Robert Millard '73

INTERVIEWER: Today is September 23, 2015. I'm Chris Boebel, and I'm here with Bob Millard. Bob is the chairman of the MIT Corporation. He joined the Corporation as a term member in 2003 and was elected as a life member in 2013.

He has served on the executive committee for 10 years and on the MIT investment management company board since 2007, the last four as its chair. Bob is a successful investment banker and businessman. He's held many positions, including that of managing director at Lehman Brothers. And he has held leadership and directorship roles at many other companies, including L-3 Communications Holdings and Evercore Partners.

Bob has also served on numerous nonprofit boards, including the New School and the Population Council. He is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He holds a bachelor's degree from MIT and an MBA from Harvard.

So Bob, thanks for coming in to sit down and talk to us today. Let's just sort of take it in order, sort of as it were. Tell me a little bit about growing up, where you grew up, your family, and some of your early memories.

MILLARD: Well, that might be the oddest part of the interview. So I was born in 1950 on Long Island outside of New York City in a lower middle class neighborhood in a house that was 800 square feet, which was not abnormally small, I suppose, in those days. It was still in the aftermath of World War II. And I had the two brothers. And we lived there.

And things got a little weird. My mother was very sick when I was young so I actually never remember her being healthy. She came down with cancer in her early '30s, and she died when she was 41. I was 13 at the time.

And then the rest of my family kind of fell apart. My father eventually abandoned me when I was 16. So that's an odd story. And there are some fun parts of that. There were obviously some not so fun parts of that. So I had this unusual childhood.

Then being on my own since I was 16, I didn't think I would be able to go to college. And I wound up at MIT. And they gave me my life. So--

INTERVIEWER: So that's sort of an extraordinary story, which we could unpack, I'm sure, for a long time. How did that happen? How did MIT kind of enter your life? That doesn't seem like kind of a natural progression if you have all those challenges and difficulties.

MILLARD: Right. So I, from an early age-- and I can't tell you what the catalyst was for it. But from a very early age, I loved science and math. And by an early age, I mean second grade, I think, I just got fascinated by numbers and I just loved being able to manipulate them. Maybe I was a lonely kid, and it gave me some sort of power over it that I thought was little supernatural or something like that. But I had this great interest in a lot of things.

I was also-- I wrote. And I drew. And I painted. And I did music, and I did a lot of things. But the thing that I think I did best was science and math, although there was a time in my life when I thought I was going to grow up to the great American writer.

But in any event, that was with my love. And I went to sort of a public school where most kids didn't go on to college. But I had some wonderful teachers. They really loved what they were doing. And they took an interest in me, and I was able to just absorb stuff like a sponge.

And at some point, I decided I wanted to be a scientist-- physics, in particular. And then when I lost my family, I had no way to really navigate that. Most of the kids, as I said, didn't go to college from my high school. So I don't even remember there being a guidance counselor who would guide anybody.

But I, on my own initiative, applied to a bunch of schools. I remember figuring out what schools to apply to. And there was just a random group of institutions that I thought could teach physics. And there were a couple of state schools that I applied to-- Stony Brook and Buffalo.

I applied to Buffalo because-- I hadn't been to Buffalo. I still haven't been to Buffalo. But I just applied to Buffalo because I had a girlfriend who was a year older than I who went to Buffalo, and Stony Brook because they had an accelerator. And then I applied to Rensselaer, which I had never visited either. I never applied to a bunch of other schools that I probably should have.

But MIT was of great interest into to me. I had read something about in Scientific American. And I really wanted to go to college.

But then when I was in high school and I lost my family-- and as I said, I was living illegally. I couldn't prove that I actually didn't have any money because I was in this strange catch-22 situation. I didn't want to get thrown in an orphanage.

And when you're a kid, you just sort of blame everything on yourself. So I knew I was doing something wrong by living on my own. So I didn't want anybody to know that.

But MIT figured it out-- figured this out, and offered me scholarship and financial aid without my being able to prove that I didn't have a parent with enough money. So I came here, which was, by the way, my first choice even when I was applying to all those colleges.

INTERVIEWER: So-- I mean, I'm fascinated by this story. Did you explain to people at MIT what the situation was? Were you kind of completely upfront with them? Or--

MILLARD: No.

