119: Innovation, Events, and Leadership with Gary Shapiro

Today I have the great pleasure of speaking with Gary Shapiro. Gary is the President and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, which owns the famous CES Consumer Electronics Show. Amazing leader, inspiring person. Enjoy my conversation with Gary. Hello and welcome to a new episode of The Business of Meeting podcast. And today I am very excited to be speaking with a legend. In our industry, and not only in our industry, but he is the President and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association. Yes, that is the association which owns the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. He's a New York Times bestselling author, and he has recently received the Legend of Honor. We'll talk about that as well. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to welcome Gary Shapiro. Gary, how are you?

I'm doing great, Eric, and I am so honored to be on your, your show. I think it's fantastic what you're doing, and I look forward to talking.

Thank you so much. And I know we met like 10 years ago in my MPI time, and I remember even before that, uh, in Belgium people were talking about the CES. But before we get to that, what's your story? How did you get to, to do what you're doing today?

Well, like so many things in life, Eric, it's kind of random. Like, how did you get to be head of MPI the first European to head such a great organization in your station in life. Some things are just random. It's, I guess, when preparation meets opportunity. I was a last-minute acceptance at Georgetown Law School. I literally entered as the youngest student at the largest law school. I got noticed 2 days before I'd been accepted, and I thought it was a beautiful, I heard it was a beautiful place. I didn't realize the law school was separate from the campus by a lot, but it was the right decision for the wrong reasons, because Washington, D.C. is a great place to learn the law. I started out, I needed money my first day there. I started looking for a job and I got, I wanted money. I wanted, I got a job on Capitol Hill. I didn't even like understand that's a career move. I just needed to pay my rent and eat. So from the first day I was in law school, I was working and I ended up my second year, in between years, actually, even when I got the job, I was actually a, I was managing a very large events place, the restaurant and the food service for, with 100 waiters and waitresses and a very famous American musician, Guy Lombardo was performing there every night. And I had worked my way up from a dishwasher to a busboy to a waiter to assistant manager to a manager. And there I was at the age of literally, I think it was 19 or 20, managing this and scurried off to law school. After my first year of law school, I came back and managed again. They had wanted me to go into their program. And I realized actually the truth is I was drinking a lot. And I realized if I stayed in the restaurant business with all that booze, I probably wouldn't be a good a career move for me. So when I ended up going to law school, I ended up working on Capitol Hill for the first year and then went for the bigger money at a law firm my second year. And third year, I was working virtually full-time. The law firm just had a client I started working for when I was a law student, actually, and we just clicked. And I just loved what they were doing because they were, they were focusing the future. And I remember when I, I was a summer associate there, then I was a, an associate, and I loved that one client so much because it was the future of technology, was the Essentially the Consumer Technology Association and the CES. And when I went to my first CES, I just fell in love with what an event could be. To see, you know, so much excitement and action on the floor and a live experience, face-to-face, five senses, competitors next to each other. And it's always like the free marketplace of ancient eras where everyone gathers and you see what's best. And it's the best thing for competition, which I really believe in. Is these events, because you do get together competitors in one room. And that is so exciting because the best things happen. You see what your competition is doing. You see how you have to be better. And that produces innovation for society. And at the same time, there was a lot of public policy that was bouncing up against this. Established industries were being upset. At that time, what I was really focusing on a lot was the fact that there was a case which actually said that the VCR, the videocassette recorder, is an illegal product and could be taken off the shelves. And— Really? —and brought it against the manufacturer. Actors. And somehow at the age of 22, I got in the middle of it. And all of a sudden I was debating, I formed an association of video retailers to help us because they didn't want to allow rental of videos. And we ended up going all the way to the Supreme Court. I ended up testifying in Congress many times, educating congressmen about this. Wow. And our battle, which was considered one of the biggest in Washington, we were the upstarts against the established Hollywood players. And then the music industry got involved and they wanted to ban audio recording equipment. And it was such a battle royale because I was at that point hired inside as counsel by the trade association. I was put in charge of everything. I found myself debating live on the Today Show when I was 25 years old. Wow. Doing various media. And it was just— my self-confidence was really high because I didn't know what I didn't know. But what we did know is that we were right and that technology and innovation are very important for the future. For making lives better and fighting an established industry. And that's what I love about the United States and our Constitution is you have the right to disagree. Yeah, government and with other industries. And one of the things we have in our favor actually is that we don't protect existing industries. I mean, they try, they try to use a lobbying apparatus, and often they do. We were up against the best, but they all, they were arrogant and confident, thought they would just win by sheer force, and we won by the magnitude of our own disagreements and arguments. We had I remember I'd count, we had 20 to 30 people sitting around the table, including some real luminaries, like the guy who became Secretary of Commerce, Ron Brown, who was tragically killed on a business trade mission. David Rubenstein, who started the Carlyle Group and is now one of the wealthiest people in the country. He and Ron and I worked together and we did a lot of things together. We traveled around the world together. I mean, I remember being back in the back of a Tokyo bus and David was presenting Ron and I with his idea to start a private equity firm. We just laughed at him. David proved us right. And those things are humbling experiences. But we had competitive companies, competitive associations, but we got together and we would battle it out about what these arguments are to keep these products legal. We wanted the Supreme Court. It took us 2 tries, but we won 5 to 4. Wow. And that 1 vote difference made a difference in the path of innovation in the United States so that innovation was favored over the protection of, you know, long-term copyright holders. And we won in terms of the music industry, them battling to make recording illegal. There was even efforts to make the internet illegal as a recording device. And it was something where we tried to make the case, and I tried to make it in books and otherwise, is that innovation is something that's so important for our destiny as human beings and our future as a nation that we have to guard it and protect it. And that's been my motivating mission now for over 30 years. And it's taken on so many different, ways of showing that, and that's kind of my story. And I— it's not like I've never really invented anything. I've certainly written a lot and created a lot of advocacy, but I— the geniuses and the people who do it are the creative community of not only people who create patented technology, but also I'll go to the copyright community. We have a very inventive crowd in the United States for a lot of reasons, and part of it is diversity. Part of it is we attract the best and brightest immigrants from around the world. You're one. My wife is one. My grandparents were immigrants, and we get, we get the best and the brightest that want to be here, and they want a better life for themselves and their families and their kids and their—

