Ron Johnson: Business Lessons From Apple’s Success and JCPenney’s Nearly $1B Failure | Entrepreneurship | E417
episode
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha: Entrepreneurship and Self-Improvement Podcast
1h 10m
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 11 hours ago
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Why did Ron Johnson convince Apple to open brick‑and‑mortar stores when everyone thought they were doomed?
Most people thought it was insane that Apple was gonna open stores, including a couple of the board members. Steve said to me, He goes, Ron, we have four billion dollars in the bank. If I could write a check for a billion dollars today and have a hundred stores, I'd be happy.
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.
Steve believed after that experience that if Apple is gonna 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 doors.
You came up with the concept of genius bar, correct?
I called Steve and I said, Steve, I got the name. I'm gonna call it the Genius Bar. And he said, You can't do that because anybody you find who can talk about technology is a geek. So if you wanna call it the geek bar, maybe that would work. And I said, the main reason I want that name. Is
How did that impact your ego? Like did you feel down or like that you were a failure because you had failed?
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
Ron, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.
I am so excited to be here. Nice to meet you, Allah.
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, JC Penny 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.
Right.
How was that not a completely insane idea at the time?
Well, most people thought it was insane that Apple was gonna open stores, including a couple of the board members. But I didn't convince Steve. Steve wanted to open stores.
Okay.
Steve had come back to Apple in 1997, launched that cult hit, the iMac, which had rave reviews, even made the cover of Time magazine. Wow. But it didn't change the game for Apple. It sold to the Mac Faithful. And Steve believed after that experience that if Apple was gonna win, it had to control the customer experience. So it wanted to open stores. So he called me to come out and talk to him about stores.
So he poached you from Target.
He recruited me from Target. But during that first conversation, interestingly, I said, So who's the customer? How big can this be? He said, Ron, we've got five percent market share. Which it turns out it was two or three, but he said five. And he said, if we go after the creative consumer Now Apple does a great job with creative apps for pros. We have high market share in the marketing departments, the creative departments, but not as much in the business side. I think we can double our market share and get to ten percent. And later he told me the board wasn't supportive and I said, Well, you know, the board might be right. If all you want to do is double your market share. Because the reality Dell's done pretty well selling
Computers are over the internet.
Yeah.
And Gateway selling PCs is closing its doors.
Mm-hmm.
So maybe the board is right.
Hm.
And I said, but I don't know why you want to sell the Creative Pro only. And I had come from Minneapolis, so that's where I was living, working with Target.
Mm-hmm.
And in Minneapolis, very few people had computers. And it turns out only fifty percent of American households had a computer.
Yeah.
And I said, You think you've lost the PC Ward to Microsoft? There's half the market to go.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why did Ron Johnson convince Apple to open brick‑and‑mortar stores when everyone thought they were doomed?
0:00–9:38
2
How did the design principles of the first Apple Stores create a “place of belonging” for customers?
9:38–19:10
3
What problem was the Genius Bar solving and how did its name evolve?
19:10–29:16
4
How does Ron differentiate true innovation from simple product improvement?
29:16–38:22
5
What design and merchandising strategies did Ron bring from Target to Apple?
38:22–48:19
6
Why did Ron take the CEO role at JCPenney and what bold changes did he try to make?
48:19–56:23
7
What were the biggest lessons Ron learned from the JCPenney failure and the importance of buy‑in?
56:23–1:04:42
8
How does Ron see AI reshaping both the in‑store and online retail experience?
1:04:42–1:10:41
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha: Entrepreneurship and Self-Improvement Podcast
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