Ruth Porat

Growing up in Silicon Valley, during my time at Morgan Stanley and as a member of Stanford's Board, I've had the opportunity to experience firsthand how tech companies can help people in their daily lives.

Women are still not reaching the most senior levels of corporations. This is not the shortcoming of women. We're talented and smart.

I stayed at Morgan Stanley for 27 years because it was fun. I kept learning.

Innovation happens everywhere.

Unless you stay focused on innovation, you can be disintermediated.

The wealth disparity between the lowest and the highest continues to expand, and that's inappropriate.

It's been invigorating being back on the West Coast, being at Alphabet, because there is so much innovation. And the big challenge is, how do you think about resource allocation and priorities when you have so many great options? But wearing jeans instead of suits and popping into driverless cars has also been a lot of fun.

I have not been a believer of point guidance. It really limits your flexibility to do what you want. It leads to behavior that is not supportive of long-term shareholder value.

The cloud is one of the most extraordinary opportunities of our lifetime. If we're not investing now, we'll rue the day we didn't.

If you don't have ample liquidity, and it's not durable, in times of stress, as you're looking for liquidity, you're forced to sell assets at declining prices, which then eats into your capital position, so it becomes this very, very negative cycle. There's no question that liquidity is sacrosanct.

If you continue to plow ahead in something that is OK, you will miss the opportunity to do something that is great.

I've had the opportunity to experience firsthand how tech companies can help people in their daily lives.