An Interview with Carol Bartz

Talitenu :   Throughout your lifetime, how have you dealt with setbacks and your disappointments?
Bartz :   Pick myself up; dust myself off, say, What in the world happened here? And keep going.
Gemperlein :   How do you come up with ideas? Are they like light bulbs like in the cartoons, or do you wake up at night and have a long evolutionary process?
Bartz :   It's sort of half way between the light bulbs and the long evolutionary. I do wake up in the night with ideas. I remember some of them by morning.

I don't mull on things a long time. I actually get ideas a lot from what goes on around me. Maybe keying off something I've read or something I've heard or somebody ee's idea, and taking it down maybe a farther or a divergent path. But they tend to come quite quickly.

I get a real kick out of how technology is going to cure human hunger and cancer all at one time, and it's just a programming language.

Talitenu: When you have ideas, how do you test them out?

Bartz: Usually, I test them out by talking to other people about them. You know, what do you think about this idea? Does this make sense or not make sense? And try and get people to exchange their concepts around this idea. And, of course, eventually ideas have to be tested out organizationally or in the market with products.

Gemperlein :   What's the biggest downside of technology?
Bartz :   People expect it to do too much. Technology is supposed to cure all il. I mean, sometimes I get a real kick out of how technology is going to cure human hunger and cancer all at one time, and it's just a programming language.
Talitenu :   What do people need from within themselves and from without to get their ideas turned into reality?
Bartz :   Well, I think you need the courage to bring your idea to the surface. I think you need the courage to see many of your ideas fail. It's just like the plants I mentioned. You have to kill a lot of them to grow a beautiful tree. And so, therefore, a lot of your ideas aren't going to make it.
I was going to be reborn into another being, I'd be reborn into my cat. If I was going to be reborn as a person, I think I'd just come back as Carol.

And too many times I see people fail a few times and then clam up. So, you have to be willing to take some of those failures. And then press forward.

Gemperlein :   What's the most fun you've ever had?
Bartz :   I think the most fun I've ever had is raising my daughter.
Gemperlein :   What can't you live without?
Bartz :   My family.
Talitenu :   If you could choose to be reborn, what would it be?
Bartz :   Well, I would say, if I was going to be reborn into another being, I'd be reborn into my cat.

Gemperlein: Is that because your cat just lies around all day and eats?

Bartz: There's some point to that, plus she has a lot of self-esteem; she does what she wants and it doesn't seem to matter too much what goes on around her. If I was going to be reborn as a person, I think I'd just come back as Carol.

Gemperlein :   What was your first car, and what do you drive now?
Bartz :   My first car was a Pontiac Firebird, bronze, and it was after college, huge car payments, I think about $104 a month. It was terrible. I have a Miata now.