EP 340 — Ron Johnson, the Man Who Built the Apple Store
About this episode
Ron Johnson discusses his pivotal role in creating the modern Apple Store and his experiences in retail.
We're unapologetic fanboys of Apple and great retail experiences on this show, so for Apple's 50th anniversary — and the 25th anniversary of the first Apple Store — we brought on the person who actually created the modern Apple Store concept: Ron Johnson. Ron built his career in 10-year cycles, and each one changed retail. At Target, he dreamed up the first designer collaboration in retail history (Michael Graves) and helped turn a Midwest discounter into a place people bragged about shopping. At Apple, he opened the first stores in 2001 — when Gateway was folding, Dell was winning, and everyone thought a 5%-market-share computer company had no business signing mall leases. He named the Genius Bar (Steve Jobs told him nobody would buy it), killed the cash register with a mobile checkout built on an iPod Touch, and left in 2012 with a million people a day walking into Apple Stores. Then he took the hardest job in retail — CEO of JCPenney — and he's refreshingly honest here about what went wrong. What we get into: → The Michael Graves deal, and why "design" beat "fashion" at Target → Why Steve Jobs hated the idea of mall stores — and how Ron changed his mind → Where the Genius Bar…
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