Apple Store

So, uh, not to, not to, uh, not to get too excited.

So you built, basically built out the Apple Stores.

You were over at Target first.

Uh, you created Apple Stores for Steve Jobs, uh, and then you were over at JCPenney.

So it sounds like you have an arc of a career that's, uh, that's fascinating.

So why don't you talk to me a little bit about, uh, how you got to where you are today?

JCPenney was a abject failure.

And so like most people in life, when you try to do hard things, you're gonna have to get lucky sometimes, and you're gonna have misfortune sometimes, and I've lived both.

I, I, we had Ron Johnson on the podcast.

He is, um, the person that, under Steve Jobs, created the, um, Apple Stores, and he describes Steve Jobs as being very much that way.

I guess two things that come out is how he observed.

He, he came to one store and supposedly spent seven hours just standing, watching people as they went through the store to just understand.

So we should have talked about this Mayhole when we were talking about the actual event.

But it sounds like, according to, I think, German again, that Apple stores are getting a remodel to add a new whole thing for smart home, which exciting.

But that also pushes towards not just refreshed Apple TV and HomePod, but that smart display.

So maybe that is more credence that it's happening sooner rather than later.

And going into store has a couple of advantages of there's a bunch of tech people around who, if something goes wrong whilst you're doing the transfer, can actually help set things up.

Apple stores also have great internet, which if you don't have great internet at home for doing a transfer or a restore, that can be really useful.

But also it does mean that you have to be like, cool, I'm getting a new iPhone on this day and I have done everything with my old iPhone that I needed to do beforehand.

and I'm going to swap everything over, and I'm going to go into store, and I'm going to do that.

They will.

That led me to Apple, where, as you mentioned, I was created by Steve to create the Apple stores.

And, you know, looking back that decade, the 12 years I spent at Apple with Steve were really the years that made Apple the company we know today.

Tim's done a fabulous job managing, leading the company.

So I've done a lot of interesting things.

One of the most fun has been writing this book.

So for the last two, three years, I've been writing a book, really talking about some of the experiences I had, especially creating the Apple stores.

And, and it's like anything you do, you put a lot of effort into it, a lot of time, a lot of work and you create something, then you'll see how people like it.

And because these journeys are what shape him and his perspective and his new book, that is going to help us all think about how to shop different which is the name of his new book uh but it's it's a mindset it's not about retail it's about a mindset this whole interview is about mindset and about the things we learn that shape behavior about who we are and what we do and the impact we're going to have apple store creator ron johnson is a sought after speaker board member, and he's the author of his new book, Shop Different, How Retail Revealed Apple's Genius.

He also founded Enjoy, the first mobile retail store, and served as CEO of JCPenney.

He is best known for creating Apple stores, working directly with Steve Jobs while serving as a member of Apple's executive team.

Prior to his time at Apple, Ron was highly regarded as...

For the work he did with Michael Graves to bring good design to all the merchant leader at Target, their collaboration set the stage for brands hundreds of later design partnerships and cemented Target as America's premier upscale discount retailer.

Okay.

Yeah.

2011, you know, people were buying online, going to specialty stores, going to Apple stores.

Well, the thing I want to talk to you about first, 'cause I, I, I missed the import of this, and maybe you didn't.

Uh, the fact that, um, Apple Stores are being rearranged.

When I read that, I took it that they were probably, uh, getting rid of those patented benches and the, I think now wasted space for Apple Vision Pro.

If you're gonna have a demo, you've had a demo.

Before we do go that, I'm comparing this to the Apple Store experience.

And one of the things I'm curious about is that when a brand new iPhone gets released, The Apple Store, at least it used to.

Cupertino, their engineers basically send out sort of like a wish list to all the Apple Stores saying that we want you to capture examples of defective and broken iPhones.

So they go into the special – they capture it, meaning that it goes into the special sarcophagus and shipped all the way back to the mothership.

Not to some depot, but actually to Apple directly so they can examine it because they want to know – like what the engineers got right, what they got wrong, what needs improvement.