Absolutely.

And that is our secret sauce and strength, and I'm passionate about that. You know, I think we're suffering now as a country right now, um, in a lot of ways, including the meetings and exhibition industry, in part because we've lost that zest for immigration that we used to have and welcoming the people who want to work hard. And those are the jobs that we need to fill now we can't fill. And one of the issues I see coming up really quickly and really soon, including a meeting I had today about it, is that the cost of doing things now is so much more expensive that it's making a lot of our meetings really challenging.

Absolutely. And I want to come back to what you were saying about, I mean, your career, it's a mix for me of serendipity, opportunities, but also drive and passion in what you're doing. And you're talking about events. Whether it's for advocacy, whether it's for politics, whether it's for business, whether it's the trade show, for me, any business, any decision, any political, any innovation, it's not going without a face-to-face meeting. And the CES was something that, you know, I've heard about it when I was still in Belgium and now You're going at this show, which is absolutely phenomenal, people from all over the world. I'd like to ask you, what have you seen in the evolution of events today? And yes, the cost of doing things and people is definitely missing. What else do you see in the way that the people you know that are going to trade shows, that are doing events, how do they look at it now after 2 years of almost being confined at home? With all the innovation that has taken place?

Certainly the pandemic has caused, I think, almost every human that thinks about things to do some self-examination of their own lives and what they like and what they don't and what's important to them and what's not. I talk to a lot of CEOs in the exhibition industry, in the association world, in the meeting industry, in the technology world, and I think at the, from the CEO level, they also face their own self-examination. And what they, I think, have concluded is that, you know, is it face-to-face meetings are really important. The most passionate people I see on this are the CEOs. Now, the CFOs are much more excited about people working at home, and they, they see— they just see bottom line costs, uh, that could be bottom line profit in, in keeping people at home. So there's a little tension between the CFOs and the CEOs, but the CEOs want that face-to-face relationship. Generally, they're people that are understanding. I mean, the skills of the CEO have fundamentally changed You know, there's this new book out about Jack Welch, by a New York Times writer, saying basically he helped destroy capitalism because he blew up people and didn't care about them. And I think it was a little harsh, but that was the era then. This era, as the CEO of Delta, Bastian, has said, is a different era. And you have to have people skills. So from the CEO perspective, they were hungry to get back to CES and other events. They want to meet with each other. They want to see their customers. They want to have those relationships. It just can't be all about business. They want to share meals because because that's a social bond that ties us together. They want to experience things, and they want to see what's out there and see their competitors even and see where the industry is going. If you think about what meetings and events do, is they're about relationships. Very important. They're also about transformation and change and innovation. Because if there's not things happening, if there's not new things to learn, then there's no reason from a business perspective to have the events other than to build on relationships. And also there's a phenomenal amount of research that shows that having, you know, meetings, especially on an industry-wide or professional basis, is much more efficient than going around one-on-one on sales calls around the world. I'll never forget one of the prior CEOs of Intel stopped me as he was leaving on the last day of our event. He had his suitcases out. First of all, I was very impressed he was carrying his own stuff, the CEO of a Fortune 50 company. And he said, Gary, I just want to thank you. And I said, why is that? Thank you for, you know, speaking and being a great participant. He said, no, no, I have to thank you. You just saved me 3 months worth of travel around the world. What I've done in 3 days or 4 days with you at this event is just— it's the best 4 days of my life, in a sense, each business year, because it's just so efficient. And I think that's what we bring. And the other thing that we bring, which is so hard to describe, but we've learned about it because we've had to be purely digital for a while, is we bring serendipity, discovery, finding out what you don't even know. You know, the challenge with Zoom calls is that you— there's no— it's all about business. There's no real, um, opportunity to just discover and walk around and randomly think. And as much as I am the advocate for technology, I'd even say that, you know, the advantage of reading things manually on print— and show my old way— is that you, you could discover things, you could go things faster. Even with medical records, it's much more efficient to be clearly have everything electronic. But from a doctor's perspective, if you ask most doctors what they would prefer, they'll probably say, oh, I could skim right to what I needed to see for the important thing for the patient rather than have to go to a fixed format and go through every question. It takes me so much longer. So there are advantages to the analog world that, that I perceive. And, and seeing people face to face is a form of the analog world that I will never see fully replaced, and I think will go on as long as we could figure out how to do it in a hygienic, safe way.

