When you get to work with the best of the best – remembering Ash Carter

How does one sum up the impact of someone like SecDef Ash Carter? Simply put, you can’t.

There are the notable items from his background that will make you feel instantly inadequate including degrees in both physics and medieval history from Yale. A Rhodes Scholar and doctorate in theoretical physics. He held every major role at the Pentagon, making him the most qualified Secretary of Defense we have ever had. Five time recipient of the highest medal the Department of Defense bestows on a civilian. A professor with a list of students who have become the who’s who of public service. Author of 11 books and more than 100 major articles. Amazing husband and father. And that’s just the start.

See what I mean when I say feeling inadequate?

The statements from President Biden and President Obama give you a glimpse into the impact SecDef Carter had on them and the world. But there is so much more.

What I can tell you is there is no one that has had a bigger impact on me in the last decade than Ash Carter. I don’t say that lightly. Especially since I have been incredibly privileged to have worked with so many amazing people. 

I wasn’t supposed to work with SecDef Carter. In fact, initially, President Obama made it explicitly clear that I was supposed to stay away from my roots in national security and just focus on domestic policy. But, that didn’t last long. I had worked with SecDef Carter’s wife, Stephanie, many years before, and early in my time as U.S. Chief Data Scientist, I ran into them while they were walking their dog outside their apartment. And before I knew it, I was on his plane for the first trip a SecDef had made to Silicon Valley in 20 years. Little did I know that that trip began my front row seat to the leadership lessons from one of the greatest SecDefs ever and the beginnings of the transformation of the Pentagon.

The thing that made SecDef Carter so effective is that he brought five key traits/skills together:

1. Intellectual rigor;
2. People & talent;
3. Do the right thing – integrity;
4. Passion for everything you spend time on; and
5. Public service, mission first and patriotism.

Intellectual rigor

What did SecDef Carter do in his spare time? Learn. I kid you not, he read textbooks for fun. I’m serious, he really did. He was an absolute learning machine. From data science/AI to genomics to healthcare policy, he wanted to know it all. And in our regular calls for advice, I found he always seemed to figure out how to turn the tables on me for me to tell him about the latest things I learned. 

One time I remember we were looking at how refueling aircraft in the air worked and before we knew what happened SecDef gave us a full lecture on the physics of how the device would need to work as well as the pros and cons of various approaches.

When you worked with him, you learned very quickly that you needed to know the deep details and nuances. As he would point out, the job we were tasked with required that level of detail. He meant it when he said lives were on the line. He demanded excellence out of you and he got it. In the process, those around him became excellent. 

People & talent

I wish there was a way to look at the network map of SecDef Carter. Not just because of the number of presidents that he served, but because of the scale, scope, and impact of talent that he has mentored and shaped. 

First and foremost, SecDef Carter was a teacher. He knew that for you to have maximal impact in the world he had to invest his time in you. Even when he didn’t have the time (given the number of crises he was managing), he always made time.

People talk about “walking the floor,” where leaders spend time with people doing the lowest level jobs. Well I saw, day in and out, SecDef Carter doing this, from walking around the Pentagon meeting people to the long hours he would spend with troops in the field. He wasn’t there to just give facetime or a photo-op. He was there to really listen. If you were nearby, you were going to be tasked directly with a set of follow-on items from the ideas that others gave him or problems they faced. And he was diligent about following up to make sure we were making progress.

Do the right thing – integrity

SecDef Carter was never one to shy away from calling like it was, even if it was a message that wasn’t politically favorable. Behind that was a core belief in doing the right thing. I was lucky enough to see him deftly manage the process to ensure that those who are transgender could serve in the military, as well making sure women could serve in all combat functions. He made these policy decisions because it was the right thing to do. When others would give excuses why it couldn’t/shouldn't be done, he was relentless, always coming back to questions of equality and national security would be improved if we have a military that represented all of the country.