INTERVIEWER: Was it something that kind of came out?

MILLARD: No, I wasn't upfront at all, actually. As I said, I was fearful. You're just trying to-- that was the life I was living. I was making things work. I was getting good grades in school. I had jobs which allowed me to pay my rent. I was renting a room in someone's house.

And I didn't want to be thrown out of high school and put in an orphanage. I didn't realize at the time that my father who had abandoned me was the one who would be in trouble. But kids always blame everything on themselves.

So there was an interview with an alumnus. And I remember it quite clearly to this day. His name is Bob Adams. And he was a friend and neighbor of the brother of a dentist whose daughter was my childhood girlfriend. And they were living on the North Shore of Long Island. They had previously lived in my neighborhood, but we had stayed roughly in touch.

And I bicycled all the way to the North Shore for this interview in this fellow's basement. He sat there, and I sat there. So he had some inkling that something was weird in my life. And he somehow coaxed it out of me. And I don't remember the exact conversation, but he coaxed it out of me. And I guess I just decided that it was okay to take this risk.

And I remember-- just to tell you how long ago this was, I remember he reached over for the phone. He had a phone by the side of his-- it was with his left hand. And it was a red phone. For some reason, it was a dial phone. And he called MIT.

And somehow, he knew whom to call, and it was a fellow named Sam Jones, who was running financial aid. And he called him and he got him on the phone. And he said, hypothetically, Sam, just suppose I had a student who-- and he described my situation, of course, in completely hypothetical terms, which I guess I willed myself into believing was not dangerous.

He described it. He nodded his head-- mhm. Uh-huh. Okay-- so and so. But again, he-- so he hung up the phone after a while.

And first of all, the thing that impressed me most was he was a fellow calling long distance, all the way from Long Island to Boston. And long distance was like flying to the moon. This is only something that you read about in movies, people calling long distance.

So he hung up. And he said, look, you're going to have to fill out the parent's confidential-- it's called a parent's confidential statement. If you happened to not have any parents to fill it out, you've got a little bit of a conundrum.

So he says, on the parents confidential statement, write-- and I don't remember what it was he said to write, some code. I just don't remember-- probably not applicable or something like that. And just do your budget. And just say how much you need.

And get your SAT scores up, because you need to get better SAT-- I said, don't worry about that. I had hay fever that day. I'll take them again. And I did, and I did get them up.

So I wrote this thing on the application. And as you know, the financial aid application is separate from the admissions application. So I sent it in. And on it, I said-- college in those days was about $4,000 a year.

And I said that I would work this much. I had this much in savings, and I do this in the summer. And all I needed to do was borrow $400 a year and I could make this work. And I committed on this to working like 80 hours a week, which is what I was doing in high school-- just working every spare moment until 11 o'clock at night. I had some interesting jobs. So I sent that in.

Meanwhile i so I applied to five colleges. I got into all of them. And I got into Cooper Union, which had no tuition, but they weren't really teaching what I wanted to study, which was physics. I mean, they taught physics, but they were really kind of an architecture and engineering school. I wound up getting a degree in architecture.

So I sent it in. And at one point, I despaired of-- I also won the Regents scholarship, but I couldn't use it. Regents scholarship is a New York thing to those two state schools. I could have gone for free, but I couldn't prove that I was a bona fide resident of New York. So they were out.

So I was sort down to Cooper Union as the place I was going to go. And I was getting ready to go. And then I got admitted to MIT and Cooper Union. I was down to MIT and Cooper Union. And I was thinking I was going to get this $400 of loans but I was going to continue working this ridiculous schedule.

And I was just so exhausted at the age of 17. I hadn't had a day off. And it turns out if a human works for like 100 days straight, you really kind of go crazy. And I was just utterly exhausted. I don't ever remember being so tired my whole life as I was at that time in my life.

So there, I got this acceptance from Cooper Union, which is hard to get into. And it was free tuition. And I was saying, that's where I'm going to go, I guess. I really, really want to go to MIT. That's my vastly higher preference. But I just-- I don't think I can keep this up anymore.

But I was going to go to college, which was making me pretty happy compared to what my expectations were not long before. And then a week later-- a week later to the day, I got the financial aid answer from MIT, and it was from this fellow Mr. Jones, Sam Jones. And it said dear Mr. Millard-- I wish I had this letter. I would frame it and put it on my wall.

