Citadel CEO Ken Griffin & Carnegie Mellon President Farnam Jahanian Talk Donation, New Campus

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

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Lisa Abramowicz (0:07)

Welcome everyone from Bloomberg Television and Bloomberg Radio. I am here in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University with Ken Griffin, the founder of Citadel along with the president of CMU, Farnam Jahanian, who joins us here after this record $3 billion donation investment in CMU. Ken, I want to start with you. How did you choose CMU and why did you decide to make your biggest ever investment doubling your total investments in terms of a gift in CMU?

Ken Griffin (0:35)

So you picked the right choice of words. This is an investment in excellence. Carnegie Mellon University leads the nation in computer science, in artificial intelligence, in cybersecurity, world-renowned program of robotics.

This is a university that represents the future of our country. And it is a privilege to support the incredible momentum here at Carnegie Mellon University, the team here at Carnegie Mellon, and the unbelievable faculty and students.

Lisa Abramowicz (1:06)

President Jahanian, in the press release, you talk about this new campus that you're creating in Miami.

A significant part of this $3 billion is going to go there. As a pioneering, a new model for higher education. What does that look like? What is this going to be?

Farnam Jahanian (1:22)

Well, first of all, it's good to be with you. You know, CMU, when you think about our history, Carnegie Mellon was founded by Andrew Carnegie in early 1900s to serve sons and daughters of the working class. And this has been in our DNA all along. Whenever there are massive societal and technological changes, CMU steps up.

We make big, bold bets. And this is one of those.

I think given the changes that we see in technology, advances we see in AI, there's no question that every sector of our economy is being transformed. There's no question that scientific discovery is being accelerated. As a result of that, our national security, our economic competitiveness depends on how we educate the next generation, how we prepare them, and also how we accelerate discovery and impact that we have.

Lisa Abramowicz (2:15)

So, Ken, everyone has a story about knowing someone whose kid just graduated from college, spent half a million dollars, maybe liberal arts, maybe even something more concrete, can't get a job, has to pay back this debt, doesn't know how. Where are we going wrong? What kinds of skills are not being taught currently at the university as a major employer that you see?

Ken Griffin (2:34)

Well, let me first talk about where things are going right.

US. News will report updated the ranking system to include how are students doing several years post-graduation. And that ranking placed Carnegie Mellon University number three in the country on return on investment on the college education.

Propelling CMU to number 14 overall in the United States as one of the greatest institutions of higher learning in our country. We need to learn from our success stories and play to our success stories rather than whine about the universities that aren't delivering value for their students. My investment here, as I said earlier, is an investment in excellence. To me, excellence is creating the students that will lead our country in the future. They'll solve our important problems, they will build big things, and they will do so with urgency. And if you look at the economic prospects of the students who graduate from CMU, they are outstanding. This is what a university should deliver. And I hope that this gift catalyzes discussions across the country in the boards of trustees and in the C suites of colleges and universities to focus on what best practices do we need to bring into our four walls that we see at Carnegie Mellon, that we see at an MIT, that we see at a Stanford, that will drive the success of our students and the prosperity of our country.

Farnam Jahanian (4:02)

Let me build on that. Go ahead.

You asked earlier what this new model for education is going to look like.

We're not thinking in the terms of departments, colleges and schools. We're really thinking about grand challenges, big societal issues, opportunities, as Ken likes to call them, like human health and national security, cybersecurity, innovation, energy and climate resiliency. Organizing the campus around those, bringing our learning and research to bear, not in the context of disciplinary silos, but bringing people together to address these grand challenges. This is really the vision for the future. When you ask about what do we teach our students, we need to teach them foundation. There's no question, but we also need to teach them inherent human skills, critical thinking, problem solving. These students are going to go out there and change the world. They need to be able to essentially not only have knowledge and skills that are technical and scientific, but also the human skills that are going to serve them well as we shape the future.