I have Many questions now about innovation that you triggered in my mind, but I just want to go back to one last regarding events. And when you spoke about Jack Welch, and by the way, I remember Jack Welch being interviewed by a journalist, and the journalist asked him, Mr. Welch, with all your responsibilities, how do you sleep at night? And he said, like a baby, I wake up every 3 hours and start crying. But the part of the event, and in your role with all the people around the world that you work with. Do you see any difference in terms of the culture that the CEOs are instilling in their company? I obviously work with Swiss and French people, which is more control and command, where here I think there's more empower. But do you see any difference in the culture when it comes to international business? Is the same everywhere?

Well, every CEO I've met is a different person with a different culture, and I can't even claim to know their cultures, but I I observe their interactions with their own employees and with me and with others and the conversations we have. And I think that there's skills which are valued now, which were not as valued before. Cross-cultural understanding is definitely more valued than it has in the past. The ability to think outside your vertical sphere, where it used to be in the technology world, you came up being an engineer for your scientific skills. And certainly a lot of companies are still based on the pure engineering and math. Software design and things like that. But the reality is, is that if you have other areas where you've, where you've gotten skills and learn things and how to deal with people and how to get to a result and how to set a goal and how to motivate people, those skills are really important. And what the business schools, I think, are increasingly doing that has value is teaching those teamwork skills, the cross-cultural skills, empathy, understanding, motivation. People have a lot of choices, especially in this environment right now, about where they work. And you have to give, um, as the CEO of Abbott, Robert Ford, who was our keynote speaker at this year's event, we— and it was great to have the CEO of a major healthcare company speak. And I had a number of conversations, and, and he's talked to me about how it's, it's not about the money, it's for the employees, it's about the purpose of the company. And you always have to put purpose above profit today and motivate their employees. And every Abbott employee I spoke with, they were, they were ginned up to really make a difference. And I, and I see that more and more. And the other thing, and I've also seen a lot of companies which are headed by founder CEOs where there was a very strong CEO, very driven, 24 hours a day demanding the same from the staff. And I've seen some of those companies, um, rise quickly and die quickly, uh, because they were not sustainable. The decisions were made top-down and they, they have not succeeded. And maybe there's some out there that have succeeded. I have trouble coming up with one to my mind now. We often— the founder has to give way to someone who could create the passion and share the vision but be more human in the approach. Because people, I think especially since COVID they, they're deciding where they want to work, when they want to work, how long they want to work for. And there's so many different decisions we're dealing with, and we're still dealing with today, like whether you insist people come to the office every day or whether they can live anywhere in the world and work. And these are novel questions now for CEOs to deal with, like how do you maintain that culture? How do you maintain your relationships? You know, when, when I remember we had our first all-staff meeting in the pandemic back in December before CES, and I didn't recognize a lot of the faces. First, everyone was wearing masks, but even remembering the names. And, and, and I asked by a show of hands how many had not attended a CES before, and it seemed a third to a half had not. And we realized this is a big deal. Um, and, and then, and, and that was when COVID, uh, the COVID variant Omicron was starting to appear, and, and then it spiked, and we, we went through a pretty rough December while there was a lot of pressure from the media to cancel our show, which we didn't do. But the point is, for a CEO though, to have that empathy— to me was an easy answer that a lot of the exhibitors had canceled from the show. The CEOs didn't even think about And that is, you know, they're so focused on— the motivating factor for a lot of them that canceled out to me was they were concerned about their image. I think they all said, oh, it's the health and safety of our employees and our customers. I don't know, but I know they feel they're in a talent war with each other, and no one wants to be accused of being an unsafe and unhealthy place, right? It was an easy The answer was the same answer I had, and I've discussed with a number of our employees. I told all of our employees at our all-staff meeting, I understand if you're not comfortable about going to CES in Las Vegas. You don't have to go, and we will not hold it against you. You know, there's definitely— you could help us out from your home or from the office. You know, if you can't travel for any reason, if you're just uncomfortable, you have medical condition, or you have a family member that you're concerned, don't come. And we had about 15% of our employees stay back. Which was fine. And I talked to them, and, and some of them now say, you know, that made a difference to me. You, you cared about me. That's all any exhibitor had to do, and any company had to do is say, this is optional for you. You know, we were at the point in the history of, of this, this virus where the odds of someone dying from it who doesn't have, you know, comorbidities, if you're vaccinated, is close to zero. Yeah, probably more unsafe to drive across country than it is to you know, go to an event and be worried about getting that disease if you're vaccinated. So, um, I think, look, everyone has to make their own choices about this, but being a CEO, you have to figure out that first of all, everyone, your human employees, are different people. They're motivated by different things. Some are motivated by the purpose of the business, some are motivated by a title, some are money, some it's recognition. And you— it's the way I deal with all the people who report to me directly. Every one of them I deal with different differently. Some of them want to have face-to-face meetings, some want a phone call, some want, you know, to take a walk and talk. It's just people are different and that goes down the whole chain of your employees and the CEOs need that empathy to understand that. Yeah, absolutely.

That's really what I call leadership and you give very concrete example. Thank you. You just say something that I couldn't help but smiling. I'm a member of EO, Entrepreneurs Organization, and some friends in my forum always saying about walk and talk, and they thought that they would come up with this new idea and then would patent that. But nope, walk and talk been doing like for years, right?