And it said, dear Mr. Millard, congratulations on getting into MIT, and so forth. And while we admire your willingness to work that hard and contribute to the price of your education, we would rather you study. So therefore, were going to give you a full tuition scholarship and a stipend. And we'll lend you $400, but everything else is going to be for free.

It was just-- I remember that being about the happiest day of my life. And they paid me to come to college here. So that's how I wound up coming to MIT.

INTERVIEWER: So as someone who didn't have the benefit of parental role models, was going to college something that was a decision that you made on your own? Were there role models? Were there are kinds of models to follow in your life at that time? How did that happen?

MILLARD: You know, I actually don't know. I read a lot. I was a lonely kid. I was very shy.

Because my family-- because we are in this 800 square foot house and all the kids that I was going to high school, they had all moved out of there. All the neighbors in my neighborhood were starter families. So I had very, very few friends.

What few friends I had, because I was also very shy, lived some distance away. And I just never hung out with a bunch of people. So I think I kind of maybe developed the interest from books and stuff.

I can't-- my mother did go to college, although she died before I ever had sort of an intellectual connection with her. I don't even know if she finished college, but she was artistic. And I think my father went to some kind of community college for a couple years. And he was a door-to-door insurance salesman.

I don't ever remember meeting someone who inspired me-- maybe my teachers. Maybe my teachers did. To this day, I can't say what seeds were laid out for me in my life.

INTERVIEWER: And you mention MIT as a place to study physics. What was your impression of MIT beyond just-- if there was one, beyond a destination for an application at that point in your life?

MILLARD: Oh, I knew then-- this was 1967, 1968-- MIT had a reputation consistent with its present reputation-- a place where it was just for science and technology, the best place on Earth. So I was--

INTERVIEWER: You were aware of that?

MILLARD: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I devoured Scientific American. It was easier to understand then, or else I was smarter than I am now. But you couldn't be a kid like me and not have heard of MIT-- and Caltech, for that matter.

INTERVIEWER: So tell me about coming to MIT. So this extraordinary journey and that letter, which is incredibly dramatic. Had you traveled much? Had you been to Boston? What were your expectations, and what was it like in actually arriving?

MILLARD: No, I had never traveled. I'd been on an airplane once in my life, which was some six months before. I had never been out of the country. No, I was-- and people didn't travel as much in those either.

I had an aunt who actually took me to MIT. I mean, I wasn't very close with her. But somehow, she wound up taking me to MIT. I think we must have driven, or I guess we took-- maybe I took the bus. We took the-- I don't remember.

But I had visited MIT. And I knew that this was just the best place on Earth that I could ever visit. And the other colleges, except for Cooper Union where I had to go to in order to take these entrance tests-- the other colleges I applied to, I never visited, and still haven't.

INTERVIEWER: So you had visited MIT.

MILLARD: I had visited.

INTERVIEWER: So you had an mental picture. You knew something about the place before you arrived.

MILLARD: Yeah. Yeah. And I remember Doc Edgerton was-- I didn't meet him, but someone took me through part of his lab. And I was just really blown away by that.

INTERVIEWER: So then what about arriving as a student? Talk about your peers and sort of whether-- again, what you expected versus what you found and integrating into the life of the campus.

MILLARD: I had a very difficult time when I first came. I had had this rug pulled out from under me when I was 16, really. And I remember I sort of went into a deep period of introspection and probably depression.

And when I came here, I was actually quite stunned. I fell back into that. I say that week-- it was called rush week-- was one of the loneliest weeks of my life. And it was odd because it's the most welcoming week at MIT, and I've never felt more lonely.

And it's not MIT's fault. It was, I think, because when I left Long Island, I knew I was never going back and there was nothing to go back to. I mean, there was a little something to go back to, but that's another story-- this family that I rented a room from.

And I think I felt completely adrift. In those days, roughly a quarter or something like that of the freshman had to be accepted by fraternities because there wasn't enough freshman housing on campus. So you went around and visited these fraternities. I don't think there any sororities. And even then, it wouldn't have been relevant to my case.

And they were all backslapping and smiling. And it just seemed-- I found that very, very lonely. And to this day, I can't exactly explain why. And there was something about the disingenuity of all this that just made me feel very much alone and adrift. So it wasn't a happy time.

