NYSE President Lynn Martin on AI, Trump’s Economy & DEI | KMP Ep.32

23:24Well, first, on the AI taking everyone's jobs, this is the next great technology evolution revolution. 1950s, given that I was a coder, I remember people used to walk around with punch cards, or I had learned that people walked around with punch cards and getting those moved to actually operate these mainframe computers. There was a guy doing that. That guy got a different job as technology advanced. This is going to be the same evolution. We're going to learn how to use AI to enhance what we do and continue to evolve. So I don't know that it's going to displace some jobs, but I think it's really important to upskill people so that they become AI literate, for lack of a better description.

24:13Katie Miller:So you see at the working level, a lot of these companies, whether you look at Meta, like Anthropik, OpenAI, XAI, any of these companies, right? A lot of their engineers are not women. That it is just not something that women are intuitive at doing, yet you've done it. Why would you say that it is a genetic difference that women are not destined to be engineers? And is that something that you think more women should go into? Or is there an alternate path as this new age is among us? I think it's actually an opportunity. This technology age is an opportunity for women to become more comfortable with technology and what the technology jobs of the future are going to be, because we're all going to be using technology.

25:01Technology and maths in general has been this big scary thing for women. And even when you think about how universities in the past had recruiting, they had recruited their students, they would tend to see a woman and say, okay, I've got a great English program, art history.

25:21Katie Miller:Do you think it's genetic, though, that women inherently aren't wired to think the same way as a man in terms of sitting at a computer and needing maybe more social interaction? I think that in the past, and I think it's gotten better, but I think in the past, the curriculum wasn't made interesting to a woman. It didn't match a female's natural interest. It more matched a male's interest. So playing with robots, building cars, that's the more traditional things that a boy growing up, that's my boys played with. You know, they wanted to build a robot to beat another robot, or they wanted to build a car to go faster or things of that nature.

26:11Katie Miller:Yeah, my boys are driving cars and my daughter is sitting there playing dress up with her Barbies. Right. But virtual, how to build a program to allow for fashion design or allow for a Barbie to interact with other Barbies. That's something that would have been much more interesting for your daughter. So I do think that the way the education, the extra education, not what's being taught in schools necessarily, but the clubs, things of that nature, are more targeting female interests are going to enable more women to get into these. Are you working with any of these companies to replace the coding that they currently have as their infrastructure?

27:00Much of our financial infrastructure is built on COBOL, especially as of all these AI companies are moving to Python.

27:06Katie Miller:And so how do you expect to replace what is aging code to come up to where we need it to be in order to protect our grid infrastructure, our security infrastructure, and others? That's an area that at least we at NYSC are seeing a tremendous amount of benefit from AI because you can't find the COBOL coders. You can't find a Fortran programmer. You can't find a Pascal programmer. The people, but there is still that legacy code out there. How do you take a machine, for lack of a better description, with some oversight, because the machine will make errors and allow for a much speedier replacement of technical debt?

27:50Katie Miller:What do you think is the greatest challenge facing companies in the next five to ten years? I would say let's go five years. Yeah. Let's go five. Five years, I would say the biggest challenge is that they don't develop strong use cases for AI. And instead, they just deploy AI for the sake of deploying AI and don't see the expected results. Do you think it's much to do about nothing? Or do you think it is something, the fact that the Pentagon wants to pull Anthropic out of their system for them pushing back on how the Pentagon intended to use it? I think it's going to be an interesting debate as to how AI gets deployed for national security and infrastructure.

28:37I don't know where it will wind up, but it's sparking an interesting debate. It also, I think, is sparking an interesting debate just on AI use cases and how companies wind up using AI and deploying AI.

28:52Katie Miller:The other, I would say, I don't call it controversy among social media is, you know, use cases among kids and how they intend to use social media, whether that be TikTok or Instagram. What do you do personally for your children? Yeah, this is the big debate with my 14-year-old. First, debate number one was when do you get the iPhone? And what's your determination on that? So I waited until seventh grade and I had it locked down. My 11-year-old uses a watch to keep in touch with me. But the lockdown aspects of the phone is no social media. I think that there's a responsible way to roll out social media.