Well, certainly that was Steve Jobs. Um, that's what he did. Yeah, he liked to walk and talk. A friend of mine from France who heads Business France, who opened up Apple for Europe, was telling me about how that's how he would meet with Steve Jobs. We had dinner a couple of weeks ago and he was just going through the Steve Jobs, you know, how he got his job and early on and what he did. Um, but he, uh, Pascal Cagney was talking about that. It's, you know, Steve Jobs, certainly my relationship with him was not good because every encounter I had with him, I thought I had said something wrong. I finally read Walter Isaacson's book about him. I realized it was me. I remember I asked Steve Jobs what I had to do to have him participate in CES. He said, "It's easy, I'll do it. Just move it to San Francisco and call it Macworld." Wow. Ouch.

Wow. I have a friend, Brian Palmer, who is at National Speakers Bureau. He still has this letter where he was inviting Steve Jobs to come and speak at a conference, and the letter of Steve Jobs said, "I'm sure that you will appreciate that as the CEO of 'Apple, my job is to make this company profitable and innovative, and I don't have time to come and speak,' which was like, wow, it's brutal honesty.

Yeah, absolutely.

Now, going back to the innovation part, you mentioned, uh, obviously, uh, health, healthcare. I know AI, which is used, uh, as well to, um, to help doctors to, to do, uh, better diagnosis and, and, uh, I have friends that are now radiologists, they're working from home, which is totally different way. What is your take on the virtual meetings, the metaverse? Do you see a trade show going on the metaverse, incentive experience going on the metaverse, or where is the balance or the line between the real life, the virtual meeting?

Well, to me, this is a little bit like the emperor's new clothes. I mean, everyone's supposed to say this is the coolest thing in the world, but no one really quite understands it. It, can define it, or see it, or can imagine conceptualizing, or you could even say what it is. So my entire career, I've gotten pitched by people who say, you know, we'll give you an online marketplace. And then, you know, COVID hit and everything is, you got to go virtual, virtual is great. And now it's like everything has to be hybrid. But if, you know, the reality is, as someone who puts on events, it's freaking difficult to put on. First of all, you know, we all had to pivot to digital events. That was painful for us and our team. And I thought we did the best job we could possibly do by the measures we set out. But in reality, most people don't want to go to a virtual conference and sit and look at a computer when— think about what else they could do in their home. They could do a lot of fun things. They could watch sports that they want to do. They could do 1,000 different things as opposed to going to a conference and listening to the speakers. Now, the metaverse promises a little more interactivity, a little more of an immersive experience, and it will have its place. But I don't think— and by the way, there's some conferences I'm familiar with which is, this is a— the digital reality is the perfect experience. They don't have the F&B and entertainment costs. People don't have to travel. They get greater participation if they're lucky enough to be able to charge a fee, especially which they can do if there's continuing education credits. Doctors conferences, I've seen a number of those go phenomenally successful online and they get a global audience and their cost goes down and their revenue gets even higher because they're attracting more people. And that's great. It depends on the event, it depends on the level of people, it depends on the person. I think different professions have different personalities. And to the extent, for example, I'm married to a doctor, I go to a lot of healthcare events, you know, they, they're pretty social, but they also— their time is extremely valuable. And if they could do it online, sometimes they will. They'll make a conscious effort if they're more relationship-oriented people or experiential people to go to other events. But in the world of discovery and innovation, where what's changed just scientifically is that you can't stay in your vertical sphere and do well, you have to cross-license, you have to partner, you have to go outside your vertical industry you have to do 1,000 different things to succeed. I mean, just think of how a car is created today and all the licenses that are in— I mean, the intellectual property that's in there and how you get to aggregate something. Or even a lot of the services that are out there with not only mobility but with content creation, healthcare, and everything. There's— it's— you have to get people together from outside your, your bond in one area, and magic things happen. Innovations occur, partnerships are developed, new businesses start, new businesses are acquired, invested in. There's a beautiful thing that occurs at a lot of events where you see an ecosystem not only help feed its young and nurture them, but also combine with other ecosystems in new ways which create better services and things for human beings to benefit. Absolutely. Excuse me, absolutely. And the metaverse, to extend, is more immersive. It gets better and better, you know, maybe you know, 10 or 20 years from now, we'll sit in a room and we'll feel like we're really talking to people and we'll be really almost intimate enough. But to me, you know, the 5-sense experience, which also allows serendipity, allows discovery, allows you to form a real relationship with someone— I mean, you could do it. It's like online dating in a way. I mean, you could do it. I'm not saying you won't get that result, the good result, but it'll take longer, be less efficient, less effective. Yeah. Um, it may save you travel. It's good for a pandemic, but I would choose to be in the real world and go to places. And I will— I don't mind listening to a 1-hour podcast like this one, but I certainly, you know, going to a 3-day event and just sitting in front of a computer, that's not what— Absolutely.

And talking about online dating, if online dating is successful, it always ends up with a face-to-face meeting. Yeah.

In theory.

No, the amount of data which is produced those days is absolutely phenomenal. And I'd like to have your take on data security, what you see coming, and also impersonation for— I have seen things that somebody can take my face, my voice, and basically create a movie where I'm saying things that I've never said in my life. Where is this going?

