YouSaid · the spoken record

Rod Canion

lines on the record: 49
first: 2019-03-25
most recent: 2019-03-25
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“If you had asked me that in the eighties, let's say the late eighties. I would probably have said it was 90% intelligence and insight and work and 10% luck. But to tell you how perspective changes with time, I would say today it was the other way around. We did a lot of good things. We came up with a good idea. But if you look back at any of the things that could have gone wrong and would have either slowed us down or stopped us, I mean, there's an endless list of those. And so the fact that, you know, okay, we dealt with those issues as they came along, but the fact that there was a successful path even available is pretty doggone lucky.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It is crazy. Yeah, it's sad, but it's also life. We started out to build a company that would last. And I think that's the case with any, you know, if you look at Dell or Microsoft or Apple, the leaders of those companies maintained enough control to make sure that it never got into the hands of somebody that looked at it just purely from a financial standpoint. If I had been there, if I had been leading the company, we would never have sold. We would have figured out a way to solve the problem.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, it really is. That's certainly something I didn't envision when I left. I guess I just wasn't thinking that far down the road. Of course, you never know the future. The decision to merge in with HP was a financial decision. But the end result of the way it happened is that compact no longer exists, and that is sad because it's got such a great history and played such a key role in actually forming the way the world works today. And yet most people you run into on the street have never heard of Compaq.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, absolutely. And of course, continued my life, actually the home life became much less stressful. And then I got involved in investing in some startups and early stage companies and tried to help them succeed. Not all of them did. But then it finally evolved to where I really just like helping entrepreneurs start their company and tried to help them avoid a lot of the mistakes that new companies make.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Let's be clear. We're a Fortune 500 corporation. We're a leader in a big industry. And just because you started the company doesn't give you any right to continue to run the company. It needs to be run by somebody that can make good decisions and can manage that complex and operation. Which I think I was doing okay, or maybe even very well up to that point in time. So that's, I don't see that as the reason that I needed to leave. I think it had more to do with my frame of mind and sort of a burned out situation.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then you were removed from that company. I think a lot of people hearing that would say, God, that sounds like such an injustice because it's your idea. You created it. It was your sweat, and then it was taken away from you. But it sounds like from your perspective, that was fine. You were kind of, your time was over there”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, we had a board meeting where Ben proposed that idea and I left the room and they deliberated it for quite a while and then made the decision to make the change. But it was clear that was the direction they were going. I knew that's what it was going to be. I was also somewhat burned out and I was of a strange mindset. I kind of wanted to get out of that pressure. It took me a while to really look back and understand that I was a big part of the problem of why it ended up going down that path. And I regret that, but it is what had happened. And I guess under the stress I was under and kind of gotten into this frame of mind where I need to get away, the disagreement over the low-cost speed-to-market was just the catalyst that allowed it to happen. I almost guided it to the point where I was going to be fired”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, the chairman of the company, Ben Rosen, thought we ought to move very quickly and so quickly that in fact we ought to go buy a product from a Taiwanese or a Japanese or a Korean supplier. And my argument was, look, it's not what it seems. We can get to market as fast as anybody with our own design. And I think at the board meeting the board decided to replace me with the number two guy with Eckard Pfeiffer.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, there's several levels of looking at the dynamics there. On the surface, it's a matter of disagreement over how fast. Move into the lower cost arena”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Crashing usually. Yeah, no, I see pictures now of me carrying fast food, a McDonald's bag or a Wendy's bag. You just ate when you could. That was sort of secondary, getting everybody taken care of, getting the meetings done, getting decisions made. You can look at my role as making decisions. Yeah. I wasn't making all the decisions, but all of the key ones I had to be involved in. and there were always a lot.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, now I've got three kids and they're getting to be teenagers and there's a little league and there's all of that and I'm trying very hard to get away at the right time, go see a school play. That's where most of the stress came from trying to do it all. If you could just cut off part of it and say, I'm not going to worry about that, it would be one thing. But trying to do it all and not drop any balls, that was pretty stressful.