WHEN: Today, Tuesday, January 16, 2024
WHERE: CNBC’s “Squawk Box” – Live from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland
Following are excerpts from the unofficial transcripts of CNBC interviews which aired on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” (M-F, 6AM-9AM ET) today, Tuesday, January 16 for Davos 2024 in Davos, Switzerland.
Interviews included: Bank of America Chairman & CEO Brian Moynihan, Lazard CEO Peter Orszag, Accenture CEO Julie Sweet, DVF Founder Diane Von Furstenberg, Bridgewater Associates Founder, Co-CIO, Board Member Ray Dalio, BNY Mellon CEO Robin Vince, Nasdaq Chair & CEO Adena Friedman, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, General Atlantic Chairman & CEO William Ford, Palo Alto Networks CEO & Chairman Nikesh Arora, Breyer Capital Founder & CEO Jim Breyer, Chevron CEO Michael Wirth and Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon.
Links to video of the interviews are included below.
All references must be sourced to CNBC.
Interview with Bank of America Chairman & CEO Brian Moynihan
Video:
MOYNIHAN ON UKRAINE
BRIAN MOYNIHAN: It is a classic definition of walking and chewing gum when you think about it. They’re fighting to the death and the first time they came in 2022, all of us were stunned by how resolute they were in terms of fighting the war. And on the other side, they opened the Black Sea so they can ship, so they can get the grain out of the country and they’re producing that in the economy. Our teammate, Bernie Mensah, went there on Friday with Secretary Pritzker and he said you’re in Kiev, you go to a coffee shop and it feels like a normal city, there’s traffic jams and then all of a sudden, missile warning will come in so it’s much different but his message was they have to straighten out the country and the reforms have to go through while they’re fighting a war too to get the anti-corruption and the things that they’re working on as a country. They have to keep working at it because you cannot put the money in otherwise at the level so he knows that so it’s fascinating to hear him talk about it.
MOYNIHAN ON THE ECONOMY
MOYNIHAN: The consumer has been relatively strong. They’ve held in there, they continue to grow their spending so demand is there but businesses have gotten more and more cautious really facing. If you’re told that there’s going to be a decline in the economy, soft landing we predict, but still from a 4% to 5% growth rate to 1% growth rate is a steep slowdown.
MOYNIHAN ON FED RATES
MOYNIHAN: We have to get the rate structure in a way that has more flexibility up and down and is not so glued to the floor that we can’t get up. And so I think you’ll see that play out hopefully that’ll play out because that’ll be better for U.S. and ultimately better for all the countries around the world if we can get the U.S. sort of situated with a dynamic of growth and inflation that’s much more normal and that’s what the fed is trying to engineer and they have to be careful they don’t overshoot right now.
MOYNIHAN ON CAPITAL REQUIREMENTS
MOYNIHAN: The playing field is not level now and it will get more unlevel and it’s, and so we’re saying be careful because frankly we’re well capitalized. As Joe said, we made it through a quote banking crisis last March and life went on. You know we’ve been stress testing and all this work we’ve done and you’re throwing it all out on a different theory and we’re saying is that wise given the impact on the American economy.
Interview with Lazard CEO Peter Orszag
Video:
ORSZAG ON THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
PETER ORSZAG: Well, first, I think it was very likely that Trump was going to be the Republican nominee before Iowa. It’s more likely now but it was always very likely. Look, I think it’s gonna come down it’s gonna be a close election. Every election in the U.S. is going to be close because of how polarized the country is. And it comes down to fundamentally age versus abortion with African American turnout and then all the cases surrounding Trump, as you know, auxiliary players with the tip may being the economy and the economy is seen as much worse than it is. But that can change over the next—
ORSZAG ON INFLATION
ORSZAG: First, I think people misdiagnosed inflation It was mostly pandemic coming and going. That having been said, I do not think the market expectation that the Fed is going to start cutting rates anytime soon, at least until like very late in this year, is likely to play out. Just look at what Jay Powell is saying. A, B, they’re going to be concerned about cutting too aggressively during an election. They will claim that they’re not but they will. C, they really do not want to have to go back to quantitative easing. So holding the rate higher for longer means that you then have the opportunity to cut rates and then finally, finally, why cut rates, what’s the impetus for cutting rates when A you want to make sure that you’ve really stamped out inflation? And secondly, the economy’s not in recession.
Interview with Accenture CEO Julie Sweet
Video:
SWEET ON AI TRAINING
JULIE SWEET: We will train 250,000 people this year in gen AI and since 2019, I’ve trained every person at Accenture about 600,000 because you have people coming in on AI so in 2019, I became the CEO. I said every person in the mailroom or HR or strategist, you need to know six things. Now it is 11 and they take assessments. So one of the things I’m most passionate about is that AI can be great and we have to bring our people along.
Interview with DVF Founder Diane Von Furstenberg
Video:
DIANE VON FURSTENBERG ON RESTORING PUBLIC TRUST
DIANE VON FURSTENBERG: I think that people are yes, it’s very confusing out there. You know, you talk about money all day long. You talk about currency all day long, right? Maybe we should invent the currency of kindness, the currency of trust, the currency of truth.
DIANE VON FURSTENBERG ON DEI
DIANE VON FURSTENBERG: Well, I mean, you know, everybody talks about data, right? The what about, what about impulse? What about what happens with the heart, you can’t project that. So what about coincidences? So it’s great to have the data and it’s wonderful to go for justice. But I think we just need a little oil in the spinach.