Well, you raise a number of issues. Obviously, we as individuals, we want to protect our identity, our biometrics, and we don't want people to impersonate us. Or two weeks ago, I interviewed a Federal Trade Commissioner on stage at an event we had, and I asked him the question about impersonation fraud, and I said, tell me your story. And he had actually a call into his office from someone who said, why are you telling me that 'You know, I have to give you $10,000. What did I do?' And it turned out someone was impersonating him as a commissioner of the FCC saying you owe us money. So the impersonation for— I mean, it affects us as an event producer where people, you know, they said they have hotel rooms or mailing lists and they imply or outright state or use our logo and try to sell unwary— we even had people sold exhibit space. And obviously they don't, you know, there's nothing comes of it, but someone's been defrauded and we do everything we can to shut them down. You know, we're hopeful the Federal Trade Commission will make those tools sharper. And, and, you know, sadly, from a consumer basis, you know, obviously they prey on the most unsuspecting Americans that are older or gullible or— yeah, but even in the business world, people, they see our logo, they believe it. That's what a logo or a brand is. It's basically, and that's someone I can trust. So if someone's using yours without authority, that's a real issue. And that's why there's this— we need real tools to shut those people down and put them in jail, because right now It's not considered the big deal crime by a lot of law enforcement, but I think it's, you know, when you— when your identity has been taken, that's a big deal. Agree. You know, it bothers me sometimes even when I see that the credit card companies don't want to sue people for, you know, stealing your credit card. I mean, like, the reality is they're taking your identity, they're taking things, they're hurting your— it's just a matter of their priorities, I guess. But I find it frustrating. And I— yeah, and the way that people could take your, um likeness and voice and face and use it. Right now, they can do that, but there's also sophisticated ways to find out that that's being done, and you could challenge that and disprove it. Some of the platforms will obviously work to make sure you identify, and we've gotten more sophisticated. You know, it started out with the internet, there was nothing, then there was passwords, and then the passwords got more complex. You know, the most common password was the numbers, you know, in a row, or birthdays or things like that. And now there's all sorts of rules for passwords. And now there's, you know, dual layer protection, which is almost everything now. It's dual layer. It's either you're some biometric thing, or they send your phone a text more to affirm it's you. I find that I'm doing that several times a day. I'm getting texts on my phone to affirm that it's me. So, you know, if you build a better mousetrap, you get smarter mice. And it's— this is gonna be a constant battle. It's not going to go away. Cybersecurity is a very big issue. Our association, one of the things we do is we have a deal with NASDAQ and we have helped them create essentially funds in different technology areas that are used for ETFs. We have one for cybersecurity, one for cloud, all sorts of other categories. I think we're up to 11 or 12 funds right now that we are ETFs and they use our— what we do is we set the criteria for the companies that are eligible. But cybersecurity is definitely a growing area of technology where there's more and more major investment in. But it's never going to be over in our lifetime. I mean, there's, there's, and, and the other challenge is obviously it's cross-border. Yeah. So even if you could figure out who's done it and what they've done, that's a problem. Absolutely.

And it goes from, you know, the cybersecurity, blockchain is helping as well. I mean, in the, the company I'm leading, and now with CQTX, we're leader in blockchain tickets, and, and we see that for event, it's phenomenal. Uh, now the question is When you use all the technology and then you always have more people that loving more technology, you're talking about cybersecurity. It's frightening to see, so they can cut up the electrical grid from a remote place somewhere in the world. So how you protect that, that's one thing. The other thing for me is, and I link the data and the technology. I have this, you know, the Oura Ring that measures everything. I know Elon Musk is talking about this implant in the brain. All these things, if you can take control remotely, that is dangerous. On the other hand, the enhancement to your life, and I'm going to epigenetics and the data and the health, everything together, I think we live in one of the most exciting times in mankind history.

