YouSaid · the spoken record

Revathi Advaithi

lines on the record: 73
first: 2021-05-25
most recent: 2021-05-25
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

“Excited about what you want to see from Flex is more and more and more investment and more and more conversations around that. It's just a personal passion, but it's also what I think we can be good at.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Say the most important thing what we have talked a lot about is we're very excited about investing in businesses like health and automotive, particularly because there's so much happening in that space from a technology change that we think we can bring a unique perspective to. So we are most excited about that. And we want to participate in that. We want to be part of the change that's going on in EV. We want to be part of the change that's going on in autonomous. We love what's happening in the healthcare space, in the amount of work that's going on with our teams to rethink the healthcare space and help our customers do drug delivery better or things like that better. We're very excited about that. So that kind of technology that is changing the world in some way, either it's helping people or helping with climate change because you're using EV or autonomous, those are the things where the most”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then second is that, you know, in that 24 months, nothing changes in all the scenarios that you planned, right? Whether it is government or tariff or competency of the workforce or any of that. So we definitely have to make it in that time frame. So yeah, very different from, let me change the line in the software code and here I go.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not as long as starting to make a chip in a foundry, which is years, but it is long. So if we are starting to ramp up a program, let's say in Austin or in Columbia or Memphis, by the time you buy the equipment, it'll take, let's say, 30, 40 weeks. The equipment gets on, you know, comes, gets landed, gets qualified, you ramp up production. I'd say minimum best case scenario if the stars lined up would be 12 months. In most cases, it would be somewhere in the 12 to 24 months, right? So when we make a decision, you have to first understand that demand is still going to be there 24 months down the line.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A trade comes down to this is not something anybody has made up. It's started years and years and decades of trade policy competing with free markets, competing with tariffs. We've all seen that in the last 30 years of our career, right? They come and go many, many, many times. Pandemic has changed it. Intellectual property security has changed it. Cost of logistics have changed it. If it is done for the primary purpose of politics, then I feel differently about it. If it's done very clearly because there is an agenda that helps a certain country, then I personally feel different about it, right? But at the end of the day, my big support is less trade and tariffs and open free market policies good for the world. So the less I see of it, the better off it is my personal stand on this. Does it happen everywhere in the world? Absolutely.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Way I say we stay out of politics is my personal politics has nothing to do with what I do with my customers, what I do with my employees and how we run our organization. We understand that we have a role to play in politics in terms of taking a stand where we see that it's right for our company, for our employees. Do we take a stand there? Absolutely. But are there places where we don't have a stand to take? Yeah, we don't. Like on trade, did we have a stand to take? We did. Did we take a stand on giving our employees a”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'd say my reaction to almost any of these situations is that in our factories Nile, we make what our customers are wanting us to make and what we have committed to make for them. So our factory is their factory. It's an extension of their manufacturing capacity. We are providing expertise people, all of that. So if it benefits one of our customers and that's what they want to do, then we're here to support them, right? And that's how we see it. And it's not our role to say no to a customer unless it doesn't fit our values, unless it doesn't fit our philosophy. And typically we don't do that. You know, we host a lot of government visitors in many of our factories across the world, either by ourselves or with our customers. And we feel like if it benefits them and it serves a purpose, we're happy to support it as long as it doesn't go against our purpose.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of the decision. It really isn't the major reason why one would make a decision to locate a manufacturing factory anywhere in the world.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'll give you my personal view, Nilaya, because I've built enough factories in enough countries to know that they work to some extent. If you need something as a gap filler, but will you make a decision to put a factory in a place just for the tax incentive when you don't have a good supply base surrounding it, when you don't have the right labor or the skills available? The answer would be no. Does the tax incentive give some additional impetus to choose a place when all things being equal? Yeah, maybe yes. But there's no way that you can make a decision based on a tax sentence if you don't have the right supply-based surrounding, that place for the parts you need. You don't have the right skill sets, then it doesn't work. So for me, the tax incentive always is the last point of the decision all things being equal. And it's a very small point.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We have given kind of 50 reduction for 2030. We have actually worked through our ability to get that done. And that's our first major hurdle that we're going to overcome.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Do it because I have 130 plus facilities that are using a lot of energy. And I have to do it with my supply base, which is even more significant. It's a lot of work for us to make a commitment like that.