I was lucky enough to interview Bill O’Rourke.
Imagine you’re on a plane to Russia to become the new president of an aluminum factory. Conditions are abysmal. People are dying every year due to unimaginable safety conditions. Corruption is everywhere from the mayor on down. You’ll have to deal with oligarchs who’ve assassinated people. You’ll even be robbed by the cops.
What would you do? How would you fix things?
This is the position Bill O’Rourke found himself in.
I first met Bill when we toured the Carrie Furnaces in Pittsburgh. I liked Bill right away and knew I needed to record an interview with him.
We talked about everything from growing up in Steel City in its heyday, to teaching Delta Force operators about ethics, to turning around a Russian factory that killed five people a year, to Putin stealing a Super Bowl ring.
Bill has not only led an incredibly interesting life but he’s also a man of integrity and character (and that’s something I would rarely say!).
Enjoy the interview!
Timestamps below:
Introduction: How I Met Bill
Introduction
Bill’s background – storied childhood and career!
Bill’s book: The Business Ethics Field Guide
Adapting his book for Special Forces
Ethical dilemmas in the military
How Bill and I met
Why Bill gives tours of Carrie Furnaces
Family history and working in the steel industry
White hat status symbol
Ironically not being encouraged to go to law school
Bill’s family, and where he is in the sibling lineup
His dad teaching him ethics, no profanity
How his dad dealt with bribes
Did Bill play basketball? Being coached by his dad – anti-nepotism
Did he ever feel like his goody two shoes dad was too ethical?
Didn’t know he was poor
Being an altar boy, did he have any priest issues?
Was a Boy Scout, any issues there?
Vietnam War
What made Bill want to go into the military?
Fear of Vietnam, mother cried
Captain of the Pistol Team
Why didn’t he stay an engineer?
Going to law school
Law school doesn’t have any answers
What does he think of patent law?
Edison’s lightbulb
Working on trademarks, first trademark in China
Patent trolls
Working at Alcoa
Why did he work at Alcoa
Getting promoted
Chief Financial Officer, Rick
Integrity
What was it like when outsider Paul O’Neill took over Alcoa?
People in line to take over were pissed they didn’t get it
Safety was number one
The most enlightened leader he’d ever seen
The best company in the world
How fast can you close the doors?
Only Yahoo was as fast
Becoming the CIO of the company
Going from 108 data centers to two: Is that the best? How can you be the best?
Getting excited about coming into work
Discretionary effort: plus or minus 20
Moving from a closed to open office pissed off a lot of people
Escalators, not elevators
Everyone had same 9×9 cubicle with same furniture
10 design principles
Paul must have been pretty polarizing
He started attracting rather than polarizing
Working in Russia
Abysmal Russian conditions
Bribery and corruption
Where do you start?
If you get safety right, you’ll get everything right
Incident rate 10x higher
5 people killed on average for 50 years
1 or 2 fatality risks a month, stopped looking after finding 2500 fatality risks
Why did he go to Russia?
Alcoa’s growth
Switch from plastic to aluminum
How did he prepare for Russia?
It was extremely overwhelming
Trying to meet all the new employees
Did he feel like an outsider?
He had a translator, a bodyguard, and a driver
Being robbed by the police – Who do you call?
Expectation of corruption: bribery to get accepted into university
Not paying corruption, didn’t break even until the 4th year
Pressure to give into corruption (even the mayor wanted it!)
Why was Bill selected?
Bringing values into Russia
How did other companies handle Russian culture?
Coca-Cola okay with bribing; Shell and Exxon, not
Smaller companies have to deal with the Russian mafia
Did Bill know he would never have to budge?
It’s in the cities interest to have his company employing people
The federal government and Russia itself benefiting
Damage of companies pulling out because of the war now
How do he and his Russian wife feel about the war?
Russian and Ukrainian corruption
Companies pulling out of Russia
Energy exports propping them up
Meeting Putin
Putin steals Bob Kraft’s Super Bowl ring
Bob Kraft visiting the Tree of Life synagogue
Bill running the Tree of Life synagogue after the shooting
Muslims and Jews positive relations
Touring the synagogue with one of the survivors
More about Bill
Did Bill realize he was exceptional when he was young?