29:35I think social media has a tremendous amount of benefits, but put into the hands of someone whose brain is still developing and still figuring out where right and wrong and power of certain tools, such as our children, I think it's really important to go a little bit slower.

29:54Katie Miller:Do you agree with Australia's ban on 16-year-olds not having social media and under? Again, that comes back to what we were talking about earlier. Like, why 16? Why 15? Why 13? Why 18? Like, I don't know what the right number is because every 16-year-old is going to have a different level of maturity. But I'm a fan of delaying a little bit until you, as a parent, know that your kid is mature enough to be able to understand the power of social media, power for good, power for bad. When a new founder comes here, presumably, and they're launching or having conversations, they're very excited about where they've gotten to.

30:39Katie Miller:Yeah, of course. Is there anyone that's come in, you don't have to name names, I guess, but we can be less specific, and you're just like, they didn't treat other people the way you expected, and you don't know how they got to where they were? I think there are times that people come in with just an idea, and they've not yet done the work to refine the strategy. A lot of times those companies haven't gone public yet, though, and I actually think that's a benefit of the private markets, that those companies who haven't yet developed the maturity, the emotional intelligence to be a public company in addition to their strategy, they're allowed to stay private for a bit longer.

31:22Katie Miller:What's the biggest misconception people have on how the markets actually work? The biggest misconception that people have is that, first, that the exchange can influence a price of a stock. You really can't. It's that the exchange doesn't spend a tremendous amount of time focusing on technology. Technology is table stakes. And when you think about the amount of messaging that goes through this building alone, we process on peak days 1.2 trillion incoming order messages a day. You have to be thinking about your underlying technology, not just from an efficiency standpoint, but from a reliability and resiliency standpoint and a protection of the data coming through here.

32:07Katie Miller:If you could teach every American one lesson about investing, what would it be? Do it for the long term. Don't focus on the moves in the market in any one given day. Do you ever recommend a specific stock to people? I don't. I tend to look at broad market indices. Do you ever ask AI which stocks you should be investing in and then do it? No, but that's actually an area of opportunity I see for certain parts of AI and for certain models. The more retail facing models, for example, like I I think, you know, a Grok or a OpenAI and some of their models. They could actually be a great enabler for the retail audiences to get smarter about the market.

32:57Katie Miller:What keeps you up at night about our financial system? There are times that I feel as though we don't move fast enough or we haven't moved fast enough. I'd say I changed the way I phrased that because I think in the last year and a half, you've seen the market starting to move to really use the technology that exists to address the inefficiencies. The blockchain technology, stablecoin, the digitization of certain items that will enable much more efficient market moves. Everything we're doing around tokenization, for example. The fact that money can move and settle instantaneously, that's a good thing.

33:43We probably should have done that many years ago.

33:46Katie Miller:You've seen a lot of companies succeed from the moment they decide to go public and some struggle. What separates the ones that succeed from struggle? The ones that succeed are the ones that have a durable strategy and are not trying to be everything to everyone. Can you tell right away? I think you can tell pretty well during their testing the orders process and on the run to IPO. What's one technology that's transforming the way Wall Street works that people aren't thinking of today? I think AI is transforming the way Wall Street works because it is putting more thought-through analytics at the hands of the individual investor in a very rapid period of time.

34:39You're enabling a human to distill everything that has gone into a stock from a fundamental standpoint. Recent earnings transcripts, if they've had an investor day, if what the CEO has said publicly, you're doing that in a matter of seconds and minutes, which is enabling you, my parents, to make investment decisions very quickly. And I don't think we fully understand the power that that's having on the end investor.

35:13Katie Miller:Do you think the SEC's recent proposal to remove quarterly earnings is a good or bad thing? I think it is good in many cases. My one area where I just have a question mark is, what is that going to mean for disclosures in the short to medium term for a company? Like, will a company still put out a quarterly financial statement? I think that's going to be really dictated by their investors. But I think the premise that you want companies to focus on building and less time prepping for short term. Dealing with regulatory burdens. Yeah, dealing with regulatory burdens is a good thing. As long as there's some permanence to it, too.