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Looking back on it, I would say is probably denial. That's pretty effective tool. Not letting things impact you as much as they might and sort of other situations is something you have to do there. I mean, I felt like I was learning as I went and I was doing a good job. There was personal turmoil. If you want to throw up another layer on top of that, RadioCheck tried to buy us in late 86 and early 87. And so that was going on at the same time all this was happening.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, you know, certainly compared to where I had been, I was rich, but then again, we knew that that was a fragile part of it. I did get a divorce in 1987 It was just a sad part of what happens in that era. But I'm sure it had something to do with the stress associated with all of the work, the time I spent at work.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh yeah, no, there was never question it. They had a good chance to succeed. Now what kept us going and what I guess gave us confidence that we had a pretty good chance was We outperformed IBM's best products every step of the way. And so there was a significant part of the industry that looked at IBM's claims. The magazines aren't afraid to write Compaq Out for forms the IBM by 50 to 100%. So in spite of it being IBM, we're holding on to a pretty solid position in the market because ours was always higher performing.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You make it sound crazy to them, it was normal. That's the way the industry had always worked, and they still hadn't bought into this industry standard idea. People believing that and understanding that it was important to be able to run your old software on a new computer. It had never happened before, compact pioneered it, and then they wanted to get rid of it as quick as they could.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Now they came out with new IBM software. So if you wanted to buy this new product, you could buy all new peripherals and all new software, and they would claim that it would outperform anything else in the market.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that's right. That was an attempt to take this thing that had gotten out of control, mainly due to Compaq and bring it back under IBM's control. So IBM comes out with their new architecture and claims that this is the way to go, that that old architecture has run its course. It's going to run out of gas very soon. And so you don't want to follow it to the end. You want to get on this new horse. And IBM has it. And so let's go. And that's where IBM's marketing strategy got them in trouble. Because this thing not only didn't run all the software, it didn't run any of the software.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. And the fact that we took off and set sales records means everybody else did it, including, by the way, the big guys, HP, TI, Deck, all, finally followed suit. But by then, we had really established ourselves in the market. And, you know, the thing that took us from 600 million in 86 to 1.2 billion in sales in 87, we came out with our own desktop, which was essentially three times faster than IBM's desktop for about the same price and began to establish ourselves as not only the portable company, but also the high performance company.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it depends on how big the mainstream is. I think by the end of 83, everybody in the industry knew about Compaq and was sort of marveling at what was going on here. This idea that people could use all the same peripherals, all the same things that were designed and built to run in an IBM PC, whether it was software or hardware, would work on our computer. IBM may be underestimated us.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, anyway, you look at it, it was luck. I mean, there was a lot of luck involved. But what had happened is we had had a year to build great relationships with the dealers. The dealers actually liked having somebody other than IBM because IBM was the 500-pound gorilla and they knew it. In any case, we continued to sell like crazy and outsold the IBM portable throughout the year, I think by the end of the year we were outselling at seven or eight to one.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, what happened is IBM introduces the product, they kick the tires. It's announced that it is in limited supply for a while. It was not a better product. It wasn't a bad product. It just wasn't better And so just as we had hoped, almost the best possible situation is the orders came in and we had the computers to fill them. It's like they had been holding them back, and so not only were they ordering at the normal rate, they were sending all the orders that they had been holding. Everything fell into place just at the right time, and we took advantage of it.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So here's what we're going to do. We're going to keep building these things. We're going to store them and wait for the artists to come. If the orders never come, yeah, we're in deep trouble. But you know what? We're in deep trouble anyway if the orders don't come. So that was the plan. I'm not sure everybody was on board with it, but that's what we went off and did. We ended up storing these things in the trailers, tractor trailers, you know, 18 wheelers back. and parking them in our parking lot when that filled up we borrowed space in friends parking lots around the town and by mid-February we had about 20 of these trailers full of computers sitting around Houston”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know what do we think we ought to do? Well, the manufacturing people said a lot of temporary people. We were hiring so fast they came on as temporaries initially and we can lay all them off immediately and we can really cut back production, cut back our costs. And it was, I have to say, a very dire tone to the meeting. Everybody was like, you know, it's all over. And I took all that and added it all up. And I realized, you know, if we're going to come out of this with a happy ending, there's only one way that's going to occur. And that is, let's assume for a minute that IBM's product is not better than ours, that maybe it's in limited supply, and the dealers, once they see it, begin to order our product again. We need to have product available to fill those orders.