Red Chair Chats with Chancellor Woodson and Apple COO Jeff Williams | Episode 11

I think Steve said it best when he said in his famous graduation speech, 'You can only connect the dots looking backwards.' And that's certainly the case for me. I was working at IBM straight out of engineering school at NC State, a great company. I had 13 different jobs in 13 years. They claimed it was some kind of executive grooming program, but honestly, I think it was each manager saying, 'Here, you take him. I'm tired of him, and you pass him on like a hot potato.'

Yes, sir.

I can't even see you in that red chair while you're red.

Oh, geez.

Oh, geez.

Ooh, nicely done. I can't see it, but it's red.

When I go back, there are so many fond memories. I mean, when I walk through the Free Expression Tunnel, when I hit the Brickyard, when I pass the Belltower, what used to be on an engineering project, leaving for a run for Char-Grill, which is down the road. And by the way, congratulations on the restoration of the Belltower that happened under your leadership. But I have so many fond memories. My favorite place, though, is Reynolds Coliseum. Even before I was, it goes back to when I was a little kid. My uncle was actually the voice of the Wolfpack up in Reynolds Coliseum, because they used to play there instead of in the PNC Arena. So that was special. And then when I went to school there, it happened across that 1983 time when Jim Valvano and the Wolfpack, it's a little bit like last year's journey, where it was just this, the Cardiac Pack that nobody believed in. And there was a big win, so every time I'm on campus and I see Reynolds, I flash back to those moments and the pride in the university. And also, there's just something about university days.

I have, I have.

It really, the renovations sort of kept some of the character, but it's really well done.

Yeah, that was cool.

Oh, well, I mean, how could it be otherwise? How could it be otherwise? I don't know.

I noticed. I noticed there. You see, my wife has her doctorate from an alleged university of higher learning down the road in Chapel Hill. And so, forever, we've been Dr. and Mr. Williams when we get… and so this degree was really important because it leveled the playing field on the home turf. And so I really can't thank you enough. I mean, that's pretty much all it means to me.

She was.

Yeah, on equal, at least equal standing. So I feel a little bit like a cheat, but I will take it shamelessly as I always would. So no, I genuinely treasure it. It's a real honor, especially given my love for NC State.

NC State had the fellows program, which was a leadership development program. It was run by Vice Chancellor Gerald Hawkins. He was vice chancellor of student affairs. But it was really, so there was a group of 20 freshmen selected, the eight that got the Caldwell Scholarship and then they had 12, think of them as walk-ons, sort of people that were selected, and the 20 of us went through a program that was really neat. It was focused on leadership development, which isn't something that you generally talk about as a freshman in a university setting, in terms of exposing me to many things I wouldn't have been exposed to in just the normal university environment. And the vice chancellor, Dean Hawkins we called him, really took an interest, and really, that work helped shape me. In fact, my father died when I was 8, and I would say there's a couple of people in my life that have been father figures, and he was one of them, and it was really, really, really helped sort of mold me. He kind of believed in me when he probably shouldn't have when I look at how rough I was.

You're very kind.

I agree.

Yes, he has.

Sure. I'm a big believer in, obviously, the importance of the classroom, and that has to be a priority, but so much of my learning, and I've seen in others' learning in their university days, happens outside of the classroom in terms of development. And there were so many opportunities, partially through the fellows program and others, that popped up for me that were foundational to me. I mean, I grew up in a really modest kind of environment, had never really traveled outside of the state. A couple times outside of the state, kind of through NC State's study abroad program, and there was a scholarship from the American English Speaking Union that I applied for and couldn't have done it without that. We didn't have the resources, but just being over there was an experience. But also, the guy who taught it was one of the foremost authorities on Shakespeare in the world, and he took us to plays, and he really turned me on to Shakespeare and to the humanities. And I think that, at Apple, we talk about the intersection of technology and the liberal arts, and I think I would have been a very different person. So that somebody helped make that happen for me, that Melissa and I wanted to give back and are trying to support that for other students. But I do believe so much of the learning experience happens not only in the classroom, but through these other elements.

I did, I did. I actually started as a chemical engineer and then switched into mechanical later, but I loved math and science as well. And so, I did stick with it, but I feel like there… that we do at NC State really well is marrying the liberal arts with a very technology-based university.

I have to think about that for a second.