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think we want ourselves to be net zero carbon. That's what our aspiration is. We've already committed to pretty significant reductions through the next decades coming on. We're installing a lot of our own power sources where we need to install as it becomes more reliable. We don't want to just be buying power that's net zero. If we can do it ourselves, I think that would be our ideal place to be. And I think most companies should think about it that way. I would say it doesn't take away that if you can buy net zero, that's fine too. But if you can do it yourself, even better. Real thing is, can you commit to getting it done, right? Even for our teams, you know, when tech companies, I don't want to take away from software companies that are making these commitments of being net zero, but like you're not making anything at the end of the day, right? So that's a whole different ballgame than when I commit to cutting emissions and being net zero. I'd really have to.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Spending time on it, we definitely worry about this a lot. And I would say that we have really increased our focus and our investments in this space to make sure we're not affected or our customers are not affected.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We do worry about that a lot. We just did a long deep dive with our board on this topic, not just in terms of it being able to enter our factories or affect our customers' products, but the implications of that, right? So for example, if it happened in a medical product, right, that would be pretty significant for us. And of course, if it impacts large customers and it's in the news, then it's a PR issue. But in general, just the issue that it could affect our customers, it could affect consumers who are using our products is of significant concern to us. We have an incredible IT team, right? We have such a complex system and everywhere in the world, but they are really good, even when all the large attacks happened last year. We really had, you know, managed to minimize the effect of it. I'm spending time on it. My teams are spending time on it. Our board is...”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'd say we definitely think about it, particularly when we're thinking about building a new factory somewhere. We're thinking a lot about availability of power. Do we have to have our own power set up? Do we have to have solar installed? Or do we have to have some other alternative power installed? What is the government support in terms of energy policy? Those all go into our consideration, particularly when we're doing a green field or a new site. And they're very important considerations. Because if we have large factories, they use a lot of energy. And if you have inconsistent and unreliable power, it's very, very hard to run factories like ours. And we don't want to be putting that much backup power. It plays a huge role for us in terms of decision making and how we think about where our future”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Almost a month to start your ramp back up and very different for us. We lost time, but we were able to make up most of it. But we obviously were impacted by the shortages.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But we were affected for a lot shorter time because our manufacturing doesn't work like kind of a foundry manufacturer, right? In a foundry, when you have an electrical shutdown of some kind and you don't have enough backup power to run critical parts of your foundry, bringing those back up takes a significant amount of time. And that's not how our production works. When we lose two or three days, we can start up again and almost pick up where we left off because we don't have those type of critical foundry manufacturing set up that Samsung has or other companies have. So that's why you heard most of the packaging people, right, NXPs, TIs, Samsung's of the world say they lost a lot of time with the weather issue because when they shut down, it's not as easy as starting back up. They have to go through a process one at a time.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'd say the other way to think about it is, yeah, if it didn't have enough chips, we wouldn't be able to grow fast enough. Right now, are we not able to keep up with demand because of chip shortage? Absolutely. The answer is yes. I think that applies for us and that applies for almost everybody else. So absolutely we see it that way.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because bringing back memory production to the US is going to take a lot of time and effort and building that capacity is not going to be easy. Assembly and packaging almost doesn't happen here at all, right? It's all happens outside of the US. Bringing that back is going to take a significant amount of work, training labor, which we don't have today for that kind of work. I think those will take a much longer time. So I would say there'll be some short-term help as Intel puts in additional capacity, but most of it I see it kind of through the next five to ten years.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'd say what helps the current shortage is immediate foundry capability. You heard those announcements come out from TSMC, from Global Foundries, from Intel, and those have to get ramped up over the next 12 to 24 months to help the current chip shortage. And that's where I think we'll see some immediate effect. What the Biden administration is talking about is something more than that. They're talking about longer-term. How do you bring a larger percent of the foundry capacity back into the United States? Also, how do you maybe bring back more memory production into the United States? Those kinds of things, I think, will take a longer amount of time because a lot of that capability sits in Southeast Asia. But it mainly helps in the longer term.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Something in terms of the overall chassis design and all that? Probably not. So you'll stop at a point where you think you have the best opportunity. But in someday, can you see you doing something with battery design? Because it's kind of if you're doing the battery management system, do you want to do something with batteries design? Maybe. So I think that's kind of how we see it evolve. But then I don't see us doing many of the mechanical things. I think those will lead to the traditional people who are good at it. And we definitely don't see ourselves putting together the full car.