YouSaid · the spoken record

Ash Carter

lines on the record: 147
first: 2019-11-15
most recent: 2019-11-15
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“and maybe I took that for granted. I mean, I'm a believer in what we've been doing in the world all these decades. I now realize that you really have to keep proving that to the public and make them understand that this is a necessity and that you can't take anything for granted. So I would take a lot less for granted now than I thought I could when I started my career. But I had around me people like those and you tend to do that.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I I think I took a lot for granted in the course of my life. When I talk about the Jim Schlesinger's and the Prims Crow Cross and the Vill Perries and the Bob Gates and I'm being. I could always look northward right up to the president, and there was A good order and discipline for the most part in the government. These were admirable people. They made mistakes for sure, and I didn't agree with everything they They did, but starting with President Reagan and the first president I worked under, I could look up and I say the president of the United States is someone whom I can work for and kind of emulate what he stands for. There's a part of our country, and it's not just the president, but I Now understand that How lucky I was to have those people.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They know how to behave themselves and conduct themselves. They're disciplined and determined, and they understand that we all live here and that the government is one of the ways, but not the only way, that we keep our society and civilization going. They have that imbued in them. They know that they're not self-made, that they're part of a wider society. All those good values. So I'm pretty optimistic.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“about its procurement Process. I think that if it continues the kind have good management at the top, and I can't speak for that Of course, I tried to set that example, but I don't know. I think we can continue to be the finest fighting force the world has ever known technologically. as well as in the kind of people we attract. And generally speaking, I'm optimistic about that for our military overall. It's a learning organization, it's a very constructive organization. It's been at the top technologically in terms of human talent. And if it continues to draw from the civilian world the very best tradecraft from them about how to be good and how to compete and how to be the best, I'm confident we can be the best. I also think that it's a great moulder of citizens. Our veterans are wonderful people. They're morally correct.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A very rough confirmation, and I asked him to practice. I said, I wasn't too proud to practice. And he said, I've been a member of the Senate for a long time. I know how to handle it. I think in retrospect he would have done well a little bit better if he had practiced. But that was something I wasn't good at. And I describe in the book how if you're that kind of person or you think you might be, don't be too proud.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I had had all those years to think about what I would like to see done. I was going fast and I wanted them to catch the soft spots in my arguments and the place was where I was skipping over things. So I wasn't too proud to practice. But Chuck Hegel, who came before me, who was a very, very great guy, he didn't practice for his confirmation hearing.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so you have to start with an attitude that they're very stretched and they're trying. But what I had to do, Barry, and I described this in the book is practice. I would sit down before a hearing or before I went out and made an announcement or did a press conference. I would go out and practice and get my staff and I'd get Joe Dunford who was the chairman with me so he could learn too. The same room, and I'd say, ask me all the hard questions, ask me the things that I might out of thought of. Because when you're going real fast and I was going real fast because there's a lot I wanted to do and I had two years as the top guy.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I early. Early on in my time in, so to speak, the big leagues, the number three, number two, number one, I had to work very hard at dealing with the press and the Congress, just getting good at that. And first of all, you have to start from the right place. And I did, which is you can't start from a position of disdain. Congress, for example, you know, most of these guys are working so hard. They are trying to understand a much wider range of issues than even the Secretary of Defense. They have to vote on all these other issues.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I don't want there are 4 million kids who turn eighteen every year. I don't need four million. I need a quarter of a million. And moreover, many of them are not physically or mentally fit to be in our military. So there'll never be a citizen army, so there needs to be some way of linking the people and government and one way is for those who have something to contribute to find some way of being supportive. And there are lots of ways of doing that. So I think that's important for citizens. Don't believe yourself made, even if you're a successful person. None of us is self-made.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For the revolt, yeah, and every administration, things change. And here's how it looks to me about political appointees and government. About half of them are really good. A quarter of them have no idea what they're doing at first, but they learn fast and they're patriotic and they do well. And a quarter of them are hopeless and never get any better. That's pretty much the way it is. But they bring in a freshness. Every time they come that I think is healthy for our government. And so compared to the British who are horrified, for example, to see all their counterparts charge. It's pretty helpful, but in a time particularly in the military where Barry, we're never going to return to the draft. We will continue to get people to register for the draft because it's a little reminder that they owe something to their country.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, that's in a sense the theme of that book is the theme of my... Life of getting into national defense as a technologist. And there are lots of other skills as well. I'm a strong believer that the best government is one that people come into and go out of. Now, we're criticized for that, for the revival.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For the wet for Western culture, there was a thousand years when, say, Islam was going great. And China as well. And yes. And they were doing mathematics and they were doing all sorts of things with trade and pottery and glass and so forth. We were doing nothing over the Western world.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That may sound boring, but here's why. A text, if you want to learn something, a textbook is designed, it's written to teach you. Sure. So from a good textbook, you can learn a lot about a subject you don't know. And second, if you don't like, if something doesn't come through to you in the first textbook, get another textbook. I always get three or four on the same subject. I like mathematics. I like physics, but I like history and language and so forth too. Because then you can say, well, I'm going to, this, I didn't get this guy's explanation of a certain subject. So I'll go to the corresponding chapter and the other one and read that. And they've got a better explanation. And you go back and forth. I like doing that. And it may sound like an odd recommendation to people, but if you like to learn. A try textbooks”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's an executive guide or a citizen's guide to the Pentagon. It's not about me. It's about the Pentagon. I like reading books like that. That's why I wrote a book like that. I read, and this may surprise you, textbooks”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Funny, Barry. I am. And I'm all non fiction. Because I love to learn about something I've never seen, never done, never will do. That's why I wrote the book I did about the Pentagon. Because if you've never been in the Pentagon and you want to know how all the parts work.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Crap all over there. No. Biggest strategic initiative. But those people that I just named stuck up for me at that time. and therefore stuck up for the truth, and that made me feel that there was dignity and honor, as well as purpose in public life, and I tried to carry that forward with me. And I don't think I would have stuck with it if I hadn't been able to look up at people who, it turns out, became my predecessors as Secretary of Defense and say that is not only a capable and patriotic person, but an admirable and honorable person.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Capable and they always stuck up, stuck up for a junior person. And I got myself into a few tight jams where I thought I was doing the right thing. One of them was with respect to President Reagan's Star Wars. which I said wasn't going to work was my technical judgment. Well, that flew in the face of a president's desire. And I learned what it was like to tell the truth in the real world.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Remembering the right parent? No, this is a guy who there was a Perry long ago who was a different Perry. No, this was a guy who was a scientist like me, as it turns out, but not all three of those were Bob Gates. These were people who were”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. Three Star General actually rents. I gave him a promotion. Okay. He deserved one. Bill Perry, who was Secretary of Defense. Admiral in the Navy?”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About two eras. The people who got me from being a physicist to being a public servant were those guys from the generation of the Manhattan Project that I referred to earlier who believe that they had done something of consequence, namely the nuclear weapon, but with knowledge came responsibility. Then later in the time where I slowly kind of worked my way up from junior ranks in the defense establishment to becoming the Secretary of Defense There were people like Jim Schlesinger, who is Richard Nixon. Yeah, absolutely. Great, great guy.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was a 1968 impala. And the reason I know intimately about that car was I worked for five years at a gas station on North Broad Street in Philadelphia. That was my second job. The first job was at a car wash and I got fired from it. And then I walked up the street and got a job at a golf station there. And therefore I could take that car apart and put it back together again, something I could never do with a car today.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing them stick. They're fomenting all kinds of discord. And every once in a while, one of these goes, one of these long...”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that's actually a new documentary out called The Great Hack, a Netflix documentary, which describes exactly that very deeply involved in trying to sow that. Now, of course, for them, it was.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My view of him has been if it were only that we disagreed about Syria and Iran and NATO expansion and so forth, those are normal geopolitical issues. And they're with a foreign leader, you go in and you agree where you can and you agree to disagree where you can't and you go on. The problem with him is you work down the list. You find he has an item on his list that you can't build a bridge to and that's screwing us. And that's on his to-do list. It's very hard to negotiate. And say, well, let's talk about screwing us. And maybe we can meet halfway. I'm not going to do that.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They had the United States, which is doing fine and powerful and won the Cold War, and they resent, and so their way of trying to get back at us is to try to sow discord within the United States. That's all they have. When dealing with Putin over the years, by the way, I first met Vladimir Putin in 1993. He was a note taker meetings between Clinton and Yeltsin. He sat in the back, this guy, and we knew who he was. CIA knew he was. He's back there taking notes.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, when your trend lines are all down like Russia's rather than up like China's, you only have one tool. And that is to be a spoiler. And the Russians have perfected being a spoiler. For sure. So they have NATO, which has unity, and so they try to sow discord.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I want to have a China policy, but I always tell people we don't have a China policy, we have an Asia policy. And I want to win the other half. I want to trade with it. I want it to be friendly with me. I want it to work with me militarily. And that is both a good in itself and a hedge against China. So we can't lose those. We really had to keep our focus. And Secretary of Defense, I spent a lot of time meeting with my counterparts from Vietnam, from Laos, from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, as well as the traditional friends like Japan and South Korea and Australians and so forth to make sure that we had friends there and that the Chinese saw that we had friends.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They bring in their own work, and that's the Belt and Road. So it sours on people real fast because it's so exploitative. You know, and that's where China and we, I think, really differ in fundamentally. And that is this. At our best and usually, and certainly our institutions go back to the Enlightenment, and it was about the rights of man and the dignity of man. Today we'd say people. For China, it's all about being Chinese. So our ideology, yes, we're American and we stick up for Americans. Maybe we're narrow-minded sometime. But at the heart, our political values are universal. At their heart, Chinese political values are about being China. Pretty soon that dawns on everybody around em. Remember also that China's only half of Asia”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, because that's when people realize that it's all about China, and they're not grants, they're loans, they're loans on predatory terms, and the Chinese bring in all their own workers and then start taking your precious metals.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“America. Yeah. Well, go to Africa and ask how the Chinese came from first. And the Chinese have worn out there. It takes about three years and they wear out their welcome.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the Belt and Road, like them overtaking us militarily, is exaggerated also. Yeah, Belton Road. Remember, this is the country that builds cities with no people in them. And so they're perfectly capable of having initiatives with nothing going on underneath. What they did with Belton Road was gather together a lot of stuff they were doing anyway. Most of the countries that they Belt and Road with”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“that is much larger than theirs. Third we have an experienced military. Our people have basically been at war for the last fifteen years. Our officer corps is extremely proficient. And last... We have all the friends and allies, and they have none basically”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think they're convinced and determined to be militarily superior, but that's not going to happen for a long time. We have comprehensive military power that is going to be take a long time from the Chinese to overcome. Think about this. We spend a lot more every year than they do for starters. Multiple. Secondly, yes. Secondly, we have been doing that for decades, which means we have this accumulated capital stock.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I thought by two thousand, when my conversations as I watched Zhang Zimin become Hu Jintao become Xi Jinping, and I've known all three of them, it became clear and clear that they were going down a path quite deliberately of statism. Rather than free trade and capitalism, repression rather than an open society, and one that was going to use every advantage a dictatorship could have to advantage themselves, including the one you started with, which is using their spy agencies to steal information. The Chinese had copied us for a long time, or we used to be flattered by that. And then at a certain point, they get good enough at copying you that it stops being flattering and becomes threatening to you. And we pass that point quite some time ago.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think they're quite dangerous, and I have thought that for quite some time. I came earlier than most people to the view. Even though I worked with the Chinese quite closely in the 90s and after 2000, knew everybody in the PLA had good relations with them. It was clear to me that China wasn't going to turn out the way everybody'd hoped in the 1990s. Meaning a frenzy. A french us, yes, yeah. I hate that word. They'd be different. They'd be Chinese, but they wouldn't challenge the world order. They wouldn't become an economic competitor. I mean, they wouldn't become a military competitor. And they would become an economic power, kind of one like us, a free trade type economic, and be like Canada and Mexico and Europe and that kind of thing. Wishful turnout? It was. Well, in the 1990s, you may...”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let's agree to disagree about that. But I want you to come in and give us a try. And then they would come in, they'd give it a try, it would be successful, and they'd go back out to Silicon Valley or out to Boston or down to Austin, back to the tech hubs. And they'd take the word. That the government ain't so bad. After all. And it does need our help. And it deserves our help.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For the Pentagon will be very strong. And second, this will be what you'll tell your children about. You'll be proudest of this, prouder of this than working somewhere where you're selling advertising or whatever, as interesting as that. And they would come, and I wouldn't make them change clothes, and they'd be walking around the halls along with all of our people who are buttoned down in our suit like me or wearing a uniform. And they, and it was true by the time they left, they'd tell me this is the most meaningful thing I've ever done, and I'm so proud of it. I'm so proud of the people that I was with and could be part of. But if you didn't build that bridge at the beginning and you didn't say, look, we're going to have to agree to disagree about Edward Snowden. You may think he's a hero. I think he's a traitor.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And Jim Comey, who is my colleague in the FBI, was picking fights with Tim Cook, who was the CEO of Apple. And I'm in the middle of all of this. And I tried, and I think I had some success, in drawing the tech community in, but you had to kind of meet him 50-50. So for example, I'd try to get people to come in and serve in what I called the Defense Digital Service, which is it was a way that you could, a tech person could come in and just work for one year or on one project. And they didn't have to join the military. They'd have to join the civil service. They could come in. And I'd go and I'd try to recruit them. And they'd have orange hair. In their noses, and I'd say, I'm not going to ask you to do anything different. You can wear your hoodie, you come into the Pentagon, and I promise you, when you do that, first of all, your respect.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To the tech world so that we could stay connected with them and draw the best of what they were doing into us rather than having the flow only be the other direction. And now how do you do that when you have Edward Snowden? And you have a generation of technologists that is kind of suspicious of government or thinks government is inferior and sort of or... I had to try to restore that relationship of trust, which was the one that launched my career that went back to the Manhattan Project. But all that had been gone.