So what's the secret?

secret?Well, again, it's knowing that truck buyer.

That truck, full-sized truck segment is a unique segment from a loyalty perspective, payload, towing, the performance of the vehicle.

Ma- for many of them, uh, they're contractors, and that's their office.

And really understanding what that truck buyer needs, what's important to them.

They also want really great design, and we do that.

We have new powertrains coming out with these trucks that are gonna take it to the next level.

Right

I'm curious how AI and physical AI or robotics has changed GM already, and how much change you anticipate happening over the next few years.

You know, as you said, we have been on this journey for a long time, and it starts with our people and how do we use technology to make our people more effective, to get rid of jobs that are hard from a safety perspective or create ergonomic issues or are dirty or hard to do, um, with, you know, with a human hand where so often the agility of a human is so important.

So we look at technology as, how do we use it to enhance what our team is doing, give them tools to take toil out, to improve quality, and improve speed? Because that just means we can give the customer more.

So, you know, we're focused on both, you know, from a offi- back office perspective, what are the tools that make everyone's life better, and, and exposing everyone so it's not something that's kinda scary.

It's real, and like, "Oh, okay, I get this.

I can use this." I was just in one of our manufacturing plants last week, and they were showing me, one of the skilled trades, um, individuals was showing me how they're using AI, uh, to improve the speed of starting up new equipment faster.

And I was just so amazed, 'cause now that it's in their hands, they're leveraging it.

So set the scene.

How do you think about teams and bringing people from different parts of different maybe different backgrounds different skill levels how do you think about and because that's a leadership issue

well and it was um it was something very important um and we're in mountain view where we've built the team that does software and several years ago now we have great people but we and we had people who were very smart and you know and we started to put those individuals saying okay we've got to you know create this vehicle that's going to be much more of a software platform and we quickly realized um our industry moves so fast and it's so competitive we don't have time to get it 80 right we've got to get it 99.99 four nines right five nines and so um we hired a new leader of software uh but it was I'll say it was broadly, it was everything related to software for the entire company.

And when we hired this individual, I said, look, I know this is all, it doesn't necessarily go together, but I want to make sure that we're not going to have organizational issues.

So if we put it all under one leader, we can get it organized right.

And that became the step that's now several years ago.

and building this team building people who really understand how to do great high quality software reliably designing the electrical architecture in the vehicle we've talked about our next generation we call it a software-defined vehicle too and but it took a lot to make sure the people who really understood software well understood people who understand how to do a vehicle well and it took some it took some work it took a lot of communication.

But it also was like, let's get people together.

So talk some about that because you're a native and you've seen it all.

How will autonomous vehicles change the auto industry landscape over the next few years?

Well, I think this is some of the most important technology.

Dan Ammon, who's our CEO of Cruise, talks about it being the technological challenge of our generation.

And it's so important because I think it can solve a lot of issues.

First of all, is safety.

And when we look at and analyze crash crash data, especially fatality data in this country alone, 90 percent of it is caused by human error.

And so an autonomous vehicle that's designed and executed safely and that's our standard, it's got to be safer than a human driver.

How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect your business? What were some of the goals you had pre-pandemic that had to change because of it? And how did you manage those changes?

W- what needs to happen for more Americans to buy these EVs?

Well, I think the consumer is very rational when they're making a decision about what car to buy.

Let's remember, it's one of the most, uh, most important and expensive decisions that we, they make.

And one of the things we have to continue to work on to drive EV adoption is a more robust charging infrastructure, and that still is continuing to happen.

So every quarter, more and more chargers are available.

I think as we, as people in their individual communities see that they've got a robust charging network and believe if they have to go on a road trip, there's that as well, they're gonna make that choice.

And what we do see is once someone buys an EV, they see about the...

Will you start to sell more of, of, uh, of the hybrid vehicles?

What's your view on whether that upward mobility is still a characteristic of what it is to be an American? Is that part of the American dream still alive from your perspective?

Well, I think it is.

And, you know, probably the most influential person in my life, my biggest mentor, champion, was my mother.

And she believed in the American dream.

She unfortunately passed away about 20 years ago, but she didn't have the opportunity to go to college.

She grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Minnesota.

Yeah, there's my mom.

Barry, do you have

You know, what is it about the company that's kept you with it all these years? You know, people move around so much anyway, but you've had tremendous continuity and grown from within, you know, What's been the glue that's kept you there?

I think early in my career, I just had so many opportunities.

I mean, General Motors sent me to Stanford to get my MBA.

I worked in an assembly plant.

I had overseas opportunities to work with our teams overseas as we were globalizing.

And I got to work in many different functions.

I think what that taught me, though, is there's so many great people at GM who work hard and really care, call it that Detroit grit that the team has.

Tell me how this tested your leadership.