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I'd tell you, you know, first is I never see myself putting together the body of a car and the seats of a car. And I've spent too much time on these industries to know that that's not a place that we're good at or that we want to be in. But where do you see is can you tie more electronic products together? So if you're making inverters, can you tie in chargers? Can you tie in that with your communication platform, for example? Today, if you think about the auto communication wireless, Bluetooth, everything that sits in an automaker's central console, it's still pretty outdated in terms of how it's manufactured, right? So can we design all that? Can we put all the electronic platform together, which is inverter, converter, charging unit, a battery management system? Can we put the whole platform together? Yeah, absolutely. But we do.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This brings me back to what we were talking about at the very beginning, which is you're investing in the platforms, the You're investing in something that's almost a car, right? You're going to design a bunch of stuff that could almost be a car and then a car company could come to you and say, we want this platform to actually design and build a consumer product on. Where do you see the stopping point?”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's how we see the opportunity, but every car maker is doing it differently. There are some who are just building off of existing platforms and trying to make a variation of it, at least using kind of the base chassis and that being similar across their platform. And then there are others who are kind of saying, hey, listen, I'm going to build it from scratch. Like Porsche is a good example, right? So each car maker is doing it differently. But I'd say in some way, you have to play into that opportunity, whether you're going to do it from scratch or not, or whether you're going to take a current design and redesign it. In some way, you have to do it because it's just a basic expectation that we're going to use less of traditional forms of fuel and there's no reason for us as cost points are coming down for electric vehicles that you don't incorporate in some way.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so the equipment's outdated, the designs itself are outdated. And so that's where I would say the biggest bottleneck is today. And for that, not only do automakers have to redesign the things that they are doing and have to bring it more to current standard, but then foundries have to invest in equipment that is not transferable from what is being used for consumer products. So that means you have to go buy equipment, which is billions of dollars. You have to put it in place and ramp up production. So it's very, very specific to the automaker's needs. And I'll say that's probably the biggest gap today. And foundries have to decide whether they want to invest in that, whether that is where their strategy fits, which is also part of the equation, right? And we're talking about what three or four foundries in the world of which two are the most critical.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would say that today the shortage is mainly in what's used in the automotive industry because the automotive industry makes up like 8 to 10 percent of the chip usage in the world. It is not kept up the way consumer products have which have had many iterations and many changes. The automotive semiconductors have been pretty outdated.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One thing that has struck me about the entire ship shortage conversation is we keep talking about ships like they're a commodity. Like you can just get some computer chips and you're off and running. That is not true, right? I mean, there are many kinds of chips that do many kinds of things. They operate at many different process nodes, different sizes. Where's the most acute shortage, do you think?”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think our view is that demand continues to stay strong just because everything is electronics in it, everything's going to need chips in it. That is just going up significantly day by day. requirement for chips is just going to go up. So that demand's going to stay strong, but it takes a while for foundries to ramp up capacity. So that's going to take well into next year or maybe even further to get that type of capacity ramped up. And I think we're going to have to kind of wait and see how that plays out.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Rare earths and all that goes into chip production, there's still enough available. It's mainly comes down to foundry capacity and then packaging capacity not being enough.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Starting to stock up as the whole issue was going on with Chinese customers. So the combination of all of that meant as the return from pandemic and demand came up, there just wasn't enough in build foundry capacity to manage it. So there's the foundries, then there's the people who assemble test and package and put it together. Everyone was running at a capacity. And so any little hiccup on top of that power goes out, you know, there's a fire. or something like that makes it worse. And that's what has added up to this.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Too. And then you think okay, fine, business as usual should be coming back after that. Well, no, not only does it come back, but it comes back to a very significant ramp of plus 80%. And that didn't happen overnight. The fact that electric vehicles are more present and has more electronic content, the fact that you're just going to see automakers need more chip content than they had before. Autonomous vehicles the same way should have been seen. And it should have been well predicted, but forecasting is a highly inaccurate model and nobody gets it right. Now you combine that with the fact that consumer products were going through the roof in the pandemic, whether it's phones, whether it's iPads, whether it is everything you use in your home, they all have some kind of chip incorporated in it. So consumer products going through the roof, China getting concerned that they're not going to be able to buy enough chips. And so they're”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's affecting us definitely like everybody else because everything we make has some form of a chip in it. Almost every business, automotive medical to some extent, industrial consumer. Think of a business that affects all of them quite significantly. We're in the middle of this with customers, with suppliers, with foundries. I say it all begins for the simple reason that most companies are not great at giving forward-looking forecasts. The idea that everything has more electronics has been happening for a while. The idea that, you know, because of that, you should see chip content go up is understood, but nobody's good at forecasting these things, right? So automotive customers, if you take them as an example, cut down production last year in the peak of pandemic, somewhere between 50 to 80 percent, right? So that happened like last year in Q1, Q2 more in Q2.