I totally agree, Eric. The, um, the fact is we're living through a major revolution in the use of technology. And when you're in a revolution, you know, you don't really feel it because you still do everything you do every day. But I think history will judge our era not by the pandemic, although it will certainly be a part of the history, but really by the rapid changes in technology that almost seem logarithmic. And the— and every change in technology, if you think about it over the course of history, from the taming of fire to the creation of the wheel to the creation of the printing press to the even fireworks and gunpowder to the car and the airplane and the radio and the telephone and the television and the computer and the internet and Wi-Fi and all these things, electricity, plumbing. I don't know about plumbing, but every one of them is in a sense a tool. And if you think of a hammer, when the hammers were first invented, you know, you could build houses or you could kill people. Illegal, but you don't make the hammers illegal. And the issue that we're— part of my struggle in my job, frankly, is when people see technology being used in a way they don't like, they want to make it illegal. But it's a two-edged sword. All these things— we're living much longer lives now. We're solving fundamental healthcare problems. We will do a better job with the next pandemic. We'll be more systemic in our approach to fixing— although it was phenomenal how we got the vaccines out there, we made a lot of mistakes. We still make a huge number of mistakes in how we're treating and what we're doing. But just like when you get in your car and it'll tell you— your seat will evaluate you as to whether you're about to get sick unless you take X steps. There's no reason we can't treat a lot of the things that are fatal diseases better. There's something called focused ultrasound. I'm on a foundation board where basically it takes sound waves and they bisect some tumors and things like that. FDA approved now for a whole range of things, including a tremor, which— Wow. —cures in a matter of 2 hours. It's outpatient. So there's technology that's being used in a way which is fundamentally making our lives better, that will reduce healthcare costs and make us feel better. Because a lot of people are in pain and they live their lives in pain, or they're dying, and too many people are dying that shouldn't be dying. Obviously, from the war side, yeah, man going against man intentionally, But the other side is we have the opportunity to use science in better ways, produce food better. What I love seeing at CES is the things we're doing that are— the vice chairman of our board, the African-American guy created a company and funded it. And he's created many, but one of them is what— it takes water out of the air. Introduced a product to CES just a few years ago, and now it's being deployed around the world. It uses solar energy. I mean, so people are getting clean water with these devices that are basically environmentally perfect and they're saving lives with that. And there's, there's a lot of developments like that, which are coming out very, very quickly. And it's inspiring to walk around CES and seeing that. I mean, the challenge we face is how do we do it in a way which is reasonable where, you know, companies can try new things and experiment that doesn't push up against privacy. It doesn't push up against hurting the earth, doesn't threaten your safety. And there's guardrails and it's the job of government to help set those guardrails, but not inhibit innovation. And that's kind of the challenge of my job is to make sure that we're working with government, that they value innovation. And we as industry have to accept there will be guardrails. And it's important that they don't choke off innovation because protecting existing industries, which we're facing now. I mean, I'll give you a quick example. Self-driving cars will save 30 or 40,000 lives a year. Mm-hmm. Uh, yeah. They'll be better for the environment. They'll empower the disabled and the elderly. They'll allow us to be so much more efficient and probably cut down on the resources we use just to make cars. And deal with parking issues that a lot of us face. But that entire effort is being fought by two groups that are doing a pretty good job. One is trial lawyers. They want to make sure they can keep suing for car accidents. And the other is truck drivers. Even though there's a shortage of over 100,000 truck drivers, you know, their unions and others are just saying, you know, you can't put us out of business. They're like the guys who used to feather bed and run the back of the caboose on railroad trains. You know, they kept their jobs. Elevator operators. And that's what you're fighting against. You're fighting against people trying to keep their rice bowl full, even though they're in an antiquated industry.

Absolutely. Absolutely. That reminds me, in another life, in another century, when— I'm originally from Belgium— you have the coal mine. And the coal mine in '60 and '70 were closing. And then you have Belgium, my home country, keep subsidizing. At the end, you know, everything had to be closed and a lot of people were unemployed. Luxembourg, where exactly the same situation, decided that they're going to close immediately and use the fund to actually train people, and they became a financial place. And that is the—

I mean, I was working at a law firm as a law student. That's what the United States tradition really is, is to actually, if you're closing down an industry by government or because of trade issues, then you subsidize a different form of education. —those displaced workers. And that's— I think that's a healthy way to approach things. Absolutely, absolutely.

Gary, I really appreciate your time. I know you're an extremely busy man, but there's two more topics I'd like to touch with you. The first one is, um, you're a New York Times bestselling author. Like, I don't know, you may be writing between 2 and 5 o'clock in the middle of the night. What about the future of the ninja? Or that we have to be a ninja in the future when it comes to innovation? Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

Yeah, so, you know, many years back I had two young children and, and they, they watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and they begged my then-wife and I to take karate lessons. So we set the criteria, and at the age of 4 and 5, we all took karate together, taekwondo. And nice, there was a focus there on, on creative problem solving. And although they didn't talk about ninjas— ninjas are actually Japanese and taekwondo is Korean, editorial license— The concept of being a ninja is something I've used with my children and my employees is the way you get ahead in life is not by identifying a problem, it's by solving a problem and solving your boss's problem. Usually for those that have bosses and want to go, you figure out what it is and you don't come back and say, I can't do it. You say, this is how I can do it. If you hit a brick wall, you become invisible, you jump over, you tear it down, you create a new pathway, you go underground, you do anything you can to to solve the problem. And that's being a ninja. The ninjas were Japanese warriors that were always outgunned, outmanned. Think of them, I guess, today as Ukrainians that were, you know, they're fighting for their survival. And they relied on teamwork, they relied on skills and preparation. When you hit that battlefield, everything changes. We see that in the meetings and events world. Although I've been talking about the possibility of a pandemic in a number of years, you know, I don't, claim to be any more prepared than anyone else for it. But when we hit it, we were kind of ready for it, at least at our organization, in the sense we adapted quickly. And it goes to the Charles Darwin theory, is that it's not the fastest that survive or the strongest, it's those that adapt the quickest. And as leaders in the meeting industry, you know, we had to adapt really quickly. I mean, one of the things we did is we— everyone wanted to be super optimistic, which is the job of a leader to be somewhat optimistic but realistic. And I had a lot of all-staff meetings where I told the truth as I saw it. Which was the pandemic would be around for a while and we'd have to adapt. And we canceled our CES event 7 months before it was set to occur. So we did that in the summer of 2020. Yeah. For the '21 January event. And that was something which people were horrified, like, how could you cancel so quick? And yeah, we're gonna cancel quickly so everyone can prepare and focus on this digital event and not frankly spend a lot of money in booth construction and transportation. And then, you know, a year later, we faced a similar situation in the sense that people wanted us to cancel and we didn't, we didn't think we should have to cancel. We did everything we could under the sun from a healthcare protocol. We realized that the odds were overwhelming would be a very safe event, which it ended up being. So we try to adapt, but sometimes you have to hold firm, and that's what we did. I mean, the worst case for any meeting planner is obviously canceling right before or during an event, and sometimes things happen where you don't have that choice. It could be on September 11th, the events that occurred then. Or other— obviously during the pandemic, a number of things when that first came about. Our timing was pretty lucky, but in terms of dealing with, uh, change, and, and I think that's what being a ninja is, and that's— it goes to how you produce an event. And one of the examples I said from my own place is a few years ago during CES, the power went out in one of our buildings. There was a major rainstorm and some transformer outside that I didn't know existed. And all of a sudden, though, in the middle of Las Vegas, Central Hall went dark. Wow. You know what's funny is the, uh, and the backup power didn't work, but there, there was— everyone had a phone, smartphone, that they used to light their way up. But two of my senior vice presidents— and something we never— we do a lot of scenario planning, but we never consider that one— they literally went to the entry doors, both of them, and they stopped people from coming in. We didn't plan that. We didn't tell them to do that. One was our CFO and the other was our senior vice president of public affairs. They just did it, and that made me really proud. I mean, we have people that could think on their own feet, they could take a responsible position, and they know if they're doing the right thing, they'll be a ninja, you know. And, and, and one of my rules is everyone, you know, you have to take some risks and make some mistakes, but you have to fess up to when you make them. That's a, that's very important in our organization because that's what you learn from, not your successes but your failures. So I, I'm proud that our people are willing to take risks, and sometimes they don't work out. When you have to empower people, you have to trust them. And I certainly trust our people.