36:02I would hate to see something as transformational as this, provided there's the transparency, the financial transparency element still there. I would hate to see that get pulled back. if there's any changes in administration in the future. What's a typical day for you like? It is manic. And, you know, I always tell people I have a schedule. And eight days out of ten, I don't follow the schedule because something pops up. It is an absolutely tremendous job and an honor to have this job. But it does mean you're pivoting all throughout the course of the day.

36:41Katie Miller:Are you working Saturdays and Sundays? Absolutely. How do you manage that with two boys, 11 and 14? How are you doing it? With two boys while I'm watching a baseball game or a basketball game? You find the time to be very present with them. And as you know, your kids don't want you present with them 16 hours a day every moment. A lot of time they want to play a game with a friend or they have a sports event with two boys. There's a lot of sports in my house. So you're able to make it work. What's your family non-negotiable that you guys say has to be done or what you guys do? We have to go on at least two vacations together as a family.

37:39Saturdays we have to go to church where one of my actually both of my children soon to be are in Catholic school so we go to church every weekend as a family we also don't allow phones at the dinner table which is

37:55Katie Miller:a small thing and it's becoming increasingly challenging you'll see when you get there with your own having them put the phone away at the dinner table can be a bit of a challenge By the way, it's a challenge as a parent, too. Like, we're the worst offenders. But you've got to have a conversation with your kids. You've got to be able to talk to them about stuff. And more importantly, to listen to what they're not saying, even if you're getting a grunt as an answer. Do you find that it's been easier to connect with your kids and have that time since kind of COVID has reshaped the workplace? COVID was a little bit of a blessing in that regard because the world was manic, but the world did stop in that you didn't have the travel element.

38:45As they got older, I actually had the opportunity to bring them along if I'm traveling too. During the summer, for example, if I have to go on business trips in the summer, you can sort of make them part of the experience.

38:55Katie Miller:How has raising kids shaped how you're a leader here for other young parents? What philosophies or rules have you put in place or changed to make it more amenable for young families? If someone says to me they want to work from home or leave early to go to their kids, whatever. Fill in the blank. Play. Parent-teacher conference. Game. That's a non-negotiable in my mind. Like, just go, why are you even asking me? Do you find that you're still elevating people who have young children and empowering them the same as you would if somebody didn't have a young child? I know it's discriminatory. Absolutely.

39:40Katie Miller:So I don't mean it like that. But, you know, there is, I would say, especially someone who has young children, your brain is always in two places at once, right? Where you are and what they're doing. And I think it makes people a lot better. But it also takes a special leader to say, hey, you can be the best parent and be the best worker while you're sitting there at the doctor appointment. And unplug from 530 to 630 during dinner and bath as long as you're plugging back in between 830 and 11. Have you found that that's the culture among a lot of young people now? Yeah, I think so. I think actually that this generation, the generations behind me value that in a different way that the generation that I'm a part of really had it the other way around.

40:25And hopefully because of my generation, we're enforcing that mindset in the young leaders. If I look at my own management team, some are married, some are not. Some have kids, some don't. All different ages. Some have grown kids, some have young kids.

40:40Katie Miller:Do you find the work ethic to be the same throughout generations? Or do you think young people tend to have a lesser work ethic? I think the challenge for a leader is finding the common work ethic. And that comes into company culture, how you build your culture and finding the right work ethic and picking the people that really embody that work ethic. What's the worst business decision you've ever made? Being too reactive. And I think it's something that women have the capacity to do initially, but then self-correct. being too reactive to a situation, being too emotional in a situation. When you start to think about it and you know that you do that, you learn how to take a beat and actually think about what the proper reaction could be.

41:40And that's something that really is due to experience.

41:44Katie Miller:Do you think anyone's treated you differently because you're a female leader? Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I've been in financial services and technology for now 28 years. So absolutely. Do you give a shit? No. That's the difference. That's exactly what I was going to say. You learn to, when you're 22 years old and someone does that to you, you react very differently than when you're in your late 40s and someone does it to you. Do you think feminism has taught women that they need to be offended and they have to be upset that they're treated differently than a man versus just accepting as how you've just said it, like, it is what it is and I'm still going to be the best I can be and be better than you?

