who doesn't play by the rules and wants to put you out of business? So that's what it's about. And it's now become probably the world's freedom and authority in this whole area of tech diplomacy and tech statecraft and building trusted networks. And it's totally bipartisan. For example, we have former Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, is on the board. We have the longest serving director and asses on the board. We just put on the number two guy at NATO Deputy Secretary Juana. So this is an international effort and really against probably the biggest existential threat that democracy faces. And it's real because, you know, this democracy we have is just an experiment. And, you know, growing up at a little house in Ohio with a white bigot fence and a dog and 2.5 children, that kind of goes against all the laws of physics. And it's just an unnatural act because, you know, the most natural order of things is the bad king, the dictator, the emperor, you got to fight every day for that. I clearly learned that in my service to the country. Yeah, no, I appreciate what you're doing. And hopefully, and I'm sure this is, I'll ask this question in a second, but I also want to know like what your plans are for the future after your incredible career and where you want to take it from here. Because this is like, you're building up the blueprint again in another category that's just being developed. So, you know, you're leading the way. But before I ask that question, I'd be silly of me not to just commend you. You were nominated for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. Walk me through even what that feels like to be part of that. Did you expect any of this? Was this something that you've ever even dreamed that would happen? Or is this something that, you know, it's just the byproduct of somebody who's committed their whole life to trying to do the right thing? Well, Skyda was, it was a shock, first of all, but the, but the lasting feeling is humbling because you look at the Nobel Peace Prize, where the winners in the past, whether it's guys like Nelson Mandela or Mother Teresa. I mean, Martin Luther King, that list goes on. But also, you know, I think, for example, what's going on in Ukraine and occurs to those Ukrainians, you know, it's hard to compare. And, you know, the other thing, when something like this happens, it's really about the team. And I had a fabulous bipartisan, diverse team that really made that happen. So, you know, it was a surprise for me. It's obviously a great honor. You know, you know, I'll never forget. It's kind of funny is that when my father and I were working at that factory, you know, when I was a teenager, we go in on Saturdays and we clean, we clean out the bathrooms together. And I remember once we're scrubbing out the toilets and all of a sudden I hear him just yell, because I hated it, you know, he hated it too. And I hear him yell, Keith, we can't solve real peace, but we can try. You know, I mean, this is funny. And anyway, I wish she was alive right now. Here's another funny story. The only person that wasn't surprised was my 95 year old mom. So, I have her on a Zoom call, right? And my two sisters are by her, hey, mom, I've been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. She goes, oh, I knew you would. I knew you always would be, of course, yes. She's a good mom. You've been playing this. That's one years old. I wish she would have told me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, she was in person when I'd be playing football Friday nights and she would go, Keith, kill him. You know, and we'd be in a huddle. They go, Crock, is that your, is that your mom? I go, yeah, we each other shut the heck up. I'm not done shut the heck up. You guys tell it. We're not done. I go run the play. Let's go. Ready, break. That's beautiful. It's good. She's, it's good. She's around for this. That's very beautiful. I want to do a couple of rapid fire to close this out. But most importantly, before I pivot to those, where can people connect with you? Where do you want to send people? The websites, the social, anything you're working on? What are the places you want to go see? So I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Twitter. There's a Keith Crock dot com website. Then of course, it visit our website at the Crock Institute for tech diplomacy. That's tech diplomacy dot org, I think. I'll get in the show notes. Perfect. Okay. So let's do a couple of rapid fire. So I alluded this question before, but it's, it's a great question because again, you've accomplished so much. Like serial CEO entrepreneur, now underwriter and now noble under secretaries, excuse me, a noble piece prize nominee. What do you want to accomplish next? What's your, what's your goal? And, you know, in the next 200 years when somebody speaks your name, what, what do you want them to associate with what you've accomplished? Well, you know, I think I've been, I've been jumping in water over my head by whole life and it creates an adrenaline rush. And after a while that adrenaline rush is addicting. So, you know, I think that's, that's maybe the first sign of a surreal transformational leader. I mean, I can't join an organization that I don't try to transform. So what's next, I'm not really sure, but the next thing usually comes, but I can tell you, you know, if you ask me what I like to do the most, I have a wonderful family, I have five children, there's nothing I like more than that and transform their lives in a wonderful wife. Whose name is Mehta, who I've affectionately now just called Facebook, but, you know, she's funny. But if you ask me, you know, Crock, what do you think your legacy will be? I don't think it will be, you know, to me, it's not the companies I built or even the causes. I think it's the people that I've met her along the way and I've benefited great from mentors my whole life. You know, my mom always used to say the best way to learn is OPE, other people's experience, because she said learn from other people's mistakes, because you