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  • SPEAKER 1: We've heard so far this morning about different

  • ways of dealing with systemic or systematic disturbances and

  • ways social change, ways of responding in positive rather

  • than negative fashion.

  • We've heard from Jared Diamond about analyzing the way

  • societies and individuals and families and cultures respond.

  • We've heard from Gao Xiqing with his ideas about

  • possibilities for reform, both United States and China and the

  • world financial system.

  • We've just heard from Jennifer Corriero about using web tools

  • to mobilize the great energy of youth around the world.

  • We're going to hear now about another way of thinking about,

  • and dealing with questions of change and wealth, and poverty,

  • and development, and wealth creation.

  • We're going to hear about it from two people who basically

  • need no introduction, so I'll just give you their names.

  • I'd like you to join me in welcoming Eric Schmidt, the

  • CEO of Google, who will be in discussion with Carlos

  • Slim of Telmex in Mexico.

  • Eric Schmidt and Carlos Slim.

  • [APPLAUSE]

  • DR. ERIC SCHMIDT: Well first, on behalf of Google, thank you

  • all for joining us for today.

  • Last night, today, tonight, and tomorrow it's going to be a

  • great conference, and it's made special because of

  • all of you here.

  • I want to welcome Carlos Slim, my friend, who many people in

  • the United States don't know.

  • And what's interesting about Carlos is that we know

  • him because of the successive Telmex.

  • We know because of the movement of telecommunications

  • and technology that he's driving in Latin America.

  • We don't know much else about what has driven his passion and

  • his ideas, and I'd like to ask you a little bit about that.

  • Before we do that, can you tell us a little bit about

  • your company, Telmex?

  • Just introduce the company.

  • What does it do?

  • CARLOS SLIM: Good morning.

  • Thank you for your invitation.

  • When I was in high school I read a book called Mathematics

  • and the Imagination.

  • And I look, it was googol.

  • But we say goggle.

  • And I was thinking, what happened with goggleplex.

  • And now I know you have a place, Googleplex.

  • Congratulations for what you have done, and thank

  • you for the invitation.

  • Telmex is a traditional incumbent company that used to

  • be in Mexico and was privatized at the end of 1990.

  • And we make a group together with SBC-- today AT&T.

  • SBC Southwestern Bell, but after that they merged with six

  • or seven strong companies to make a U.S. national

  • and France Telecom.

  • Southwestern Bell has 10% of the company.

  • France Telecom: 5.1%, and the Mexican group used to have

  • 10.4 from which we have a little more than 3%.

  • And through a holding: 5%.

  • This company mobile like all the incumbencies.

  • Now we're a country that have still electomechanical switches

  • to a very modern company.

  • We invest more in Mexico, more than $30 billion

  • just in landline.

  • But from there we're a second in the market company in

  • mobile, in cellular service.

  • That's called Telcel.

  • And we begin to grow mostly making them compete.

  • Actually Telmex is the smallest company, and the big

  • company is America Movil.

  • We're in all Latin America.

  • We have more than 170 million customers.

  • We grow more than 65% for 17 years.

  • Every year 65%.

  • DR. ERIC SCHMIDT: Wow.

  • CARLOS SLIM: This was year '67 Well, '67 [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

  • 16 years.

  • Well we have service every place.

  • [UNINTELLIGIBLE PHRASE]

  • We have grown strongly in many countries.

  • We have pushed the pre-paid.

  • We believe that we developed the concept of pre-paid.

  • We call it in '95 or something like that, in our crisis,

  • the [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

  • plan to subsidize the concepts to sell-- [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

  • to sell cards.

  • I prepared this information.

  • We can see how the penetration of mobile telephony has

  • been in our countries.

  • We have now many countries with more penetration in Latin

  • America than U.S. Mostly Argentina and Chile

  • and Venezuela.

  • The average we have is 72% against 61% of Canada.

  • That's more penetration than Canada.

  • But quite interesting also in comparison with China.

  • China has grown in these five years and one quarter 169%.

  • And in Latin America we have grown 227.7%.

  • And it is interesting to make clear that still Latin America

  • has a bigger gross national product, gross domestic

  • product than China.

  • That's one point.

  • That's the mobile that we are very glad that we have done.