42:26I don't know if feminism has done that. I don't know what has really done that, but I think the narrative that exists in mainstream is really what has contributed to it. And I don't know if that's due to feminism or if it's due to people who are just opinionated that are on different forms of media, be it linear, radio, whatever the case may be.

42:54Katie Miller:So in every episode, we play a game of would you rather. Cool. Would you rather replace the opening bell with a giant gong or with a countdown clock like New Year's Eve? Oh, I would rather do it with a gong. Because I like to say the opening bell is, and the closing bell, are celebrations of capitalism. And I feel like we should be ringing that real loud every single day. Would you rather lose air conditioning on the trading floor on the hottest day of the summer or have a week-long outage of the NYSE's website? Website. I would rather have the website. Now, if you said trading infrastructure.

43:40I didn't say trading infrastructure. Trading infrastructure, I'll live without the air conditioning. But website is fine. because I feel as though you could still get your message out through social.

43:53Katie Miller:Would you rather have AI manage your personal finances or let your 14-year-old manage them? I would rather have my 14-year-old manage them because my 14-year-old is an incredibly responsible human. I'm more and more impressed with him every day. Now, if it was my 11-year-old, not because of the age, I would probably rather have AI because he's the emotional one of the two. Would you rather explain how the stock market works to a room full of fifth graders or to members of Congress? I've done both.

44:30Members of Congress.

44:32Katie Miller:Who's the worst member of Congress you've ever interacted with? I don't know. They could be retired. They could be retired, so it doesn't matter. I don't know. I don't know. Would you rather go back and experience the New York Stock Exchange on its first day in 1792 or be able to see what it looks like 200 years in the future? 200 years in the future. And I really hope it has learned, continued to evolve and learn lessons during those 200 years. I'm expecting it will. So I asked you this a bit outside, but we're going to circle back. Yeah. What was the most memorable person you've ever had ring the bell?

45:04The most, the easiest ones to obviously say are the administration, um, bells that we've done. Those are the cheating answers. I know those are the, those are the cheating answers. I knew, I know you're going to hold me to task on those. The most memorable bell that I've ever done was the Zelensky bell really stuck in my brain. Because I, and this has nothing to do with the Ukraine war. He was remote in his bunker and his people had traveled 23 hours through a secure passage out of the Ukraine. This was September 2022 when the world looked a lot different. And the reason why it was so memorable to me was the fact that people would travel 23 hours through secure passage, which involved trains, unmarked cars, all of these different things to get to a location where they could then take a plane, really spoke to how important the capital markets are and the awareness that our platform brings.

46:10who's the most awkward person who's ever rung the bell Flava Flav really it was a little I have to give you a fun answer you do he was great I really enjoyed that bell I really enjoyed that bell because it was with the women's water polo team when they had won the silver medal and he He was supporting women and female sports and all that. But he wound up using the gavel. It was the closing bell. He used the gavel. The gavel went flying into the audience because it fell out of his hand. So it was interesting. Who's never rung the bell? Who you wish would come do it? Oh, there's all sorts of people that I wish would ring this bell.

47:05One. I will go with safer options. I'd say Warren Buffett would be the one that I, well, he has rung the bell, but he hasn't rung the bell since I've been here. He has rung our bell, though, as Berkshire's one of our listed companies.

47:21Katie Miller:He should have done it on the day he retired, right? Yeah. Did you try? Yeah. What's the most chaotic trading day you've experienced? Last April, there were a few chaotic trading days. Tariff days? Tariff days, yep. The first Liberation Day? Yes. The first Liberation Day was, I think, it was either a Wednesday or a Thursday. I can't remember when the actual...I think it was a Wednesday that the presentation in the Rose Garden happened. Beautiful day. Yeah. And the next, I'd say, four or five trading days were a bit chaotic. Actually, probably the next seven trading days were a bit chaotic while the market was finding its footing.