learn the most when you make mistakes, you'll have time enough to make your own. And so I also started an organization called the Global Mentor Network, which mentors the transformational leaders of tomorrow at scale with some of the greatest transformational leaders. By the way, that's a great website to send your audience to is called the Global Mentor Network. And, you know, my dad used to say, you never know if you're a good father until you see your children's children. I also think you never know if you're a great leader until you see your mentees mentees, because the ultimate is to pay it forward and pass it down. And by the way, that's the secret to Silicon Valley is the genealogy in the mentorship, because all this stuff is not written in a book. And so anyway, I think my legacy would be the people that I've mentored, you know, through the years. And they're, you know, I mean, it's like your great, great grandchildren kind of thing. That's, that's the best way to leave a legacy. Hey success story listeners, Scott here. Just want to give a shout out to the sponsor of today's episode, the eBay for business podcast. This is a resource that every entrepreneur should be tapping into. I don't take this lightly. I'm a podcaster. I have a high level of scrutiny for the other podcast that I tell people to go check out. 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Don't miss out on this go to source for all things eBay tune into the eBay for business podcast weekly wherever you get your podcasts. It's time to take your business to the next level with insights from those. Who've already done it. What keeps you up at night now? Well, you know, if you asked me to add as a CEO, I'd always say, well, it's at cyber breach, right? The document is the most hacked application in the world now. But it's, I mean, it's the authoritarian. It's the Russians in the Chinese because she and Putin are not going to stop. Because if they do, they're dead. And these guys have obviously nuclear weapons that they're disposal. And, you know, she is too smart to do a 9-11 or a Pearl Harbor. So it's kind of like a Python. Just keep wrapping around. So most important thing is, can a world wake up soon enough? And you know, what was interesting for me is we were going around building the clean network a year ago during the height of COVID. I could see citizen of the world waking up to what I call China's three C's doctrine of concealment coefficient coercion because these citizens now understand that the pandemic is a result of the concealment of the virus. Whether you believe it came from the Wuhan lab or not. And they could also see the co the co option of Hong Kong resulted in a visceration of all assistance freedoms. And people are learning now about the coercion in Xinjiang and how that has resulted in a punishable genocide. And the citizens don't like it. And it's beginning to give the political will to government leaders and the CEOs to stand up to that China bully. It's the most unifying. It's a bipartisan issue on Capitol Hill. And all I know is, you know, we've all been bullied, right? Sometimes in our life. And all I know is when you confront a bully, they back down. But they really back down. If you have your friends by your side. And by the way, they really, really back down. If you have your friends by your side, you punch them in the nose. And that's what we need to do. We need to unite the world. And we need this next generation of transformational leaders because things are changing so fast. We need honorable leaders, principal leaders. We need transformational leaders who can envision solutions for complex problems. That's really my quest. If you had to choose one person, there's been many in your life. But one person has had an incredible impact. Who is that person? What do they teach you? Well, for sure would be my dad. I'll tell you a funny story. So, you know, I've always been fascinated with leadership. So I'm often Harvard Business School. And there's just my first year. And there's a professor who teaches second year classes and he's the guru for leadership. I try to get a one on one for a long time. Finally, I get it. I go into his office because what do you hear for? I go, I just have one question. What makes a great leader? He goes, close your eyes. I'm just so close to my eyes. And he goes, as soon as you can, just picture your head. The leader, you just follow, you know, just right who's the leader? He goes, you got it? I go, I got it. He goes, now, that open your eyes. Why is this person a great leader? You got it? Yeah, I got it. He goes, you can open your eyes now. I go, okay. And he goes, you know, I don't know the answer number one, but I can tell you the answer number two. By the way, I bet that person's fun to be around. They might even have a great sense of humor. And I go, you're absolutely right. I mean, like super fun. And you guys probably funnest, funniest guy. No, he goes just out of curiosity. Who is it? I go, that's my father. He goes, you have any more questions? I go, no, he goes, you're dismissed. So, I mean, that's, I mean, right? Most important things are written in the book. And by the way, I remember my dad say, and he goes, he was a boxer in the army. And we're sitting there drinking a beer one night. I think I was in college or something like that. And he goes, Keith, you ever feel like you're like corner of the ring. You're in a jam, you can't get out of it. I go, wait, me daddy. He goes, yeah, no, you're corner. You don't get that warm feeling. How am I going to get out? I go, yeah, yeah, yeah. He goes, you know, there's a way to get out of it every time. I go, well, what's that dad? He goes to work every time. He goes, mock yourself out. He goes, you know, I don't think he do like with the word self-deprecating humor. He just goes mock yourself out. He goes to get you out every time. And he goes. And it's funny. Now, don't mock somebody else out because you're going to hurt your feelings. Plus, it's not funny. You know what I mean? That's right. That's kind of