  • We are near all the countries in Latin America with

  • a few exceptions.

  • The penetration, like I'm telling is now-- will be three

  • out of every four people will have a mobile.

  • And now we are going to 3G and we're looking now how to take

  • in our countries the digital culture.

  • Instead of talking about [UNINTELLIGIBLE], talk

  • about digital culture.

  • And we have worked with MIT and Negroponte sometime.

  • And work with [UNINTELLIGIBLE].

  • We are pushing it by many ways with multiple platforms.

  • Looking to have convergence of broadband in our countries

  • so as soon as possible.

  • Not only for entertainment, but also for health,

  • education, and et cetera.

  • And we're pushing that and we have now formed

  • [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

  • companies.

  • One is Telmex, that is Mexico.

  • One is America Movil.

  • That is a big company with this mobile growing.

  • And now we are developing a international Telmex--

  • Telmex International.

  • Working already in Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Peru,

  • Columbia, and other countries.

  • DR. ERIC SCHMIDT: So you have a reputation and a history for

  • being an engineer, and being very good with numbers.

  • One of your hobbies, as I know, is baseball statistics and you

  • keep it all, and you keep it all in your head.

  • But you have a strong view of how society will change.

  • You believe in a new society, not an old society.

  • Can you describe that for people?

  • What is the society going to look like over

  • the next few years?

  • CARLOS SLIM: What is clear is that advances in technology

  • and advances in productivity.

  • But it's also clear that when technology changes, change many

  • of the sectors of the society, you have a revolution,

  • a society revolution.

  • You have a new kind of era, a new civilization.

  • I think in great numbers we have four civilizations,

  • four kinds of society.

  • [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

  • with the hunting and the collection.

  • The agricultural society.

  • I think two steps of the industrial society.

  • First with the steam engine.

  • With the steam engine came the railways and the steam boats,

  • but also the industrial production, mining production,

  • with agricultural production, with the steam engine.

  • And then in the 20th century with the electricity and the

  • internal combustion, you have the modern society.

  • That changed everything.

  • But in the last years-- last maybe 40, 50 after the second

  • war, the technology was advancing so much, and the

  • productivity was so high that now we are getting a

  • society of services.

  • If you look, U.S. maybe 85% of the people employed is in

  • services, including the construction services.

  • And what the [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

  • look is that the paradigms of the old societies are very

  • different of the new society.

  • In the agricultural society new need slaves.

  • You need a workforce, social immobility, ignorance, and

  • the power were monolithic.

  • You have the same person, the imperador, the king,

  • the [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

  • in America, the Inca in Peru, that was with the political

  • power, but also came from divinity-- to have

  • the religious.

  • He was coming from divinity.

  • And they have also the military power and the economic power.

  • And these paradigms were completely different.

  • Now the paradigms are very general, very interesting,

  • very motivated.

  • And the way that we need these new society is

  • also very positive.

  • The paradigms today are freedom, democracy, liberty,

  • creativity, innovation, competition, globalization,

  • human rights, environment, et cetera.

  • And these paradigms will change these societies.

  • DR. ERIC SCHMIDT: So when you think about Mexico, of course,

  • you grew up there, you're the most prominent businessmen in

  • America, literally; in all of America.

  • How will Mexico change?

  • U.S. citizens who go to Mexico love the culture.

  • They see the wealth, they see the poverty, they see the

  • difference in things.

  • They see the drug issues, the police issues, and so forth.

  • Give us a sense of how Mexico with evolve.

  • And you're doing a lot to change it.

  • CARLOS SLIM: I think this new society it's very easy to

  • produce goods, to produce services very efficiently, very

  • low cost, and produce wealth.

  • But if you don't make the right conduction, the

  • change is great crisis.

  • And that's what we are living, and that's what-- if we don't

  • make a right conduction of the changes we will have

  • a lot of crisis.

  • In the industrial society, we have civil wars, we have two

  • world wars, and many programs.

  • A lot of experiments with society in the 20th century.

  • Social experiments, political experiments, economic

  • experiments because they don't know how to manage the changes.

  • For me it's clear that to fight poverty is not with charity,

  • is not with social programs.

  • You need to give nutrition from the mother pregnant, nutrition

  • for the child and for the student, health and employment.