That's awesome. And then the last question that I wanted to ask you since the beginning, and since I read your bio, I don't know many people that have been awarded the Legion of Honor, la Légion d'honneur, but let alone an American.

So how did that happen? Well, not only that, but what I've learned subsequently is to actually get it from the President of France himself in a personal ceremony is somewhat unprecedented. You know, it's another random thing that occurred. We had an event in Paris, and I got word that a couple of the ministers in the French government wanted to meet with me and some of our executives to talk about innovation. They knew I was a published author in it, about it, and we met with Macron's economic minister, this young 30-ish guy who is quite charming, frankly, and he wanted a no-holds-barred discussion about what what France had to do to be innovative and to get a business community. And we had a very honest and frank discussion, and it really went on for a while, and we were engaged. And to make a long story short, you know, I said, if you really want to see some great French innovation, come by the next day. We have a CES Unveiled event, mostly of French companies showing what they can to the media. And he said, I'll come. He spent at least a couple hours there, which really made our event, to have a minister with a lot of press following around. And he said, this was great. I said, well, if you really want to see something great, this is like an hors d'œuvre. You want to see us in Las Vegas. And he said, I will. And so a few months later, he came to see us. And he got a lot of publicity. But the French— I'd been going to France, like, planting seeds for at least 15 years before that every year. The French delegation was huge. We had a couple hundred companies that were exhibiting. And he just shone a light of the world on them. Other media picked up on it. Other countries figured it out. Then there were rumors where he might run for president, and then he came back the next year and he asked me to set up a meeting with some CEOs to have a similar discussion, which I did, and I introduced him to a lot of people. It was in my office, and I also introduced him to a lot— I didn't know a Wall Street Journal reporter he brought into the room, and they did a front-page story about our meeting with this minister who was growing popularity, and all of a sudden, he created a new political party. You want to talk about being innovative, imagine if one of the cabinet secretaries under a Republican or Democratic president created a new party and ran for president. So, and he was— got a tremendous vote and support. I was nominated for it, and a number of people in France supported my nomination. Those that had received the honor are the ones they look to. And I didn't realize I had so many friends in France, but they were very kind. And October last year, when I was in Paris for another CSML France, I got a call saying, you know, can you meet with the president? He's kind of set an hour for you. And he did. We spent almost an hour together. And not only did we do this ceremony with some of my French friends there, but he, uh, ended up personally bestowing and giving a nice speech about me. And it was really, uh, it's about the— and what I was getting it for really was my passion for innovation, my passion for making the world better, my willingness to, to share with France. So France, they ended up with several hundred companies, one of the largest participants. And the world, because he was there as a politician, so realize it's just not about spending money, it's about leadership. By him being there giving visibility to something, the world looked France differently. And at that time, France had one unicorn, you know, a company with a billion-dollar valuation. Now they have 26. And I think a lot of it is attributable to him. And I think his leadership and his focus on the future— that's the name of his party, La Marche, Forward. And it's something that, um, I'm a big believer in him. I'm thrilled that he won the election again a few weeks ago in Washington, D.C., because my family couldn't attend. And President Macron was so kind, he asked the ambassador— has become a friend— to host another reception for my friends and family and colleagues and board members. And we had a wonderful time. But it's just a tremendous honor. And I accept it on behalf of all those who put on CES and even the meetings and exhibition industry, because we need that type of visibility. I've long looked at actually one thing I think Europeans do better than us, and I especially saw this in Germany with Angela Merkel, is that they support their events. And the truth is that most of the world-class events at this time are still in Europe. And part of that is because the disparity of Europe and the languages make one gathering place important. And it's the geography and the train system. There's a lot of good reasons, and there's culture and tradition. But our politicians don't really support the events the way and understand them. And we do our best to see us— and every event organizer should think about how they invite politicians there, if there's some connection they could figure out. We had at the last CES, we had 5 female U.S. senators. I think that's the most ever, except at a funeral or a No. And we have always had cabinet secretaries and others, and it's a nice thing to do, but once they've been to the event, they get it. They understand the value of face-to-face, of meetings, of showing, of how it's good for competition in the marketplace and to move progress forward. And we always divide our public policy efforts to those that have been to CES and those that don't. It's like those that have actually seen the real world and those that have just read about things in a— That's brilliant. —way. So I'm a big believer in that, and I think that's important that we all in the meetings industry always keep that in mind. They add something special. It's like a meeting with the president, you know, even the most cynical people, when they walk into the Oval Office or the president walks in the room, no matter who the president is, there's a certain gravitas. Sure. That it gives. And that's very important, symbolic actions. And even as a CEO or a leader, you know, one of the big surprises for a new CEO is like everything you say matters. And people listening to what you're saying. And leadership is about not just about setting a direction and telling people what to do. It's not about that. It's about how you act, what you choose to focus your time on, what you talk about, and how you make people feel.

