Ruth Porat has taken an unusual path to the tech world. Before becoming the chief financial officer at Google in May 2015 (and then at Alphabet, Google’s new parent company, a few months later), she held the same post at Morgan Stanley, where among other roles she worked closely with the U.S. government to sort out the troubles at the insurance corporation AIG and the mortgage-financing agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the 2008 financial crisis. On the shortlist to become deputy treasury secretary in 2013 (before she withdrew her name), Porat, who Politico once referred to as “the most powerful woman on Wall Street,” is now one of the most powerful women in Silicon Valley as well. Some six months into the new job, she met with Foreign Affairs’ managing editor, Jonathan Tepperman, in New York to discuss her move and the global economy.