stuff. I love it. What was the biggest challenge that you had to overcome in your own personal life? Had you overcome it? And what did you learn from it? Poof. I think there has been probably a lot, but what's one that stands out? Yeah, there were a bunch of them. Well, I'll tell you one that really struggled. So when I left General Motors, you could imagine, I mean, I was a high potential candidate. Youngest VP. I mean, you're tracking, right? And I leave. I leave everything behind. So I go out to the software startup company. A lot of people don't know about it. It was called Kronos. This was the first one. It actually wasn't razz. And to be the number two guy, the software company. And my second day on a job, the CEO says, this is what I want you to say in the next board meeting. And I go, Maria, I will not say that. That would be lying. And I got that warm feeling in my stomach. Go, I just made the biggest, you know, mistake of my life. And because I knew we had different definitions of integrity. And I thought I could fix it. And I tried for about nine months. And finally, this was my first son was being born in the hospital. And IBM was a big investor in his company. You, you, by the way, it doesn't exist. It was Kronos, really cute. Nobody knows about it. And as you kept calling me up, she goes, you got to be here for IBM. I go, I'm not missing the birth of my son. So after a couple of times you call me, get me trying to come back. I just told her to do something that's an anatomically impossible to do. And I said, I quit. And I was probably one of the greatest inflection points of my life because I've been surrounded my whole life with a great set of values from family, Rocky River, General Motors, Purdue, all of that. And it was always before my very eyes. But I just took a granted everybody was, and I learned that's not true. So out of that experience, every company that I helped build or every organization I've been part of, it's always those set of values and integrity is always, always at the forefront. And then that led to all these high tech companies and the government and stuff at Purdue and everything. So that, you know, my dad, my dad. Yeah, I would say another thing too. He goes when the world hands you a sour sack of shitty lemons, your job is to turn it in a sweet lemonade. And, and by the way, that I think is that's a key quality for grit and adversity quotient, which are probably two most important things. I'll say grit over brains or anything any day because, you know, anybody can run the ball, you know, that first 80 yards down the goal line or 90, but when you're, but when you're there close to the end zone to punch it in for the score, that's when it's the hardest. And that's when you got to get bloody and bloody on that battlefield. So anyway, I think that's key part. If you had to pick a book or podcast or something that's influenced your life, that you'd recommend somebody go check out, what would you pick? Well, the art award by since one. That's a good one. Yeah. But ironically, I would, all the companies I built, I'd have, you know, because the short book, I'd have our folks read it, you know, says stuff like, when you're strong, act weak, when you're weak, act strong, the highest paid guy any armies to spy speeds the ultimate weapon. So I think that that's one. You know, when I was, I think it was a high school, I read just the classic Dale Carnegie, how to win France and influence people. That was a really interesting one for me. It may be thinking, maybe it got me fascinated in leadership, I think. Yeah, I think that was, that was a real groundbreaking. I think Ben Franklin's autobiography too. Yeah, that's a good. So I, you know, that was a good record. And of course, your podcast, that's actually my favorite now. I appreciate your kind, but that's a, those are, I'm in the shadows of giants compared to all the books that you just, you just listed off one day, one day. They all started, they all started with a podcast. So you know, it's got whatever the version of a podcast was way back then. But yeah, yeah, I was talking to people. Yeah, just talking to, this is why, this is why it's talking to people, talk to people. So if you could tell your 20 year old self one thing, what would it be? I mean, so many things running through my head, I think I would say, don't get too high on the highs and don't get too low on the lows. Everything is going to even out. You know, and you know, when things are going really good, best be looking over your shoulder, because there might be a freight train coming. And when you're just down to the dumps, look, tomorrow's the new day. And I mean, I, you know, I've experienced some things where it's like, man, to see an entrance might be on. You know, your front lawn, you know, tomorrow, you know, that I've been curled up in a desk in a fetal position. You know, as a CEO, you're guaranteed to do it at least once a quarter. So it's like, hey, man, you're going to see it through. And your safety net is your faith in your family and your friends at the end of the day. And that's what really gives you the courage to put it out on the line and get bloodied. And then last question, what is success being to you? I think, as I said before, I think it's paying it forward. That's, and seeing what my, you know, seeing my grandchildren, like my dad said, you never know if you're good father until you see your children's children. I just got two of them. Congratulations. And thank you. Thank you. It's great. It's a great feeling. Now, I've got these ten-year-old twins, man. They're dynamite. I mean, they are fun. They come up with the funniest things. And then I also think, too, in the business world, you know, like a company like Ariba, I think we spawn 12 public company CEOs. So to see those guys do really great, I think that's my definition of success. You know, my other definition of success is that my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, be able to live free because dad is not a given. And dad, I want more than anything else.