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It works very, very elegantly. It works like this. One of my leaders who was working for me says, Hey, listen, we have recast our vision, our mission, we're thinking about the kinds of products we should be in. We're quoting this particular product in this country. It's a customer we already make product for. What do you think we should do? So I'd say, hey, listen, does it fit with our new purpose? Where do we think we are?”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's hard to give you examples because I can't name any of my customers, right? It's really hard. But I'd give you a simple one, a very specific defense customer where we were making very specific products that we felt like we shouldn't be involved in. So we exited that and we stopped quoting those types of products in the defense space, you know, in our industrial vertical. So that's an example of something that just didn't fit our purpose in what we thought we should have been involved in, that we decided to back out of.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You an example of that. Usually when I talk to platform CEOs, we end up talking about content moderation. But backing out of manufacturing because you don't want to support a customer, I was not anticipating that to be a thread here. What kinds of things have you backed out of making?”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In Shawnee, Oklahoma, where I was in Hammond, England, or it was always like my colleagues around me, what happens first? Because I come to work because I like the people I work with. That's the most important thing. And we want to do what's right for our colleagues around us. And then I'd say there's been some level of thinking around which types of customers do you want to support? And we have backed out of certain customers that don't meet our purpose. So we've done that. So I think our decision making has changed around that.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That my customers were calling me left, right, and center. They were like, Hey, your competitors haven't shut down, other people haven't shut down. Why are you doing this? And we said, well, it's the best thing. We can see this in our numbers. We can see what's happening in our communities. It doesn't make any sense. And that's part of our culture. We took tremendous heat for doing that from our customers. But after that, after three or four weeks, after we were able to bring back our employees safely, I got a call from one of the CEOs and he said, you know what? I know I called you and said it was a wrong decision, but now I'm calling you and telling you that there was a best decision you made. So I'd say that always comes first is, you know, what's the right thing to do for our employees and our colleagues? And when you have 165,000 employees, you have to think on a case-by-case basis. Every country is different. And then, of course, our customers and our shareholders, I'd say my decision-making process has never changed from that. Whether I was a shop floor supervisor.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's been two years since I've been in this role, but I've been in the C suite for a while now. My process has always started with kind of what is the best for my colleagues? And that's where my process always starts. And sometimes what's best for my colleagues may not be the best for my customers, may not be the best for other stakeholders in the mix, but that's where it starts, right? And I'll give you an example of this is when Malaysia was going through a shutdown during the pandemic, we have a pretty large presence in Malaysia. We decided well before the government decided that we were going to shut down our Malaysian factories because we saw the pandemic actually rising pretty quickly. And we decided it was the best for our employees. We couldn't control it. And we said, let's just shut down, right? Everybody go home. We'll take a pause. And then the government has announced a shutdown right after that, maybe a week or so after.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Gonna take a break, but when we come back, we'll get into the global chip shortage and what goes into the decision to say no to a customer. We're back with Revit the Advaite, CEO of Flex I really want to ask you about the chip shortage, but this is a good time to ask a question that I ask almost every executive who comes on the show. You have a lot of decisions to make across a huge variety of disciplines. What is your decision making process and how has it evolved?”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“May not be exactly the same, but the ideas and the philosophy of there's a free market economy, we should be using the best aspects of the free market economy because that provides the most efficient system for the world. I think that thesis still is true.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For now, the easy answer would be why don't you put every fab job in the US if you want to make that work and move it out from wherever it is in Southeast Asia today and try to make all the fabrication for chips in the US? I mean, the cost of that would be so prohibitive and would make the industry so uncompetitive that does it really make sense. You wouldn't even be able to do it. But on the other hand, do you want to invest in certain parts of it, like more assembly and test capacity or more memory making, which now doesn't sit as much in the US? And then ramp up costs where it makes the most sense, right? And then maybe you spend $50 billion instead of 400 billion for building an end-to-end semiconductor industry. So I'd say, yeah, the traditional thesis of globalization when the world is flat was written.