Things got better-- much better, actually. I did wind up joining a fraternity and have friends to this day from that. I only lived in a fraternity for a year. But when I first came, that was my first week.

I think as soon as classes started, it was interesting. Because as I said, I came from this lower middle class neighborhood. I had never heard of the word "prep school." So I didn't know to be afraid of it. Had I known half of what I know now, I would have been terrified.

But I thought I was-- I liked the people. I instantly felt at home. I felt I had-- well, not instantly-- not that first week because I didn't think people were kind of being themselves, I guess, is what made me feel so out of sorts. But I really felt pretty comfortable not long after I got here. And that feeling is still there today.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I know that students with first generation backgrounds or sort of atypical family or high school experiences often need a period of adjustment. And it's a moment-- it can be a real shock, arriving at a college, whether it's MIT or another place.

Is that a-- you know, it's an issue that's actually received a fair amount of attention recently. Is that an issue-- I'm jumping around, but is that an issue that you have thought about or focused on in your various roles at MIT? Or was that something that shaped you at all beyond that sort of experience?

MILLARD: I'm not 100% sure I understand the question the way you're answering it. But let me-- asking it. Let me answer it the way I am hearing it. I think I had such an unusual and unfortunate, I have to say, childhood that I find I'm suspicious of my own reasoning when it comes to processing other people's situations.

I think I see other kids-- I was just with a friend of my 19-year-old son who just started at Bowdoin College. And he just couldn't be happier. And I just-- that had nothing to do with my experience. So I think there's a range of things.

The only thing that I'm sensitive to is the bottom range. And it maybe makes me a little bit more sympathetic or empathetic or attentive. I'm very upset about these suicides that we occasionally have. They move me deeply, and it's just because I know how painful life can be for young people. Well, it could be for anybody, but that time is difficult.

It was very difficult. It was the most difficult time for me. It was the loneliest time in my life. And my heart goes out to them every time I see evidence of that pain. And of course, that's when someone takes his or her own life, as we had earlier this week. It moves me in a special way which is maybe a little bit more impactful than the average normally well-adjusted person.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I guess-- I think that's actually a very powerful answer. Rafael Reif, of course, although with a very different childhood story, is a first generation attendee of college. And I think he's been very interested in the challenge that students with-- let alone the kinds of challenges you faced, but challenges that students face who don't come from families where higher education is a tradition, who don't come from neighborhoods, or don't come from this sort of background that probably the majority of college students come from.

He's really tried to focus attention on them. And I was just wondering if that was something that was something you had participated in or considered, almost from a sort of institutional priority perspective. But--

MILLARD: You mentioned Rafael. I have great admiration, but Rafael grew up in Venezuela. And I don't know what it was like. And Rafael and I are almost exactly the same age.

And so I can't imagine that Venezuela was as culturally inviting to what he did as America was to what I did. I mean, I don't know exactly where I got my spark or incentive. But it was the Sputnik time. It was all in the air. America was a great country. The whole ethos of the country was being formulated around science and math and technology.

There was just, I felt, an open invitation to do these things. I think it was a kind of America that provided me the basis to move forward. When they say land of opportunity, it really is. Imagine a guy like me with nothing.

I don't feel I did anything heroic. I just felt I just put one foot in front of the next, and the opportunity was there. And I just never felt, from an early age, as though-- I just felt if you worked hard, good things would happen to you. And they did for me.

I can't imagine for Rafeal in Venezuela that he had that same assumption, that unspoken assumption that you could-- I just somehow felt I could go to college, if I wanted to. I did get discouraged at one point. But look, I did go to college.

I think Rafael's story is probably-- I think if you came from some place other than American, it was probably a hugely steeper uphill climb. And you really did need some more inspiration. It was more unlikely, too.

INTERVIEWER: So to sort of return to your MIT years as an undergrad, you came to study physics. You ended up studying architecture. I think that's interesting. What was that journey like?

MILLARD: Well, I still love physics. And I know I took more physics courses than I did architecture courses. I don't know why I didn't take two degrees. I think I fulfilled all the requirements for the physics degree as well. It was the Vietnamese War, and I almost didn't get a degree at all, by the way, which is another story.