SefDef Carter demanded integrity and led from the front with his own. And it was one of the reasons I loved working with him. When working with him, you knew that you were working with a whole team of people who all had incredible integrity. 

Passion for everything you spend time on 

There are people who love their work and there are people who love their work. Sec Def Carter was the latter. In everything he did, the foundation was a deep passion for learning with a goal of serving those in uniform, the country, this family, and his students.

Simply put, SecDef Carter cared. As the saying goes, “you can’t teach heart.” SecDef Carter had a huge heart.

When SecDef Carter would talk to my son and daughter, you could see that passion come alive. It was a look of pure joy that he’d get on his face when he would tell them why the work we were doing was so important. And when I reflect on it, it was the same on every call when he’d pick up the phone and with his catch phrase, “Hey brother!”.

Public service, mission first and patriotism

SecDef Carter was epitome of public service. He gave everything he had to the job. Including, on multiple times, sacrificing his health for the mission. Both he and his wife Stephanie have been incredible champions for those in uniform and their families. He was also very clear eyed about what his job demanded of him and of the risks his decisions had. As he would regularly remind us, “Security is like oxygen, if have it, you don’t pay attention to it”

That kind of patriotism is what inspired the core challenge he gave to his team: to make sure we left the Pentagon in a better place than when we entered it. It’s also why he was so effective in recruiting top talent while establishing the Defense Innovation Board (DIB), Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), Defense Digital Service (DDS). As well as getting people to “think outside of the five sided box” to create programs like Hack the Pentagon. I can say with certainty that the country is safer and on a more secure national security trajectory because of SecDef Carter.

SecDef Carter’s impact on the country didn’t end when he left the Pentagon. His most recent work from the Harvard Kennedy School, Belfer Center has had some of the best thinking in the country on the greatest problems of the day. And from the students of his that I have met, he will have helped produce some of the great leaders for the next 50 years with the following framework:

1. Technology’s advance is inevitable, and it often brings with it much progress for some. Yet, progress for all is not guaranteed. We have an obligation to foresee the dilemmas presented by emerging technology and to generate solutions to them.  
2. There is no silver bullet; effective solutions to technology-induced public dilemmas require a mix of government regulation and tech-sector self-governance. The right mix can only result from strong and trusted linkages between the tech sector and government.  
3. Ensuring a future where public purpose drives innovation requires the next generation of tech leaders to act; we must train and inspire them to implement sustainable solutions and carry the torch. 

If you’re looking to get a sense of the scale of the impact of SecDef’s Carter’s work I’d encourage picking up his latest book Inside the Five-Sided Box: Lessons from a Lifetime of Leadership in the Pentagon, or his Drell Lecture given at Stanford University.

For me personally, there are so many gifts of wisdom that SecDef Carter has given me and I hope to be able to tell those stories over time so others can gain from that wisdom as well. One of the most memorable was in the last few weeks as Secretary of Defense: He summoned me to the Pentagon about an urgent crisis that was taking place. I was already incredibly sleep deprived and my family had returned to California to start the new school year. I rushed over canceling all my other meetings and entered the room to find my entire family, White House teammates, and Pentagon colleges there. SecDef Carter and his team had found a way to contact them all to surprise me while he presented me with the Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service Medal (the same one he has, except, of course, he has five of them). Being able to have my children and family see that moment was an incredible gift. But what made it all the more special was knowing that it was work that we did together and that the work we did really had an impact for the country. That work wouldn’t have been possible with SecDef Carter.

If I were to channel SecDef Carter, I think there would be three things he’d want us to do:

1. Recognize those that serve and in uniform. They don’t just serve, their family serves too. We need to make sure we take care of them all. 
2. Public service is a higher calling. If you have an opportunity to serve, do it.
3. Take the time to mentor someone or help open the door for someone who doesn’t have the opportunities that you do.

Thank you, Sir. It’s been an honor of a lifetime to serve with you.