  • Health and education, excuse me.

  • You need to bring high quality education to all

  • grades of education.

  • That's why I was talking before of digital culture.

  • You need to have a modern and high quality

  • education and jobs.

  • As you have a higher education you have more

  • diversity of jobs.

  • You can find jobs easier, more easier than if you only

  • know how to do one thing.

  • I think the way for Mexico and all our countries is to take

  • out people from poverty.

  • The best investment is to take people out of-- and I'm not

  • talking only about social issues or ethical issues

  • or moral issues.

  • It's an economic need to take out people of poverty to create

  • middle classes, to take them to modernity, to take

  • them to the market.

  • And as much as you can include in the market and in the

  • society-- 40 million people in our country, [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

  • out of that.

  • Or like China is doing with 800 million still in marginal.

  • Putting 30 or 40 million every year in the modernity.

  • That's what you need to change.

  • That's why we need to change.

  • And we need to have a economic environment, a economic

  • climate for investment.

  • Because with this investment you will have economic

  • activity and employment.

  • We need to develop employment.

  • And what are we doing?

  • Well, we are trying to work in combination with the foundation

  • and investing in profit and nonprofit companies.

  • In profit companies we are doing our job, regular job.

  • That means some employment and some ethics.

  • But others increase productivity.

  • Let's say mobile telephony make higher the

  • productivity of our people.

  • But the broadband and digital culture will improve the

  • education and modernize.

  • But also, look the way to increase employment.

  • And to increase employment you need to begin to be creative,

  • to have creativity.

  • Think of inertia, inertia drive most of the decisions, but you

  • need to move like you do that in Google to change that.

  • And the only environment that you need for that is a stable,

  • financial stability, micro stability, and to push the

  • activity where employment is.

  • And employment is mainly in construction, housing,

  • infrastructure, small business, micro business, middle

  • business that need to be financed and pushed.

  • DR. ERIC SCHMIDT: And you actually have a view, I think,

  • that businesses should do this ahead of the politicians

  • because businesses have a longer term view.

  • CARLOS SLIM: I think that in the past, in this agricultural

  • society, let's say politicians or governments were everything.

  • Were everything, [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

  • with that person were everything.

  • I think companies want a formula for an agricultural

  • society, not for a modern society.

  • And now as the society advances between the paradigms of

  • freedom, creativity-- you need more activity of

  • the civil society.

  • Every time the government will give more space to its

  • society to do the solutions and to do the things.

  • And I believe that entrepreneur and many other people in other

  • activities can't think in long term, and find solutions and

  • going the way for long-term solutions and not short-term.

  • DR. ERIC SCHMIDT: Let's see if we can get some questions

  • from the audience.

  • The problem I have with your vision, which I agree with is

  • we've just spent the last five days going through an

  • extraordinary financial restructuring.

  • And there's an article today in the paper that's saying that

  • banks are so scared of each other that they've stopped

  • lending to each other and that there's a worldwide credit

  • crisis about to happen.

  • Now you've been through a couple of these in Latin

  • America where you cleverly maneuvered through tremendous

  • challenges to build Telmex.

  • What do you think's going to happen to the credit markets,

  • to the United States?

  • I mean, a lot of people are very, very concerned.

  • CARLOS SLIM: I believe that cycles, economic cycles, you

  • say-- called cycles are OK in an agricultural society, when

  • you have good weather and bad weather.

  • But when are talking about services societies, there's

  • not quite to have cycles.

  • And what make cycles secure is that the people personally have

  • problems, and like in society also of euphoria

  • and pessimistic.

  • Optimistic and pessimistic.

  • In one day you have these kind of changes, but the society

  • like a whole have also these kind.

  • And I think we will have a few years of euphoria and madness,

  • thinking that everything will grow in crisis because they

  • go, prognosis is very usual.

  • Inertia is very in our minds always.

  • If it went up five years, it will go forever

  • or [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

  • et cetera.

  • And I think in this madness people in charge of the

  • financial system were looking for size.

  • For [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

  • for businesses.

  • For volume bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, they

  • think, will be better and not to make the best job.

  • Not the efficiency.

  • DR. ERIC SCHMIDT: So do you think the current credit crisis

  • will actually affect the markets that you and I've

  • been talking about?

