98 - BlackBerry CEO John Chen; Plus, How to Beat Amazon
Fortt Knox10 Nov 2018

98 - BlackBerry CEO John Chen; Plus, How to Beat Amazon

The theme this week is "underdogs." John Chen has history in this department: His parents escaped communist China to Hong Kong, and his father had to work jobs beneath his education level so Chen could have a shot at a better life. At age 17 he came to the United States to finish high school. After he entered the workforce, Chen hit a roadblock. It wasn't common at the time for engineers to get promoted into broader management positions, and he was still growing in his comfort with communicating as a leader in English, his second language.

Fast-forward to today, and Chen has been CEO of BlackBerry for five years. He has taken the company from a dying smartphone maker to a stable provider of security and automotive software. And it's not Chen's first turnaround; after becoming CEO of Sybase in 1998, he led a reinvention that saved the company.

In all of my years covering Chen, I'd never heard his personal story. For the Fortt Knox 1-on-1 this week, I finally get to the root of why Chen is so comfortable playing the long game when it comes to leadership ... and how it ties back into the sacrifices he saw as an immigrant and the son of refugees.


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Avsnitt(147)

147 - New Life for Fortt Knox on LinkedIn and YouTube. See You There!

147 - New Life for Fortt Knox on LinkedIn and YouTube. See You There!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonfortt/detail/recent-activity/https://www.youtube.com/c/forttknoxI should have posted this way earlier, but I've been getting questions. Here's the skinny: Fortt Knox is ...

26 Sep 20202min

146 - AWS CEO Andy Jassy on JEDI, the Cloud's Future and More

146 - AWS CEO Andy Jassy on JEDI, the Cloud's Future and More

In the late 1990s, Andy Jassy pitched a wild idea to his boss and mentor, Jeff Bezos: What if Amazon developed another business, delivering computing power and storage . Two decades later, it stands a...

7 Dec 201945min

145 - Trump and Apple’s CEO Talk Business in Texas

145 - Trump and Apple’s CEO Talk Business in Texas

A walk to remember. Apple CEO Tim Cook and President Donald Trump in Texas this week, and it’s a high stakes photo op. They’re at the factory in Austin Texas where Apple’s Mac Pro computer is assemble...

23 Nov 201929min

144 - A Fresh Look at Design: Melanie Perkins, co-founder and CEO of Canva

144 - A Fresh Look at Design: Melanie Perkins, co-founder and CEO of Canva

I was on the road this week, doing a little tour of California. Three cities in three days. San Francisco Monday, L.A. Tuesday, San Diego Wednesday. Adobe’s MAX conference was this week in LA, where t...

10 Nov 201919min

143 - Microsoft JEDI: The Empire Strikes Back; with Morgan Brennan

143 - Microsoft JEDI: The Empire Strikes Back; with Morgan Brennan

It's the biggest single cloud contract … possibly ever. Definitely the most talked about. The Pentagon's Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract. JEDI, going to: Microsoft late last week. The...

2 Nov 201925min

142 - Mr. Zuckerberg Goes to Washington: with John Stanton and Farhad Manjoo

142 - Mr. Zuckerberg Goes to Washington: with John Stanton and Farhad Manjoo

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in Washington this week arguing for Libra, the digital currency his company created and wants to build around. This after he last week made the case in front of an audienc...

26 Okt 201926min

141 - Tech's Free Speech Challenge

141 - Tech's Free Speech Challenge

Tech just can’t get away from politics.  Senator Elizabeth Warren has a bone to pick with Facebook. Mainly its standards for political ads. After Facebook refused to take down a Trump Campaign ad that...

19 Okt 201926min

140 - Savings and Startups: Credit Carma CEO Ken Lin; Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman

140 - Savings and Startups: Credit Carma CEO Ken Lin; Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman

It’s hard to save money these days – and I’m not talking about the new phones and earbuds that come out this time of year and tempt you to spend. Interest rates are really low. Which is great if you’r...

13 Okt 201942min

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