Genius Bar

That's for owners." So the front half we displayed our products.

The back half we had things that became like Genius Bars and-

Yeah, or theaters

... theaters and-

[laughs]

So we ended up in two words, you know, internally saying we're gonna enrich lives, you know.

So we set out to enrich people's lives, and that started by putting stores where they live their lives, and creating an inviting place they could get their hands on the product, and having support like Genius Bars.

But when you do all this stuff, you come back to, it starts with what's the problem you're trying to solve? What's the vision you can articulate that will get people to wanna march, you know, to, to, to do their best work? And then you just gotta pay a heck of a lot of attention to details.

So.

I went into Apple, I made my Genius Bar appointment and they said, oh yeah, your battery is degraded, but it's not bad enough to like use your AppleCare and replace it.

So do you want to just get a new one? I said, no, I have AppleCare.

Well, it's the magical 80%.

I'm like, I just, I said, I just can't do it.

I don't have the patience.

I just, I said, you need to make your appointment at the genius bar and you need to do this.

So we have our in-house tech company.

But

at the Apple Store, probably near the Genius Bar.

I don't know.

There'll be some passive-aggressive 15-year-olds telling you how to plug stuff in.

This guest created the Apple Store and over 11 years, he built what became the most profitable retail operation in the world.

He invented the Genius Bar, he killed the cash register, He put a glass cube on Fifth Avenue that became the most photographed spot in New York City.

And before Apple, he brought Michael Graves to Target.

After Apple, he ran JC Penney as CEO.

Microsoft should have played to its strength and done a big store outside the mall and figured out how to make that have some of the flair of an Apple store.

It could have a bigger theater, a place to learn.

It could have its equivalent of a genius bar.

But they could have stood for where the place should go when you really want to buy a computer.