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-Rana, you got to interview-for the first time-the new chairman
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of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen. And when you came
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back from the interview, I couldn't decide where I wanted
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to start it with you, of whether I really most
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cared about what kind of growth projection she sees for
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this year or whether I wanted you to talk about
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what it was like to interview her compared to other
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comparable-if there any comparable figures who are men as opposed
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to women. -Well, one of the obvious things to say
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is that the only comparable figures are men. You know,
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she's the first Fed chief in history that's a woman.
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She's one of the few really, really top-of-the-pyramid academic economists
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who's also had that level of a policy career. So
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she's pretty singular. That said, she's kind of a den
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mother to a whole group of slightly younger economist people
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like Laura Tyson, Christy Romer. There are a lot of
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people that look up to her. I actually look up
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not only to her as an academic and a seer-she's
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been the most accurate of the Fed governors in the
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last five years-but also as a person. And people particularly
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speak about her marriage to another- -So tell us about
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that- -Yeah. -that-I didn't know until I read a-read your
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piece-what an extraordinary partnership this is. -Totally extraordinary. Her husband,
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George Akerlof, is a Nobel Prize-winning economist. He won through
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his work on why markets are not as smart and
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efficient is as we thought. He shared that honor with
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Joe Stiglitz. And they have had these incredibly high-powered crews
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running in tandem in different cities, which as-you know-as we
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all know is a pretty hard thing to orchestrate. They've
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informed each other. She says that George encourages her to
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be more of an out-of-the-box thinker. -So one of the
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debates that we had as we were putting together this
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story was how we felt about calling her the most
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powerful woman in the world, and Radhika, you had a
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strong reaction to that. Can you talk about that? 'Cause
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everything that you said sort of surprised me but made
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me think differently about when and why and how we
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should put those labels on people. -Well, I guess I
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just didn't want to pigeon-hole her in a way. I
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mean, it sounds like-it's such a lofty thing to call
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someone, right, the most powerful woman in the world. But
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I didn't want it to seem like we were singling
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her out because of her sex. We're not writing about
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her because she's a woman. We're writing about her because
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she's a Fed chair and she's coming into this position
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at a really pivotal time for the US economy and
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she has really important and optimistic things to say about
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it. I guess I just didn't want that kind of
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line to distract from the very important message that she
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has for our readers and for us. You know, we
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assign those kinds of titles, the most powerful, most influential-often,
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it speaks as much to the institution as to the
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person and she is now a historic figure. I mean,
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whatever happens in her ten years, she is a historic
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figure. -The other interesting conversation which you got at a
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bit in talking about this-their remarkable marriage and partnership goes
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to the conversation that continues to be completely viral online
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and certainly, you know, in conversations I have with other
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women, which has to do with the choices women make,
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the tradeoffs that they make. This conversation just-we never seem
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to be tired of re-litigating the questions about leaning and
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then leaning back and standing up and- -Falling over. -Sometimes.
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-So, Callie, wonder-especially for younger women looking at this, does
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this give you hope that, oh, it is possible to
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be achieving at the highest level and have it all
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or, gee, watch this and just say, this is hopeless
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and I'm so tired of this conversation. It needs to
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go away. -I think it's absolutely inspirational, seeing that Janet
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Yellen said to Rana her husband contributed more than fifty
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percent of his fair share in the housework is something
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that I think women everywhere would just love to have.
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-Uh huh. -I think that Janet Yellen represents someone who
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is so different than Marissa Mayer and Sheryl Sandberg and
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the cookie-cutter, personal brand image we have of women with
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Twitter feeds who show us the inside of their lives.
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Janet Yellen is someone who we don't know much about,
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and we learned so much about her in Rana's story
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that I think women would be so heartened to hear.
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-And that I thought the most interesting anecdote in Rana's
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piece was that when Larry Summers was considered the frontrunner,
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she said to somebody, "Don't count me out." And I
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thought that was a very interesting and revealing take. She
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has full confidence in herself. She is someone who has
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high ambition, and yet fortunately, we are not seeing her
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being presented in the media as a cutthroat and conniving
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woman. And that's something that's great to see. -Well, I
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think there's no question that you don't get to be
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the Fed chief without having a lot of ambition. On
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the other hand, it's ambition for the right reasons. I
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have gotten the sense through all the reporting I've done-and
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I spoke to twenty different sources who have known her
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over the years-that she has what economists would call a
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revealed preference for being a central banker. I mean, she
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has been at the Fed for thirty-six years in different
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jobs. That said, her style is different than a lot
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of people you see in Washington. She's not-as Laura Tyson
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told me-"out there lauding her personal brand." She's not tweeting.
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She's not in the Op-Ed page of the-Op-Ed pages of
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the FT or the Wall Street Journal. But she's quietly
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shaping a lot of thinking, and she's gonna be shaping
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the future of the American economy.