So there I was, studying physics, having a good time. I loved it. I thought it was just great. I took 8.01, 8.02, 8.03, 8.04, 8.05-- I don't remember how many 8.0s I took-- and some seminars.

But one of my many jobs when I was in high school was I had done some carpentry. And there were some architecture students here, graduate students, who had started a little business. And they were doing houses and additions to houses. And they were designing and building these things-- very energetic, really smart guys.

And so they were advertising for summer jobs. And so I signed up. And I really became a really good carpenter. And I still am a carpenter. So as I like to say, I started life as a carpenter, and I'll probably end it as a carpenter. But I still build things. And I learned carpentry.

And I had always, as I said before, drawn and things. And so I had actually been sketching buildings when I was in elementary school. So I started taking some architecture courses. And it wasn't a great journey. I was just sort of something I start tacking on.

I got interested in it. And I wound up getting a degree in it. And I thought I was going to go into the building business after college. But-- and I did for a while, actually. And then I went to Harvard Business School. But it was more of a transition than a phase change.

INTERVIEWER: So as you mentioned, MIT, and in fact, the entire country in the late 1960s, 1970, it was a time of upheaval and change. Tell me about the campus and being an undergrad during that time here. What was the sort of culture and energy like at MIT?

MILLARD: Well, it was probably different for everybody and depending on what your taste was. The Vietnamese War was getting going, and no one here wanted to go to Vietnam. I was very unpolitical. I just wasn't that tuned in.

I remember there was some sit-in or sleep-in or take-over in the student union, which is now the Stratton Center-- it was then, but that was what we called the student center. And there was a library on the top floor and there was a restaurant.

And I remember that being taken over, if I remember correctly. And I just was like, what are these people doing? The SDS was like-- I didn't get that. And so I kind of just ignored it in many respects.

I think if that were happening today and I were chairman, which I am, I would be terrified that the world's coming to an end, that they're going to tear down MIT, and our society's going to be taken apart. But when you're a kid, everything rolls off your back. And that just rolled off my back. I was way more interested in the recent discovery of quasars and went to seminars.

I remember someone asking if the light was polarized. It was my freshman year. I didn't know what polarization really was. So I think that there was, as there is today-- just the level of curiosity and discovery, intellectually and scientifically, that's around now, I think it was there then. That's how I related to the campus.

INTERVIEWER: So as you were graduating and thinking about what to do next, ultimately, you chose a business career. You went in that direction, went onto to Harvard to get your MBA. Talk about that transition as well. Was there an "aha" moment, or did you fall into that sort of path? Or what was the spark that led you in that direction?

MILLARD: Toward business, or toward Harvard?

INTERVIEWER: Well, first towards business. And then we'll say towards Harvard, yeah.

MILLARD: Well, I'll just give it to you--

INTERVIEWER: Or whichever the order was.

MILLARD: I'll do it chron-- so I graduated here, I guess, in-- I took a year off. It looked an awful like a junior year abroad, except it wasn't. It was I actually took a year off and went to Paris to study music, because it was just something when I had saved enough money to be able to do that, thanks to the scholarship and everything. So my scholarship was-- so I went and lived in Paris and did that. And then I came back and finished MIT.

And I guess I was inspired by these architecture fellows that I had been with. And I started doing the same thing. I incorporated. Then I started building a business.

And after a year or so, I realized that I was doing all the work and my clients were making all the money. And I remember that very clearly, too. There, I did have a mentor. There was a Japanese-American fellow who was getting a joint degree at Harvard Law and Harvard Business School, and I was working for him.

He had bought a building in the South End. And I was renovating it for him. And I was doing the design. I was doing the contracting. I was doing everything. I was killing myself. And he was-- but he had become a friend. And we were having lunch on Newbury Street. And it must have been a November day.

And he said, look, you should go to law school or business school. And I got on my motorcycle, which was all I had in those days. And I went over to Sloan School and to Harvard Business School and to Harvard Law School.

And it was too late to take the law boards by a week. But whatever the GREs or whatever they are for business school were coming up that coming week. I think it was on a weekend-- coming up that weekend. So I signed up for that and applied to Harvard Business School and Sloan School.

I got in both and decided to try Harvard Business School for a little variety. So I went there. And I thought I was going to go back and build buildings. So when I got out of Harvard Business School, when we were graduating, I had never taken any courses in banking or anything like that. I just concentrated on building and construction management and development, stuff like that.