Bill got good grades and got awards
Bill is so humble
Bill’s personal mission statements
Bill mentors soldiers
Jake Voelker and Voodoo Brewery
Joe Grant and PNC Bank
Does Bill identify as an extrovert?
Bill goes to a bar
Bill talks to strangers at the airport
Thomas Edison
The magic of learning the stories people have and how things work
Where does electricity come from?
Henry Ford, Greenfield Village, Edison & Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers
Historical figures interacting
Edison’s impressive resume
Michelangelo vs Da Vinci, Edison vs Tesla
John is an Edison defender
Edison, Westinghouse, war of the currents
Electrifying elephants and bear fights
Bill’s Heroes and Family
If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be?
Bill’s eleven heroes
Thomas Jefferson the architect
Pope John Paul II (and Bill’s wife’s gracious sacrifice!)
His dad and his trip to Annapolis and the WWII Monument
His impressive Matryoshka doll collection
Was it hard moving his wife over from Russia?
Did his family accept her?
A Special Operations Forces Ethics Field Guide
Cute kids’ drawing
Signing John’s copy of his book
Old School Values
Interlude: Bill’s old school values
Deontologist vs consequentialist
Rationalist, Effective Altruists
Applied examples where you could actually see yourself using his advice
Bill’s old school values and what he thinks of modern society
Wokeness, losing traditions
George Washington, historical figures weren’t perfect, important to learn from them
George Washington deserves more respect, could have been King
Judging people by modern day standards vs the standards of the time
Bill has hope, is impressed with the next generation
Hearing negative news stories, meeting kids helps combat the cynicism
Ethical Dilemmas
Asking Bill ethical questions
Bill doesn’t like those types of problems. Bottom line: at least do something!
Recognize you have an ethical issue
What about people lacking discernment?
The importance of reputation
Reputation as a defense
The cost of awkwardness
What is Bill’s model of people? Are people inherently good or bad?
Dennis Praeger and Bill have opposite models
Everybody comes in at a 10/10 with Bill. Lose points from unethical acts
Important to admit mistakes to yourself
Compliance vs agency
Lessons from Paul O’Neill: What would the best company in the world do?
Legal culpability mindset vs moral compass pointing true north
Teach people that compliance is your floor, not your ceiling
People want to invest in socially responsible companies
More timely ethical questions: Vaccine mandates? Politics in the workplace?
Paul O’Neill’s “just the facts” approach to climate change
You shouldn’t be able to predict political beliefs based on one hobby but you can
Bill is an environmentalist
Bill gets a Cadillac LYRIQ
Where does your electric car get energy from? Coal!!
What does Bill think of nuclear?
John talks about scale
Would Bill go to space?
Weird that nuclear isn’t on the liberal agenda
Bill would be on both sides of the political aisle – shows he’s more of a thinker
Movies
What is Bill’s favorite movie of all time?
Mission Impossible movies
James Bond (Bill and John were skeptical of Craig at first)
Russia Now
Technological development is amazing
How long would the trip from Michigan to Pittsburgh have taken before?
Eisenhower’s interstate system (Russia’s highway system sucks!)
Bill is able to talk to his wife in Russia
Is it crazy in Russia now?
Does Bill get along with his wife’s family?
Do his wife’s kids still live in Russia?
Sketchy advice for getting to the US
Bill wouldn’t let his kids download music
Bill advising Bob Dole on not giving oligarch Oleg Deripaska a visa
Was Bill ever afraid of getting hurt?
The Russian mafia was who you had to worry about hurting you (Alcoa was too big)
The cops robbed Bill
Bill would be detained in airports (longest detention: 9 hours)
If you stick to your guns, it’ll pay off
Smartest Person of All Time
Who does Bill think is the smartest person of all time?
Bill likes JFK
John will say his moon speech when he’s trying to do something hard
Kennedy gave hope, current president doesn’t
Those two are our best candidates??
Did Bill ever think about politics?
Bill’s brother Tom was involved, wanted to save drowning black kids
O’Rourke have a family safety record
Outro: Feeling Less Cynical
Parting thoughts on Bill
I am too cynical and believe in the best predictive power
Bill makes me feel less cynical about life
I have a lot more interviews already shot that I’m in the process of editing so subscribe for more!
If you enjoyed this, you should definitely check these out:
Interview with Nectome CEO Robert McIntyre – Brain Preservation, Personal Identity, AGI, and More
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