When Kevin Warsh was first nominated as a governor of the US Federal Reserve in 2006, at just 35 years old, a senator dispatched him for a particularly intimidating job interview — with Paul Volcker, the renowned Fed chair who resisted political pressure and fought inflation from 1979 to 1987. Volcker, in Warsh’s telling, gave him two pieces of advice.
“He said, ‘Kevin, there’s something I need to tell you. This job you’re signing up for really is quite simple. It really only requires two things,’” Warsh told the How Leaders Lead podcast in 2023. “And he said: ‘The first thing is, you have to get interest rates about right.’”
Warsh noted down this profound lesson from the master. “And he said: ‘The second thing is probably more important than the first. When you’re a governor of the Federal Reserve, probably the most important thing is to make sure you look like you know what you’re doing.’”