But all my friends were going to Wall Street. So one of them convinced me to just take an interview just kind of after the interview season. And they offered me a job, so I decided I'd check it out and do it for a year or two, and then figure out what I'd do. I was pretty freewheeling in those days.

So I did that. And it was like a fast-moving train. And I got pretty good at it. And I just sort of never got off. You tend to like things that you're good at, and I was good at it, I guess. And I wound up staying there for 35 years. It was kind of a 35 year mistake-- or accident, I should say.

I made a good amount of money, but my heart was never fully in it. I had a good time. It was really interesting. I met a lot of interesting people. The stuff was probably more interesting than I ever gave it credit for.

But all along, I had had a wandering eye for other things. So I started getting involved in not-for-profits at MIT-- wound up getting me involved, and here I am.

INTERVIEWER: So what I know about Wall Street, despite having lived in New York for 20 years, what I know about Wall Street is contained in popular movies about it.

MILLARD: Me too.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. Well, good. So we're on the same page. But I'm really curious about that sort of fast-paced, exciting, adrenaline rush kind of portrayal of Wall Street and whether-- I mean, first of all, does that have anything to do with what your experience was? And is that exciting? Was there an excitement to it?

MILLARD: Well, when you say movies, I'm thinking of a movie called The Wolf of Wall Street.

INTERVIEWER: Well, there's that one. That's the most recent version, yes.

MILLARD: And one of my teenage sons saw that, and he kind of thinks that maybe that was what my career was like. And it had nothing to do with that. That was sales and brokering-- and illegally, at that.

No, I was in the investment banking business. And then I ran a business, which was-- I started in investment banking, which is more kind of like consulting and advisory at a very high level and entirely research-driven. So that's the opposite of that very-- it wasn't that it was fast-paced, adrenaline sort of stuff. That's kind of more the trading side, and I did wind up on that side of it. But the investment banking side was much more deliberative, work 19 hours a day, client presentations, really try to sell intellectual product.

I did wind up on the investing side of things, and that's where I actually really succeeded. And I brought that research-driven attitude and methodology to it.

And I was probably one of the earlier ones to do this. I mean, I was one of the first people to have what is now called a hedge fund. But I don't think I heard that term until much, much later-- well after I had been doing it. I mean, there were maybe eight or 10 people in the world who were doing it.

And I built that business at Lehman Brothers, from a tiny what was called risk arbitrage business into a more full-fledged investment. And we had a very, very good record-- I mean, probably the longest best record in maybe the history of Wall Street. And it was all internal money.

INTERVIEWER: So the excitement or the challenges, I mean, how did that play into those many years that you spent there? Was that part of it, or do you actually, in some ways, find that frustrating, or maybe both-- just the pace and the sort of the challenge of maybe operating at that high level for that long a time and bringing returns and so on?

MILLARD: Sorry, I'm not--

INTERVIEWER: I'm just-- my impression of Wall Street is that it's very challenging, that there is obviously a need for high return, a need for performance, extraordinary work ethic. And I'm just wondering about whether that is an exciting challenge to be part of that kind of environment for you, personally, when you did it.

MILLARD: Well, no, I don't think I have ADD in the sense that I sort of needed to continually be putting out fires. No, the business that I ran, which was the investing business I ran, was very research-driven. It was fundamental and research-driven.

And it was definitely contrarian. Now, that's just a word. And people have written books about this, and I suppose I could write one as well. But there are bunches of different ways of investing.

I built a business around under-researched things that were going through some sort of corporate reorganization or transformation. And those words by themselves don't mean anything. But that involved a lot of research and buying into situations where the market was not properly valuing the risk. And in that sense, it serves an insurance function, if you may, or a liquidity function.

So what I liked about it was figuring things out that no one else had figured out and kind of proving them out. And you can't do that every day, so it's a little like-- maybe self-flattery, but it's a little like scientific research in a way, which is you fail a good number the times or you wind up working on things that are dead ends. But every so often, you discover something that's phenomenal. And that was sort of the evolutionary arc of what I did.

So there were things that we researched to the n-th degree on and kind of cracked the code on. And as I said, they were all fundamental research-driven. They weren't algorithmic, although I had a taste for that. They weren't trading oriented. We tended to invest more than trade. So that was actually quite rewarding and remunerative.

INTERVIEWER: Well, let's take that as an opportunity to shift gears. Tell me about your involvement in the MIT Corporation-- how that came about, why that came about, what your thinking was in becoming involved in the life of MIT, when it happened, and how it happened.

MILLARD: So I was in, I guess, my late-- no. I guess I was in my late 30s. And people started tapping me on the shoulder, to get involved in the things. And of course, I thought that they if they wanted me for my mind, they really wanted me for my body because I was starting to make some money. So I started getting involved in some not-for-profits, and that was my first exposure to it.

And my first exposure to not-for-profits was I was a little bit cynical about it all, in particular, with respect to universities. I was on the board of the New School, as you mentioned. Yeah, I mean, it's a terrific institution. But my initial years on that, I went to some board meetings and just realized it was all about giving money. I actually ceased my involvement and then got re-involved later on in a much more substantive level. But that's another story.

So there I was, sitting in my office, and a couple guys from MIT came to see me. And I had never been visited by MIT to ask for money. I had usually gotten a phone call sometime around this time of year, I guess. And it was some student asking me if I could give me $25. And then next year, it would be like, oh, you think you could give $35?

And I would just say, yes, yes, absolutely, whatever you want. Just say the amount. And it was like, well, what about $60? And I think after a number years, I was up to maybe-- I may have gotten it up to $110.

Meanwhile, Harvard Business School-- it's a business school. They were really good at business. They were extracting many, many, many more-- I mean, not millions, but they were extracting enough money from me so that it was noticeable to me.

So along come these people from MIT-- one was a CDC member and another professional fundraising. And they walk in. And I say, you know, I've been waiting for you guys like 20 years.

I said, Harvard Business School always grabs me by the lapel and extracts whatever they can. And you guys are just-- no one's ever shown up from MIT. I've been waiting for. So I immediately wrote a check without even being asked for the sum total of everything I'd given to Harvard, because I owed everything to MIT.

So then I learned the first lesson of fundraising, which is you get money from the people who give, and I had just given. So anyway, I'm sure there was some intervening contacts. But suddenly, Chuck Vest was sitting on my sofa in my office. And he asked me for an amount of money which was, yeah, consistent with my earnings, but more money than I think I had ever given to everybody combined in my life.

So the other way I learned is that the quicker you say yes, the better it feels and the less it hurts. So he sat there. And as soon as he asked me for that amount of money, which I'm sure he was-- it was probably more than he thought I would give-- I said yes without hesitating. And he thanked me.

And I said, but on one condition. Then he looked at me. And I can see the, here it comes, right? And I said, on one condition. I said, I don't want anything return. I've been involved in another university, and I really don't want the trappings of a donor. I just want to give back. I have this huge debt to give back. And this is, for me, giving back.

It's not a bargain. I don't want anything in return. In fact, I want you not to give me anything in return because that will just increase the debt. I don't want my name on anything. I don't want anything. I don't want to be on the board. I assume that if you gave this amount of money, you'd go on the board. Well, actually, I was wrong about that at the time.

But anyway, that was my frame of reference. So he said, why? And I told this story. I said about how MIT just took me out of the gutter and saved my life. And he says, okay, you have my promise. We're not going to give you anything in return-- just, you know.

So I felt good about that. And I don't remember if he called me again-- how long thereafter. But then one day, I'm sitting in my office and the phone rings, and it's Chuck Vest.

And he says, look, before you say no, this is for us, not for you. He says, we've convened a study group, a task force, on student financial aid. And I'd like you to be on it. You have a special point of view, and I'd like you to do this. And believe me, this is anything but an honorarium.

So I immediately said yes. And I came up here and took it very seriously-- read every book that I could read on it, met some incredible people who I'm still friendly with-- Larry Bacow, in particular, by the way. Hal Abelson was chairing this thing.

I was just blown away by the quality. I hadn't been to Cambridge in-- I don't know, 20, 25 years. I hadn't stepped foot on MIT's campus in all those years, which apparently is not atypical. So there are all of these deja vu feelings.

And in many respects, I was sort of coming home. Because of my crazy childhood, I felt in some subconscious way this was my home. But I didn't let those emotions get the better of me.

What really got the better of me was the quality of the discussion. I just thought the people up here were smarter than they were in New York. I mean, it sounds crass, but that's just the way I felt. I felt the mission, the people-- I just thought it was kind of amazing.

And so I did that. And another year or two went by, I suppose. And then Chuck calls again. And he says, look, I'd like you to-- and again, don't say no. He says, I'd like you to join the physics visiting committee. He describes a visiting committees, which are really an amazing thing which I still am learning to appreciate it even more every year. It may be one of most important things that happens at MIT.

So I joined that. And once again, I was just amazed and blown away. So that, I guess, began my involvement. And then eventually, they asked me to go on the Corporation board. And I said yes, having sworn that I wouldn't do that.

And I said yes because I realized that these Corporation members-- this isn't just show. These people populate the visiting committees. These are substantive people. This is a hell of group to be in.

Of course, I remember coming to my first Corporation meeting, and I was pretty young by comparison and pretty unaccomplished by comparison. They were titans of industry. And I mean, there were people who started big companies. And I was like, what am I doing here? I felt completely inadequate.

And I always had a great interest in higher education because I really think that higher education is what made this country great and certainly what gave me my life. So I had been on the Corporation not that long actually, and Dana Mead took me aside after a Corporation meeting. And he says, look, you don't have to answer right away, but would you consider going on the executive committee?

And I immediately said yes. I had the great fortune on Wall Street of running my own business. And it was really independent of Lehman Brothers, so I really could control my own schedule. It was basically my business and Lehman Brothers with my sole limited partner.

I really didn't have much to do with Lehman Brothers, which-- I had a bunch of - I had 40 some odd people working for me. And they were all terrific. And I figured that the less I did and the more they did, the better the business would be. So I had great control over my own schedule.

So I went in the executive committee, and I really enjoyed coming up here and learning about it. And then I was on the executive committee for 10 years. And then when John Reed decided to retire because of age, which is sort of unfortunate because he's kind of a very young 70-- well now, he's 77.

But they put a search committee together and I got a call. So I decided to close down the last vestiges of my business in New York and come up here and do this full-time, or as full-time as it needs to be.

INTERVIEWER: So in those years as a member of the Corporation and various roles and sort of increasing leadership roles, are there are certain-- you talk about your commitment to higher education-- are there issues, certain kinds of goals, certain kinds of ways that you've sort of been really focused on trying to make a difference in the life of MIT as an institution, and even maybe more broadly?

MILLARD: So you're not the first person who's asked me that. So I've been in the job for a bit less than a year now. And sometimes, people will ask me, well, what's my vision? What do I want to change, you know?

And that's a little bit of a difficult question. Because first of all, I don't need to reorganize MIT. MIT is doing great. The first thing I need to do is not screw it up. And then what are the issues and what do I feel? So there is nothing that I can see that's monumentally screwed up that needs me to straighten it out.

Because people around here are pretty smart, and they don't necessarily always have the best answer or even the right answer. But odds are, whatever you see when you first approach the place and you're inclined to say, oh, that's the craziest thing I've ever saw, usually, it's not that that's the craziest things. It's usually an incomplete set of information that you're dealing with.

So there's nothing I feel I need to revolutionize. I think MIT definitely has some issues at this point and time. It's had issues at every point in time. I think the issues at this point in time-- and when I say the issues, I mean the issues that will affect its trajectory for the next 50 years, because I think that's what the Corporation is really supposed to be thinking about.

I think the issues today are kind of obvious when I say them, but they're worth repeating. I think higher education in America, in particular, has been an incredibly successful enterprise. I think there are some-- and I'm respectful, very respectful, of their argument.

There are some who believe that a good part of the higher education system in America is a bit off the rails in the sense that we're not really delivering a value proposition, that there are a lot of indications that we're kind of failing in our mission, or the efficiency of our mission. I mean, only 50% of the kids who go to college even graduate in six years. When I went to college, everybody graduated in four years, I think.

So I think the student debt-- but as far as MIT is concerned, those bigger issues don't really apply to MIT, those bigger societal issues. I think the issues that apply to MIT are our size. I think we are, in many respects, optimally sized. I cannot say that it was as deliberate as an-- nobody ran an optimization program. But there are roughly the same number of undergraduates here as when I went to school.