48:01Katie Miller:Do you wish President Trump did more tariffs? You know, it's worked out okay. The market has found its level. I mean, the Dow was just at 50 ,000. It's come off a bit, but, you know, we'll get back there. Do you think President Trump is to credit for how good the market's done in some of his policies, or do you think the market was always going to trend in that direction? I think the market has been strong. It's had really strong fundamentals. But I do think the market has, in general, liked some of the broad policies that have been implemented. Where do you get your news? I get my news probably a lot from social.

48:39I spend a lot of time looking at social. I spend a lot of time on X. I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, too. I listen to podcasts as well. So it's a bit of everything. It really depends what type of news I'm looking for. There are some podcasts that are really quite technical that are market-focused that I think are quite good.

48:58Katie Miller:What's your favorite podcast? Aside from yours. Thank you. I really enjoy the TVPN guys because they're really technical. I enjoy All In. I enjoy some of the mainstream media podcasts, too. It really depends on the topic. Do you think there'll always be a place for CNBC on the trading floor? There will always be a place for CNBC on the trading floor. What value or critical value, I should say, do they provide? They do a great job on technical analysis and live technical analysis, particularly breaking news. They can, like today's a Fed day, as I'm talking to you here today. They will have a really in-depth technical analysis with their experts when that comes out.

49:44Katie Miller:What's the first app you open in the morning? My email. How many emails do you have on read when you wake up? A lot. Actually, not as many as I used to. The job I had prior to this was a much more global role. I ran our global data and fixed income business. So in that job, I think I had probably about 200 emails when I woke up. Now it's only about 60 or 70. How much do you sleep at night? I try to sleep seven hours. I like sleep. So when do you wake up in the morning? I wake up just about 6 o 'clock, a little bit before. Do you go to the gym? I do. What do you do? I do. I'm a big fan of SoulCycle.

50:24I do SoulCycle. Still? I do SoulCycle twice a week.

50:26Katie Miller:I thought SoulCycle went out of style. I'm an OG. I'm actually a very loyal person, so I'm not about trends. I've been going to SoulCycle since 2016. Do you use the same skincare products you've always used? What are you using? I moved from La Mer, and I'm using La Prairie. although I do sometimes use La Mer as well. Why'd you switch? Your skin changes as you get older. I was going to say, I thought you were like, one's healthier than the other. No, your skin changes as you get older. Have you gotten at all into this eating healthy, clean movement, whole foods? Yeah, I actually have because I eat out a lot for work.

51:09And I mentioned I try to go to spin twice a week. I also do weights, which is really important. Especially for women. For women, yeah. So that's been my New Year's resolution, which is still working, do weights twice a week. And additionally, I eat a meal. I have a meal delivery plan that I get every week for breakfast and lunch. It's Saqqara. It's vegan. Do you cook for your kids? Yeah, I try to, and then they complain about what I make. What's the best thing you make? I can make a good red sauce. I have some Italian descent in me, so I can make a mean red sauce.

51:47Katie Miller:What's a conspiracy theory that you believe in? I think there are aliens. Do you really? I do. I think there are... Like here, outer space? I think there are... There is life beyond this planet. And I think that they may be able to see what we do. Are there UFOs? Perhaps. Did we go to the moon? Of course. Okay. Those typically tie together for people. Of course. Are we going to go to the moon again? Yes. Has aliens ever visited the Earth? I don't know that. Okay. I don't know. I do think there's some beings out there, though. I don't know what they are and what they look like. We end the podcast on the same question.

52:32Katie Miller:If you could host a dinner party with three people dead or alive, who's at the table and what are you eating? okay three people dead or alive so i'm gonna go with alexander hamilton okay um thomas edison and grace hopper you're like who is grace hopper a little but what are you eating we are eating a selection of new york city hole in the wall restaurants. So there's a great taco stand. Are we getting food poisoning? No, no, there's a great taco stand around the corner, for example, that I love. That would be one course. A place from Chinatown would be another course. I mean, the New York City's got the best food.

53:24It's just got to know what holes in the walls to go to. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

53:30Katie Miller:Thanks for joining this episode of the Katie Miller podcast. We're live 6pm every Tuesday nights every Get Your Podcast. See you next week.