  • CARLOS SLIM: Yeah, they will affect everything, and they

  • will be worse than now I think.

  • I would like to be [UNINTELLIGIBLE].

  • That I am wrong, but I think things will get a little worse.

  • Because we were talking about the sub-prime [UNINTELLIGIBLE].

  • But they have sub-prime everywhere.

  • Sub-prime for acquisitions, sub-prime for derivatives,

  • sub-prime for commodities, and we're just talking

  • about [UNINTELLIGIBLE].

  • Today now they are getting with the real thing.

  • But what is important is not if it will be worse or better.

  • It will happen sometime.

  • The important thing is to get back from that, from this

  • situation in a better shape as strongly, and to try to

  • avoid all these problems.

  • And I think there are many solutions, easy solutions.

  • Easy, but very costly.

  • I used to say for 20 years to now that in the developed

  • countries the crisis are paid by the savers.

  • In our countries, it's paid by the consumers.

  • That's always that the savers pay the crisis of the consumers

  • because of that, the consumers a big social problem.

  • I think it should be taken out, the speculation.

  • But there's a bubble of [UNINTELLIGIBLE PHRASE]

  • because you can buy contracts and commodities with 5% only.

  • You need to increase the margin for that to avoid

  • the speculation, mainly in oil and food.

  • But also, one of the reason is the weakness of the dollar.

  • There is a big deficit, the weakness of the dollar.

  • And I think the solution-- they are doing, I think, a good

  • job, but do a bit more progress in the future.

  • A good job because they have a low interest rate, negative

  • interest rate that in the past helped to [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

  • assets.

  • Lower interest rates [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

  • assets.

  • The worst thing that they can do is to increase the

  • interest rate, like in '81.

  • You remember in '81 it went to-- the prime rate was 21%.

  • That was crazy.

  • I think with a low and negative interest rate for a while,

  • making stronger the dollar, and looking that all the

  • [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

  • American [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

  • fall down more to avoid the recession with inflation and

  • especially for the social issues.

  • And the interest rate down and the spread of the

  • [UNINTELLIGIBLE].

  • The problem is a crisis of the financial system.

  • And the way that they can go out is with the spread

  • between what is the active and the passive.

  • They can have 5%, 4% spread of 6%.

  • If they love the money, if you're paying 1.5% or 2% and

  • you are collecting 6 or 8 or 10 or 12 you can correct

  • that in two years.

  • DR. ERIC SCHMIDT: The reason I'm asking about the financial

  • crisis is because people in the United States have a

  • stereotype of Latin America financial crises.

  • And now it seems like we're having a financial crisis, I

  • wonder what the Latin Americans think about

  • our financial crisis.

  • CARLOS SLIM: I told you before that you solve your problems

  • with the savers that's with low interest rate, with

  • negative interest rates.

  • And the monetary fund and other institutions press Latin

  • America to be paid by the consumers.

  • And that's great crisis, no?

  • Consumption get down 15% like Argentina a few

  • years ago, Mexico in '95.

  • And I think it's a better social issue to be paid by

  • savers than by consumers.

  • DR. ERIC SCHMIDT: So your view, and you operate in all of Latin

  • American countries, is that the growth rate will continue.

  • CARLOS SLIM: What?

  • DR. ERIC SCHMIDT: You believe that the growth rate in Latin

  • America will continue?

  • CARLOS SLIM: I think we will have-- [INTERPOSING VOICES]

  • DR. ERIC SCHMIDT: But as you know, 20 years ago we had bad

  • leadership in Latin America, a number of dictators-- a number

  • of very, very bad acts by states, and the surprise in the

  • last 10 years has been the robustness of Latin

  • American economies.

  • And in fact, their ability to pay back the loans that they

  • got, which they fought so hard for 10 years earlier.

  • Ultimately does Latin America get to be as strong

  • as the United States?

  • Is that possible given the resources in the population?

  • The growth rates are higher?

  • CARLOS SLIM: I think that the Western world-- U.S. and

  • Europe has troubles, crisis like we have.

  • Like we're looking around.

  • It will be probably worldwide.

  • You cannot be an island in this world problem.

  • Maybe China, China has a strong position to move and grow less.