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it's not the stock globalization answer. I think you have to step back and say what started the whole trade issue. And many administrations before the Trump administration was trying to work on, which is the question of is our IP safe? Are there the right measures in China for IP security? And what can we do to make sure that is well managed? That's where the whole crux of the issue started, which all of us are highly supportive of. I have lived there. I worked there. I would say, yes, very, very important topic. And let's make sure that that happens well. But is it important? Do I believe in a free market economy? Do I believe that the world is served best by making things where you can find the most productive, most efficient system? And that way everybody benefits. I would say, yeah, absolutely right. Let's think about the semiconductor crisis.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Would characterize that answer as what I heard from leaders of large global companies for a long time. Frankly, that's like, yep, that's the globalization answer. We're going to do business around the world and we're going to believe in local governments. Maybe if we're really good, we're going to export American values by showing up and being good stewards. And I don't know, we're going to give everybody rock and roll records. That was the answer until about five years ago. And I think the Trump administration kind of blew up that answer and his approach to China was very aggressive. That has led to, I think, just a broader rethink of globalization across the world, particularly leaders that do business in China. Do you think that that answer holds? Do you think that as the trade war is heated up, is that cost of moving goods, as tariffs have changed, is Brexit has happened? The stock globalization answer has gotten a little more tenuous, I think, for leaders of large global corporations. How has your view changed?”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Over the years, having lived and worked in India, in China, in Europe, in many states in the US, I would say we have to allow local governments to function the way they feel the best fit for their needs, right? Do I have a point of view on democracy? Do I have a point of view on the parliamentary system or how elections are run? Absolutely in almost every country I've lived at. But in terms of what works for that particular country, you have to allow the local processes to work. I'd say Chinese citizens are very proud of how well their country has done over the decades. I have many friends and colleagues there and very supportive of how policies are enforced in the country. So it works for people who are living there and who are seeing the benefits of that over the last kind of two or three decades.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, that edges into some dicey territory, right? China is able to enforce lockdowns. They're able to enforce in some ways monitor their citizens in ways that the United States would certainly, theoretically not allow, and then practically we have seen absolutely not even be capable of even suggesting, as you work with the Chinese government, is that something that you think about, they veer towards autocracy more than democracy?”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tracking management. That's a whole different thing than most countries can do. So I think that helped China a lot. It continues to help China a lot. They can implement lockdowns and shutdowns and enforce it like no other country.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If the question is on China specific, the Chinese government is just very strong in being able to implement policies, right, and make them stick. So, for example, this is always hard to envision, but this happened at the peak of Chinese New Year, right, when the pandemic started. And so we suddenly thought, oh, we have 50,000 people coming back to work. What are we going to do with this? The Chinese government had policies in place about what was getting downloaded on people's phones. We were able to track every one of those 50,000 people and tell exactly where they were, when they were going to come back to work, if they should come back to work based on whether they were in a hot spot. So the control mechanisms were so significant, you can't do that in every country, right? Think about doing that in India or in the US. Nobody's going to allow you to track anything. China is just good at managing large-scale any kind of”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Obviously, COVID is still ongoing. I think it is still the biggest story in the world. You have something like 50,000 employees in China. The Chinese government was very aggressive in responding to COVID. I think that workforce and that supply chain just came back a lot faster than anyone anticipated. What from your standpoint made that possible there?”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Pandemic issues. You can't move product from A to B. Everybody wants to make stuff close to where they are. Even that's driving a lot more conversation around what policy do we have to have to make things closer to where we are. So recently, I'd say in the last kind of year and a half, a lot more than what we should typically do.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of course, my main job is to run our company and keep our customers happy. But recently, I would say with administration changes and with the huge conversation in most countries about how do we bring supply chains back to our country? What do we need to really do to train our workforce? What help do you need from a capital standpoint? Recently, it's been a lot of conversations, right, with various governments in terms of what does it take. So I'd say it comes and goes, right? If it's the election cycle a little bit more, if it's not a little bit less. But being one of the world's largest manufacturing company, it's amazing manufacturing is always a hot button when it comes to jobs and the election cycle. So it always becomes a big topic about what can you really do to create manufacturing jobs. And then this whole thing around costs of shipping is so high, trade issues.”
2021-05-25 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to build everything, with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT