Ben Williamson

So I was really fortunate at Apple.

I was there for nearly a decade, actually over that all in, and then got different key points of exposure.

So I worked in retail during the kind of rapid retail growth and was a lead business consultant there and got to see the strategy and really see...

What happened when Apple went out to the front lines and decided they wanted to own this experience?

I remember when we took out the Wall Street Journal ad talking about how we wanted to move the dial and we wanted it to get to the point where when you bought an Apple product, people didn't think you were crazy.

And at the time, Gateway Country was happening.

There was all kinds of negative press about what Apple was doing.

And it was a very different time.

It was a very different company.

As we grew and as we scaled and actually demonstrated that we could make a meaningful move in the dial and actually take back market share, things obviously changed a lot.

But I was fortunate to work in hardware engineering.

When Doug Fields was heading up the organization, he created a little thing called the Segway, you may remember.

And then was also a senior software engineer for a couple of years and then left after that.

So I got to kind of get the full 360 and CE experience.

what made Apple unique and what made Apple successful from a lot of different angles and was fortunate to be able to take that knowledge into what I'm doing now.

Uh, which, which part?

I mean, I remember the conversation that was quite a lengthy conversation and you were, you were definitely looking for very specific things.

I remember I was like, wow, this, this guy knows what he's looking for.

It was, you know, an interesting thing about Steve that I don't think a lot of people recognize is that he was a visionary leader.

You know, he was a lot of things.