Ron Johnson: Business Lessons From Apple’s Success and JCPenney’s Nearly $1B Failure | Entrepreneurship | E417

Hala Taha (0:00)

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Ron Johnson (2:23)

Most people thought it was insane that Apple was going to open stores, including a couple of the board members. Steve said to me, he goes, Ron, we have $4 billion in the bank. If I could write a check for a billion dollars today, and have 100 stores, I'd be happy.

Hala Taha (2:37)

When Ron Johnson joined Apple in 2000, the company had a tiny share of the computer market. Ron helped create and launch the Apple Store and Genius Bar. Ron takes us behind the scenes of his work at Target, Apple, and JCPenney while sharing what he learned about innovation, leadership, and decision-making through both his greatest successes and biggest failures.

Ron Johnson (2:56)

Steve believed after that experience, that if Apple is going to win, it had to control the customer experience. Because the reality, Dell's done pretty well selling computers over the Internet, and Gateway selling PCs is closing its stores.

Hala Taha (3:09)

You came up with the concept of Genius Bar, correct?

Ron Johnson (3:12)

I called Steve and I said, Steve, I got the name. I'm going to call it the Genius Bar. He said, you can't do that because anybody you find who can talk about technology is a geek. If you want to call it the geek bar, maybe that would work. I said, the main reason I want that name is.

Hala Taha (3:27)

How did that impact your ego? Did you feel down or that you were a failure because you had failed?

Ron Johnson (3:33)

I was a failure. Make no mistake about it. When you're the CEO of a company and you do something, fails in everyone's mind and you walk away from it, you failed. I think even today, there'll be times I wake up and my stomach churns about.

Hala Taha (3:49)

Ron, welcome to Young and Profiting podcast.

Ron Johnson (3:51)

I am so excited to be here. Nice to meet you, Hala.

Hala Taha (3:53)

Nice to meet you as well. Thank you for flying out, being here in person. You've got such incredible experience. You've been with Apple, Target, JCPenney, in the C-suite, and you've done such an incredible job, transforming these stores, especially Apple and Target. So I want to start with Apple. Sure. I learned that you convinced Steve Jobs to put in Apple Stores before they were even a thing, in really expensive malls when Apple only had five percent of the PC market share and four products.

Ron Johnson (4:28)

Right.

Hala Taha (4:29)

How was that not a completely insane idea at the time?

Ron Johnson (4:31)

Well, most people thought it was insane that Apple was going to open stores, including a couple of the board members. But I didn't convince Steve. Steve wanted to open stores.