Interview with Bridgewater Associates Founder, Co-CIO, Board Member Ray Dalio
Video:
DALIO ON PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: If President Biden wins a second term, good for the market, bad for the market? If former President Trump wins a second term, good for the market, bad for the market?
RAY DALIO: I think they are both threatening for the markets.
SORKIN: Both are threatening for the markets?
DALIO ON NEUTRAL PORTFOLIO
DALIO: I find that the markets right now are not either super attractive or super unattractive, generally speaking aside from the politics. And so you’re going to come into this environment where there is going to be greater risks particularly taking that factor and the world factor. So then, what is your neutral position? I have a neutral portfolio, okay. My neutral portfolio is a diversified portfolio that I won’t take the time to get into, but you go closer to your neutral portfolio.
DALIO ON TAIWAN
DALIO: I think that there can be a demonstration of concerns that will be more cosmetic than they will be in reality. Important changes have taken place. When I was there last March and since then, they were not talking terms. And there was a big, big risk of crossing red lines. And particularly, when we have elections here, which creates also more antagonism, that has changed. Ever since, there was the build up to the APAC agreement and so on. There’s communication now that is quality communication about how to deal with such things. SO that there’s a likelihood there will be a delegation that will go over there. But the red line is are we in favor of the independence of Taiwan.
Interview with BNY Mellon CEO Robin Vince
Video:
VINCE ON WHAT 2023 PROVED
ROBIN VINCE: So I think 2023 proved something to us, which we know from history, but it was a good reminder, which is being resilient and being prepared matters. And so that was a year for that. We saw that with all of the issues around asset liability management earlier in the year. We’ve seen it with geopolitical risks through the course of the year. And so for us, and helping our clients navigate through those environments, that’s really what it’s been about.
VINCE ON REMOTE WORK
VINCE: We took a slightly different tact. What we prize and we think our people prize and this is part of our focus on culture at the firm is being able to be flexible. So yes, we have asked our people to come back to the office, but we haven’t required them to come back five days a week, we’ve required three days plus, and I think there’s a little bit of give and take with our people which has been very valuable. Last year, we made everyone in the in the company, a shareholder of the company with our BK shares program that’s around sharing and participation so we can talk about ownership. We launched a premium free health care offering for our lowest paid employees. We launched additional mental health benefits, we were talking before we came on the air, about our December recharge where we gave two weeks free of the bureaucracy of running a company. So that’s the give and take but we ask a lot of our people, we’re asking them to really drive forward for our clients. We’re asking them to help run the company better. And we’re really focused on our culture as part of enabling that.
Interview with Nasdaq Chair & CEO Adena Friedman
Video:
FRIEDMAN ON DEI DISCLOSURE
ADENA FRIEDMAN: We continue to work with companies on managing their ESG requirements and reporting requirements. There’s still a lot of demand for that. It’s still a very complicated world in terms of satisfying investor interest. When it comes to the board disclosure rule, that really was investor driven, investor demand driven over many years actually of asking can you please provide us a more standard way for us to evaluate board diversity, so we did put that rule in place. We introduced it in 2020, implemented in 2021 and our companies are complying and it’s really a very simple, straight forward disclosure rule at this point.
FRIEDMAN ON AI AND FINANCIAL CRIME
FRIEDMAN: We also believe that innovation is absolutely critical to solving some of the biggest problems that the finance industry faces so we have been leaning very much into AI actually for a long time across the markets but also in the anti-fin crime suite that we have and making sure that we leverage the data. If you bring data together and you carry collective action on that data you can use AI algorithms to route out specific criminal behaviors, you will be much more effective in solving that problem.
Interview with Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger
Video:
GELSINGER ON THE FUTURE OF PERSONAL COMPUTERS
GELSINGER: Yeah, I think this year and people I think expect that to start a little slow but accelerate as we go through the year because you’re hitting a natural refresh cycle. You’re four years after Covid. So that’s normal a four year cycle. But there’s also a Windows new operating system coming out, end of life of older one again, that’s always positive. But the big thing for us is AI PC, right? And I’ve described it like Centrino. And if you go back in time, we had created Wi-Fi, I helped to create Wi-Fi. And sort of nothing happened for a couple of years. And then we launched the Centrino platform and all of a sudden, if you were a coffee shop, you had to have Wi-Fi. If you were a hotel, a business. And it changed the PC. You went from Excel as your key application to the browser, right, and the Internet and connectivity and change the form factor in use cases. And we think of that like the AI PC, right? It’s going to drive new applications, new experiences, new form factors, and I believe there’s a budding excitement for what that’s going to do to the PC category starting this year. But continuing into the next couple of years and obviously we announced Core Ultra, our AI PC flagship product as you know the starting gun has now sounded. We are off.
GELSINGER ON INTEL STOCK OPTIMISM
GELSINGER: Part of the optimism in the stock for Intel has been we’re getting the process technology back. You know, we said five nodes, four years. This audacious plan to get back to leadership. And as it’s coming to life, people who might have been skeptics are saying, wow, they’re making it happen. And I think with that, it’s sort of like the products get better, but the foundry opportunity.
Interview with General Atlantic Chairman & CEO William Ford
Video:
Interview with Palo Alto Networks CEO & Chairman Nikesh Arora
Video:
Interview with Breyer Capital Founder & CEO Jim Breyer
Video:
Interview with Chevron CEO Michael Wirth
Video:
Interview with Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon
Video:
