of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen. And when you came

back from the interview, I couldn't decide where I wanted

to start it with you, of whether I really most

cared about what kind of growth projection she sees for

this year or whether I wanted you to talk about

what it was like to interview her compared to other

comparable-if there any comparable figures who are men as opposed

to women. -Well, one of the obvious things to say

is that the only comparable figures are men. You know,

she's the first Fed chief in history that's a woman.

She's one of the few really, really top-of-the-pyramid academic economists

who's also had that level of a policy career. So

she's pretty singular. That said, she's kind of a den

mother to a whole group of slightly younger economist people

like Laura Tyson, Christy Romer. There are a lot of

people that look up to her. I actually look up

not only to her as an academic and a seer-she's

been the most accurate of the Fed governors in the

last five years-but also as a person. And people particularly

speak about her marriage to another- -So tell us about

that- -Yeah. -that-I didn't know until I read a-read your

piece-what an extraordinary partnership this is. -Totally extraordinary. Her husband,

George Akerlof, is a Nobel Prize-winning economist. He won through

his work on why markets are not as smart and

efficient is as we thought. He shared that honor with

Joe Stiglitz. And they have had these incredibly high-powered crews

running in tandem in different cities, which as-you know-as we

all know is a pretty hard thing to orchestrate. They've

informed each other. She says that George encourages her to

be more of an out-of-the-box thinker. -So one of the

debates that we had as we were putting together this

story was how we felt about calling her the most

powerful woman in the world, and Radhika, you had a

strong reaction to that. Can you talk about that? 'Cause

everything that you said sort of surprised me but made

me think differently about when and why and how we

should put those labels on people. -Well, I guess I

just didn't want to pigeon-hole her in a way. I

mean, it sounds like-it's such a lofty thing to call

someone, right, the most powerful woman in the world. But

I didn't want it to seem like we were singling

her out because of her sex. We're not writing about

her because she's a woman. We're writing about her because

she's a Fed chair and she's coming into this position

at a really pivotal time for the US economy and

she has really important and optimistic things to say about

it. I guess I just didn't want that kind of

line to distract from the very important message that she

has for our readers and for us. You know, we

assign those kinds of titles, the most powerful, most influential-often,

it speaks as much to the institution as to the

person and she is now a historic figure. I mean,

whatever happens in her ten years, she is a historic

figure. -The other interesting conversation which you got at a

bit in talking about this-their remarkable marriage and partnership goes

to the conversation that continues to be completely viral online

and certainly, you know, in conversations I have with other

women, which has to do with the choices women make,

the tradeoffs that they make. This conversation just-we never seem

to be tired of re-litigating the questions about leaning and

then leaning back and standing up and- -Falling over. -Sometimes.

-So, Callie, wonder-especially for younger women looking at this, does

this give you hope that, oh, it is possible to

be achieving at the highest level and have it all

or, gee, watch this and just say, this is hopeless

and I'm so tired of this conversation. It needs to

go away. -I think it's absolutely inspirational, seeing that Janet

Yellen said to Rana her husband contributed more than fifty

percent of his fair share in the housework is something

that I think women everywhere would just love to have.

-Uh huh. -I think that Janet Yellen represents someone who

is so different than Marissa Mayer and Sheryl Sandberg and

the cookie-cutter, personal brand image we have of women with

Twitter feeds who show us the inside of their lives.

Janet Yellen is someone who we don't know much about,

and we learned so much about her in Rana's story

that I think women would be so heartened to hear.

-And that I thought the most interesting anecdote in Rana's

piece was that when Larry Summers was considered the frontrunner,

she said to somebody, "Don't count me out." And I

thought that was a very interesting and revealing take. She

has full confidence in herself. She is someone who has

high ambition, and yet fortunately, we are not seeing her

being presented in the media as a cutthroat and conniving

woman. And that's something that's great to see. -Well, I

think there's no question that you don't get to be

the Fed chief without having a lot of ambition. On

the other hand, it's ambition for the right reasons. I

have gotten the sense through all the reporting I've done-and

I spoke to twenty different sources who have known her

over the years-that she has what economists would call a

revealed preference for being a central banker. I mean, she

has been at the Fed for thirty-six years in different

jobs. That said, her style is different than a lot

of people you see in Washington. She's not-as Laura Tyson

told me-"out there lauding her personal brand." She's not tweeting.

She's not in the Op-Ed page of the-Op-Ed pages of

the FT or the Wall Street Journal. But she's quietly

shaping a lot of thinking, and she's gonna be shaping

the future of the American economy.