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the beginning. That's true. But the general point is that everything that mattered and that happened of consequence came out of government, came out of the United States, and mostly came out of the military within the United States. That was then now. It's a much bigger mix. A lot of the technology of consequence to the future comes out of the commercial world and the commercial world is inherently global. What does that mean for us as the Defense Department? Managerially, it's a very different thing. You have to do not only the management within your own house of your own R&D, but I had to build, I called them bridges.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, there are two sides to it. We're still a big dog, Barry. We spend more on R&D than Apple, Microsoft, and Google combined. We still do a lot, including a lot of frontier stuff. But let's be realistic. When I started my career, everything of consequence in the world of technology, and you name things, gee, I remember the birth of GPS. By the way, the Defense Department, the Air Force opposed it. Oh, really? No, didn't want to do it and had to be overturned by the civilian leadership. Oh, no kidding. And then it was President Reagan, who all by himself decided that everybody should be able to use...”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The bus cut them loose. Yeah, well, that's fine. It works once. Then nobody else wants. After that, you don't get anything out of them.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That makes everybody in the acquisition corps perform to their highest potential. And it was real important to me to set that example that the boss backs you up when you do the right thing. And anywhere in the Pennington, and I would say anywhere in leadership in any department, you have to set expectations. But then when people meet those expectations and they run into trouble, you need to back them up. That means if you've asked them to do risky stuff and something fails, and it doesn't work out, you say fine, you took the risk and I told you to take the risk. It was too often we let people take risk in public life, and then if it doesn't work out, well, we throw”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Department of Defense is not for aircraft and satellites, not for things, it's for services mowing the lawn at a base, doing high tech RD, all these things, and you have to learn how to be a good buyer there also. As the person who ran the acquisition core, I needed to train them to be excellent in acquisition. And then I had to back them up because when companies tried to push them around or not companies, it was always the what? tried to push him around or members of Congress or their staff tried to push him around, you need to stick up for them if they're doing the right thing. And when you do that.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, and they got improved gradually over time, and we sold many of them abroad, and they were very useful in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and so forth, and also in deterring more formidable enemies than the enemies we found. There. So we needed the joint strike rider, but this is an example of how Whether it's aircraft carriers, fighter aircraft, dogs for IEDs talk about it. Services. Do you know that half of the contract spend”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sounds like a great set of incentives. Yes, that puts the right economic incentives on the contractor. And with that and some other managerial moves we made, the costs of the joint strike fighter stopped rising and eventually turned over. And now we have a joint strike fighter. I have to tell you, Barry, I said earlier in this conversation that I think it's the last man fighter we'll ever build. But we do need it now because we need fighter aircraft. And it's the aircraft of the future for our Air Force, our Navy, and our Marine Corps, so without it we would be in trouble, on top of which there are a lot of foreign customers for it, and we sell it, and it's actually good for our economy and for our defense industry. And we look at the old FAT.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For a couple of years, and I said, let's write a contract like this. We'll agree on a target price that you think and I think is about what it'll cost to build that plane. And we'll put a little profit in, not a little profit, but a reasonable profit in there for you. Every dollar you overrun of that, I'm going to make you pay 50 cents and the taxpayer will pay 50 cents, except if it runs up to 20 cents on the dollar. After that, you have to pay for it all. On the other hand, if you deliver it cheaper, Then the target you get to keep fifty cents, I get fifty cents back.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was the old method. And you can imagine where that. I mean, human nature being. You can see where that leads. And that's okay if you're doing an experimental, more developmental type thing. You don't really know where it's going to go, and it's unfair to make the guy give you a price. Right. Once he's building aircraft and he's been doing it for a couple of years. A couple of decades. He knows what he's up against. Well, in this particular model.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What did we do with the joint strike Friday to get it back on track? There were a number of things, but one thing I describe in the book, because it is kind of an executive guide how to run the place, and contracting is critical. And what I did was shift the early aircraft building contract, one of the steps I took. An incentive contract. Rather than a contract where whatever he spent, we gave him.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was a tough moment in that meeting room. That was a Saturday, and people knew if I called meetings on Saturday it was because I was pissed. And I did have the CEO of this company, and I want to say he has a successor and very good relations with Lockheed Martin, and they do a lot of good work for us, but business is business. And what I was telling him was that if this management of this program doesn't improve, it's going to go down the toilet. It's going down the reputational toilet. It's a joke in the media. What's the most bloated thing government everybody can say joint strike fighter? You are the osprey V22 is arguable. And there are toilet seats and people associated with it. Well, and you can't ask for $700 billion from the taxpayer for defense if you're running things like that. So I was the weapons buyer at that time. And I said, you know, I can't defend this kind of thing. And you're going to drag down the whole program with this kind of management. That's the point I was making to him.”
2019-11-15 · Masters in Business · Ash Carter Discusses the Business of Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source