Absolutely. I love it. Gary Shapiro Shapiro Shapiro, thank you so much. My last question for today: when we meet one year from now with a bottle of champagne— of course, French champagne— what are we going to celebrate?

You know, I'm— hopefully we're celebrating a society that has gone back to meetings and travel and, and is— understands that we're just living with this disease and that the economy is on the rebound. I mean, I am— I don't want to leave you with a negative, but we haven't talked about it, but there is some serious issues our economy is facing because of overspending. And I mentioned before the pressure of producing events in terms of the cost and the skills of the people that you can get and There's a lot of things, you know, we've had a good ride for 20 years or so, and now it's a little bit more challenging, and we're going to have to be creative. But I think if we start getting back to some new normal where we've figured out the office situation, how people work, and we've gotten over these tremendous gyrations, our economy and our politics and our wars with, you know, Russia and Ukraine and things like that, there's a lot of big, big factors in the economy that are affecting us and the world. And I would like to see those put behind us with a little more stability. I'd like to be celebrating a more forward-thinking— and I'll leave this thing in the United States, at least for those that are Americans— a focus on working together. We are one of the original supporters of something called the Problem Solvers Caucus. It's a bipartisan group of members of Congress that agree to work together. They're sworn to work with each other, committed to it. They have to follow each other. They can't oppose each other politically. I mean, they have all these rules and they have been the major factor in the last few years of getting things done from the infrastructure package to other things. And we just gave them an award from our association, the Republican and Democrat leading them. And I'm looking forward to a presidential election campaign where maybe that becomes more of a thing. Because I think most Americans, and it's probably most people in the world, are more towards the center than to the far left or the far right. And I think we need some better choices than we have now for candidates. We want people to want to work together rather than win political points. And, you know, everything from a shooting crisis to something else becomes a political point-getting when, you know, there are— there are— there's always going to be crazy people in the world, and I think we have to rise above it and say, how do we solve big problems? How do we work together? And that's what you have to do, because one of the points of my first book was— it came out almost 15 years ago— was it The world is being divided between China and those that are totalitarian, that have a totally different belief system, that the common good is much more important than individual rights or liberties, and that we have to do certain things to, to be better than China or they will overtake us. And absolutely all— it's still as true as it was many years ago, only it's become more critical because we're seeing the totalitarianism in China and in Russia obviously still in Cuba and some other places, North Korea, and in the free world that believe in the value of human liberty and freedom of thought and creativity and freedom of religion and freedom of marriage and freedom of all these freedoms we just take for granted, the First Amendment and freedom of the press and speaking out. Yep. That's all coming into threat now. And I think to the extent that we as a free world gather and recognize that, and if they want to change and do business with us, then they have to recognize that there's individual rights which you must respect. And believe it or not, this is— the world, the country has been getting there. I mean, it was even under President Trump, he took on the China and the Uyghurs, the concentration camps there. And certainly President Biden has continued. It was under President Obama and President Bush. From a presidential leadership point of view, it may not be emphasized because it's not one of disagreement, but our leaders, our political leaders do agree on the value of human liberty. And that's a really important thing. So what I want to celebrate 15 or 10 years from now is the fact that our economy is strong, our nation's strong, and principles of liberty exist, and creativity and innovation, and our lives are getting safer, healthier, more fun, and more productive.

I cannot agree with you more. And that's also why I love being an American now and living in the greatest country in the world, because if America doesn't fight for freedom, I don't see anybody else in the world who will take that lead.

And I'm glad you're an American also, because I believe that it's great immigrants like you that make our country better, and we must always remember that.

Thank you so much, Gary. Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me today.

Thank you, Eric. I appreciate it.

Gary, thank you so much for sharing your experience and your views on our industry. Absolutely fascinating. Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to connect with me, please follow me on LinkedIn or join the Facebook group, www.eventbusinessformula.com/group. Group. And if you enjoy this conversation and think it can benefit anybody in your network, please share it with them. Thank you.