  • They will not grow at 12% more for a few years, but they can

  • grow 6, 8% because they can come back and look for

  • the internal market.

  • Until now they grow with your market and with Europe and

  • with the world market.

  • Now they can turn and accelerate the process of

  • integrating more faster the part of this population.

  • But when you have a recession like this everyone will

  • decrease the growing.

  • The important thing is that is not costly socially, like

  • oil crisis in the past.

  • We have this experience and I think there are tools to avoid

  • to have this costly situation.

  • DR. ERIC SCHMIDT: To finish up and try to understand what your

  • next steps are, Telmex, for example, and holding companies

  • that you are associated with are actually thinking about

  • expanding past Latin America, really becoming international

  • telephone operators and telephony in business.

  • Do you see Telmex as really a global company going forward?

  • CARLOS SLIM: These things we're looking two years ago, three

  • years ago that maybe a little more things were getting

  • in not a good way.

  • And we have, we believe, healthy companies.

  • What we do is to try to have a healthy position.

  • The view of the group that-- actually, we have sold some

  • companies in the last two years or three years because we were

  • looking that something were going to happen, like

  • it is happening now.

  • And what we have is a healthy position.

  • We know they're in crisis.

  • It will be a difficult, tough crisis.

  • Nobody knows how deep, how important, how long, but our

  • position is to be financially healthy, very healthy.

  • And we still are buying buybacks.

  • We have a politics of dividends conservative to have

  • a stronger position.

  • And we will be-- we don't know.

  • We don't know what will happen, but what is clear is that we're

  • looking to have a healthy financial position to

  • follow investing.

  • And one of the things we do in the group, we have a

  • philosophy of some points.

  • Is to maintain an austerity in good times.

  • To avoid lay outs in bad times.

  • DR. ERIC SCHMIDT: So the other thing that you're doing is

  • you're using your personal wealth for good,

  • for investments.

  • You recently invested, for example, in the New York Times

  • in a minority position.

  • You have many things that you're doing personally.

  • Can you talk a little bit about, for example, your

  • philanthropic interests, and where do you think your

  • personal impact will be felt?

  • I read, for example, that you've committed up to $7

  • billion of philanthropic works, and good works, and investments

  • in the world, which is an extraordinary commitment.

  • CARLOS SLIM: We're focusing in Latin America-- Mexico

  • and Latin America.

  • We have some experience already doing some jobs

  • like Mexico downtown.

  • I was in charge of that, or made the efforts, and

  • it worked very well.

  • I think the combination of nonprofit organizations

  • like the foundations, and profit business can work

  • together in some areas.

  • Sometimes it's only the nonprofit, let's say for

  • health and education.

  • It mainly is nonprofit, but also you can develop profit

  • companies to support the activity and move in

  • the same direction.

  • Let's say if you are talking about [UNINTELLIGIBLE].

  • You need someone that say, I will invest in that.

  • Not let's say Central America has 70% of its energy in

  • thermoelectric when they have a lot of water.

  • But they don't go hydroelectric because they don't have the

  • investment and the money to make the investment.

  • I think we need to change that to 70% hydroelectric and 30%

  • thermoelectric when they have so much water to use for this

  • kind of power that is the cycle.

  • If the others don't invest we're investing already there,

  • and proposing investment there.

  • And in this way you have these profit companies, but also when

  • you're talking about health, one way you go nonprofit

  • with programs of nonprofit.

  • Or sports or culture, you go nonprofit.

  • But sometimes we combine that.

  • DR. ERIC SCHMIDT: So my sense, and I want to thank you for

  • coming and spending time at Zeitgeist, is that Carlos is a

  • person, who I think exemplifies what you can do as an

  • individual when you want to have an impact on the world.

  • Both in terms of the impact that you've been able to

  • achieve, just in terms of bringing people up with

  • communications and so forth, and building a great business

  • in the mean time, and now continuing that set of

  • principles and really having an impact on a much,

  • much broader stage.

  • So thank you very much for coming.

  • CARLOS SLIM: Thank you.

  • DR. ERIC SCHMIDT: Thank you.

  • CARLOS SLIM: Thank you very much.

  • [APPLAUSE]

SPEAKER 1: We've heard so far this morning about different

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