3 - Thanksgiving, and the Muslim Branch of My Evangelical Family

Nothing is forever. Especially when it comes to running a multi-billion-dollar public company. This week, in a Fortt Knox podcast special, we're going to do a little retrospective … interviews with CEOs who, for now at least, are no longer CEOs.  I've been doing this podcast for more than a year and a half, so I've sat down with dozens and dozens of top executives, founders and entrepreneurs. Inevitably, change happens. Sometimes the company's board of directors wants a new strategic direction. Sometimes power struggles erupt. Sometimes personal failings come to light.   This time, the lessons from the highest achievers come with an asterisk. Just because you reach the top of an organization doesn't mean you'll stay there. I would add another: Just because these execs are no longer in their old jobs, don't assume they're done. When Steve Jobs was shoved out of Apple in the '80s, he went on to found NeXT, build Pixar, and return to Apple. Mark Hurd was ushered out of HP and landed what turned out to be a better gig at Oracle.  We start with Brian Krzanich, who was CEO at Intel until three weeks ago. That's when Intel's board of directors learned he'd had a relationship with an Intel employee that violated company policy. I got to know Krzanich when he took over the CEO job from Paul Otellini. Brian likes to be called BK, and I quickly learned that he's most comfortable holding onto his identity as an engineer rather than thinking of himself as a corporate executive. The most memorable part of my conversation with him in January 2017: When he revealed a different kind of mistake earlier in his career that almost cost him his job at Intel. Mark Fields is another executive who'd spent a long time at his company and climbed to the top before his exit. The bottom line on his departure: The stock wasn't doing well, and some within the company lost patience. Fields was in the CEO seat about three years, and my CNBC colleague Jim Cramer thinks he wasn't given enough time to really make his mark. When Mark and I talked in April of last year about his path to the top of Ford, he said he developed a reputation for volunteering to tackle big problems:  Speaking of boardroom drama, Qualcomm right now has one of the most dizzying situations in techland. The company's locked in a legal battle with Apple over patent payments, it just fended off a hostile takeover attempt from rival Broadcom with an assist from the U.S. federal government, and former CEO and chairman Paul Jacobs – the son of founder Irwin Jacobs – left the board and is trying to raise money to take the company private. Paul Jacobs sat down with me in June of last year and talked about his commitment to Qualcomm. If you think he might give up his fight where the company's concerned, just listen to this:  Sir Martin Sorrell built WPP by putting together various ad firms and PR businesses into an empire the likes of which the industry had never seen. He resigned from the company in April with allegations swirling about personal misconduct and misuse of company resources. He has denied those allegations, and is in the process of relaunching his career with a new venture called S4 Capital. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

9 Heinä 201820min

Digital fraud is a big business. The same trends that are powering the cloud computing era – global brands, pay-per-use pricing, open-source collaboration – are making thieves rich, too.  Michael Reitblat is fighting that trend. As co-founder and CEO of Forter, he's trying to keep retailers from getting fooled by credit card scammers. It's a journey that began when he was a teenage hacker, through college and startup dreams, to working on his second startup.   At the Nasdaq Marketsite I talked to Reitblat about the state of organized crime online, and what innovators can do about it.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

2 Heinä 201832min

Tobi Lütke is the founder and CEO of Shopify, a public company worth $17 billion. The shopping landscape is changing fast, with new tax laws, same-day delivery, in-store pickup and mobile payments adding new twists and capabilities all the time. Lutke, and Shopify, provide technology tools to simplify all that for merchants.  I talked with Lütke recently at the Nasdaq Marketsite in Times Square, as talk of tariffs and taxes are swirling. We talked about what's allowed Shopify's stock to double in a year, and how he went from a teenage German apprentice to a Canadian entrepreneur … who's now a billionaire on paper, by the way. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

23 Kesä 201828min

Q-Tip. The Abstract. He’s not going to say it about himself outside of the the playful banter of a rhyme, so I’ll say it: He’s one of the most recognizable voices and influential minds in the history of hip-hop music.    Q-Tip is probably best known as part of A Tribe Called Quest, a group that emerged in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Hits like “Can I Kick It?” “Scenario” and “Bonita Applebum” cemented Tribe’s place as innovators, both in their lyrical cadence and the way they used sampling and a broad mix of musical genres to make something new.   A Tribe Called Quest released its final album in November 2016. Member Phife Dog, Malik Taylor, passed away from diabetes complications earlier that year. I talked to Tip about his new music, his other creative efforts, mourning Phife, and the state of the music business. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

16 Kesä 201846min

Few companies have gone through the kind of image transformation GoDaddy has over the past decade.  Back in 2005, GoDaddy launched its first commercial that used women in revealing outfits and sexually suggestive themes to sell web services. Wagner became GoDaddy's CEO at the beginning of this year, and those commercials are long gone.   Today's GoDaddy bears little resemblance to the one of a decade ago, which is probably a good thing given how cultural winds have shifted. I talked to Wagner about his journey to the CEO seat, and what he's working to do with the products and culture.    I got some time with Scott Wagner at the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. We talked about leadership, culture, and what it will take for small businesses to thrive in this latest wave of the digital economy. We also streamed the conversation live on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the CNBC apps on Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

3 Kesä 201820min

Today it's a $4-billion publicly-traded company. It's synonymous with streaming video, going head-to-head with Apple, Amazon, Google and lately Netflix, in the cord-cutting era. But Roku's been around for more than 15 years. That means it's older than YouTube.  Anthony Wood, the founder and CEO, hasn't followed a straight line to get Roku where it is. He's gone through a few different business models. He got some help from Netflix. Now he's defying the odds and talking about Roku's latest strategic moves. I met Anthony Wood at Roku's New York office in Midtown Manhattan. We talked about his journey as an entrepreneur – from selling used golf balls as a kid to his big move to Silicon Valley. He also gives his take on what's next in this golden age of TV. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

26 Touko 201831min

A little more than 40 years ago, there was a live event that changed television forever. Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier. A boxing match: "The Thrilla in Manilla." But the men in the ring weren't the only ones with big career stakes on the line. A 30-year-old entrepreneur named Kay Koplovitz had waited about a decade for this moment. She was the driving force behind making the fight the first live satellite broadcast. It changed the cable industry forever, and laid the groundwork for her to become the first woman to head a television network – one she launched two years later – USA Network.  Kay Koplovitz today is a venture capital investor, a board member, and an advocate for women in business. I got some time with her on a busy day at the Nasdaq Marketsite in Times Square to talk about her journey, and lessons for the rest of us who – maybe in our jobs, maybe with some new venture – are trying to do what's never been done.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

19 Touko 201834min

Sometimes Plan A doesn’t work out. You’ve got to be ready to improvise.  That’s one of the themes in Bastian Lehman’s story. He had a different career path in mind, but ended up settling for entrepreneurship. So far it’s going pretty well. He’s the cofounder and CEO of Postmates, a delivery startup that’s part of this race to remake the way we shop. He's raised about a quarter billion dollars.   Postmates was originally supposed to be doing furniture delivery. That didn’t work out for some interesting reasons. When I sat down with Bastian Lehmann at the New York Stock Exchange, I got a fresh appreciation for why the ability to make smart adjustments is often better than being able to divine the future.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

14 Touko 201832min