No, it's not. In terms of the advice, I think study deep in the engineering space, but I do think there's this element of sort of the surrounding. When I think about innovation, I'd have different advice for just the innovation aspect than just the hardcore engineering aspect. The innovation piece at Apple is so interesting because ideas surface sort of anywhere across Apple. We don't have the idea department or the innovation department or the innovation process or whatever, but they surface anywhere. And you have to sometimes push past the rational and the practical. It may sound a little silly, but you take something like the phone, where the touchscreen was an enabling factor for the phone, and it seems obvious now, but it wasn't. And there's rational thought that would say, we had tactile buttons on the phone originally before the iPhone came along. And there's lots of reasons why it wouldn't work to touch glass. You can't do it without looking at it, blah, blah, blah. And so you have to sometimes suspend disbelief and let ideas percolate. Because I think we often get trained as engineers in the tech world to be very practical and logical, and there's a piece of that. But I think this element of, sometimes that can be like an inert gas that'll knock out any spark of creativity. And so that would be one piece of advice.

I think, yeah, I think Steve said it best when he said in his famous graduation speech, you can only connect the dots looking backwards. I was working at IBM straight out of engineering school at NC State, a great company. I had 13 different jobs in 13 years. They claimed it was some kind of executive grooming program, but honestly, I think it was each manager saying, 'Here, you take him, I'm tired of him, and you pass him on like a hot potato.' But my wife was working for Glaxo in the Triangle doing pharmaceutical research. And we had our third kid and decided something had to give. We were, it's funny, this was pre-COVID when you could just, in the airport, you could go all the way to the gate back in those days. And so I had the three kids, and she had a flight coming in from business and I had one going out. And we were gonna pass them at the airport. And her flight got delayed, and we decided she was gonna take a leave of absence and I was gonna go, we'll do something different and take an adventure. And I was gonna take a job with Dell Computer. They were on fire at the time. They were hot. Most of you are too young to remember that. But I was gonna take a job there. And out of courtesy, Tim Cook, who's our current CEO, he had just joined Apple and I had worked with him at IBM, and he said, 'Come out and check out Apple.' But I thought this is very low probability because Apple was in really bad shape. But I came out, I can't say no to Tim, and I came out for an interview. I go, 'No, they'll be belly-up in two years.' But there's this contagious enthusiasm that I really wanna be a part of. Because it's kind of funny, it's hard to think of Apple in those terms now, but Apple had just lost a billion dollars, was almost, had to borrow money to make payroll. And I was in this interview with Steve and Steve was not as big a deal at the time. I didn't know if his name was Jobes or Jobs at the time, but so I was kind of quasi asking him questions like, 'Well, what's your revenue growth plan?' And it was funny, he looked at me and he said, 'We're gonna be the Sony of the PC industry.' Because Sony was really cool at that time, they had the Walkman and so forth. Because Apple at that time was chasing business enterprise and had walked away from the consumer. And I thought, 'Guy, you do not know what the hell you're talking about.' Because at IBM, we tried to make this PC Junior to sell to consumers, and it was a bloodbath. The margins were thin and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But history would say maybe he was right and I was wrong. But regardless, it's one of the few right brain decisions I've ever made. 100% of the people told me, 'It's a really bad idea. Go to Dell or stay at IBM. You're going places.' And it still feels that way today to me. I still feel like I'm entering a big startup.

But anyway, that's how I ended up there. I've just been the luckiest guy in the world to be able to work with all the amazing people I've worked with and under Steve and Tim's leadership. And it's just been an amazing journey.

Well, they were playing with the concept of maybe a watch and a screen that could be on your wrist and what, and starting to model that and look at that. And it's again, another example where the idea could have been squashed early because sort of the rational thought at that time is, well, you got your phone with you and the screen on the phone's bigger. It's gonna be better and you can do stuff on the phone. So why do you need another one on your wrist, and what's the… So it could have been snubbed out early as an idea, but the team kept pulling on threads and concluded there's real value in sort of the end glance in the moment and then pulling on more threads and saying, you know, we got this real opportunity, and pull on all of those threads. And it's really just part of the magic Apple process of everybody being involved and following thoughts. And of course, there's the deep engineering rigor to go pursue and make the product. But in terms of the creation of these, it's really neat. I mean, we get so many letters. Every single morning I wake up, there's letters from someone wearing the Apple Watch who writes us to say that it made such an impact on their health and in many cases helped save their life. And at the very start, I think we had no idea where the journey would take us. But I think it's this notion of letting ideas develop and then following those that Apple as a company is so good at.

My watch is telling me to stand up.

That's Susan Woodson.

She's here all night, folks.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, is this thing getting ready to end? Because I'm gonna ask you a question. You're the retiring chancellor.

I know it wasn't, but I'm calling an audible.

I'm calling an audible. We've got after 15 amazing years. And, you know, I have tremendous respect for what John Caldwell did as well. But I think there's somebody in the running there for best chancellor at NC State. You've done a phenomenal job. And we need something. And I, maybe two questions.

All of the guitars or?

Well, I mean, I'm gonna start with Susan.

And yeah, but then there would be one guitar that would be right after that.

Yeah.

It's been a pleasure, thank you.