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're freaking out. The industry's freaking out is like there goes Compact. You know, they've had a good run. But it's over”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh absolutely Absolutely. In February of 1984, IBM introduces their own portable into the market. Now, our order stopped because before it actually was introduced, they were showing it to dealers and customers, and they just stopped ordering ours. It's assumed that if IBM enters the market, they take over and push everybody out. So we had this factory running full speed and no place to go. That was a very, very life-threatening situation.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was mostly businesses, but a surprising number of individuals could see the value in it, and if their company wasn't buying it for them, then they would buy it for themselves.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We had about a hundred people at the end of the first year. That's about right. And about 600 by the end of 83. So you can imagine how much hiring we were doing and expanding. Now this was not one thing at a time. This was a multitasking, bringing on very confident people in every area so they could, here's what needs to be done and go get it done.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh no, no, they had no idea, and nor did they care. I mean, even after we began to sort of get some positive results and getting into stores, remember we were portable. They didn't have a portable. So initially it was very easy for them to ignore us because we were truly a fly.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, because we hadn't broken any laws. You know, we had reverse engineered the ROM following. Advice from top notch intellectual property lawyer. So we were Their product was not protected by patents in any other way they had followed more or less the general industry direction, and so building a computer that was similar or close to it was not a problem at all. The fact that we Took the time to figure out exactly how theirs made the software work and made ours do the same thing was not illegal.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People were wanting to take these things home for the weekend or even overnight to finish their work. They wanted to take them out to customers to show them their work. And so it was a much bigger market than anybody anticipated once we had all the ingredients together.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Bill and I got back to Houston and compared notes. It was like, wait a minute, every one of these dealers said the same thing. What we just stumbled onto is this pent-up demand for a portable version of the IBM PC. Now it seems subtle, but we had never thought of our product that way. This is a portable computer. It fits a niche. And you have software because it runs all the IBM software. You just step back and turn that over and say, everybody out there has an IBM PC in their office, and what they need, every one of them needs one or more of, is a portable version of it. And we happen to have that product.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. And basically, late in 82, as we had our first prototypes, Bill Merto and then I joined him because there were a lot of computer stores around the country. We would go out and make an appointment and go in and show the computer store owner our product and showed them the computer they liked the way it looked and when we showed them how it worked it was very nice the screen was nice but when we told them okay just pick any of the IBM software off the shelf it's in a shrink wrap box and put it in the computer and see if it runs and when they did that and it ran their eyes lit up they got excited they thought about it a minute and they wanted to order some right then Would say something like, okay, I need five of these next week, or I've got, I'll give you an order for 25 if you can ship them in the next month.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People began to call them transportable computers, which was more accurate. It was also very rugged. One of our key engineering talents was to build it so that when you dropped it, it would survive.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We built a factory inside a leased building in North Houston. We hired manufacturing people. They put up a production line, hired people, trained them on how to build it, and began to build the product. And we had a plan that basically allowed us to build probably, I'm going to say 20, 25,000 computers. By the end of 1983, we didn't begin actually turning out finished units until January of 83.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we started the company February the 16th and from March until early June we had our first prototype ready. The deadline was determined by the National Computer Conference, which just happened to be held in Houston that year, the only time I think it was ever in Houston, to show to potential dealers, potential computer store owners who would sell it, to magazine writers who would write about it when it came out to get feedback. and others basically to find out what people thought about this product.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, it never crossed my mind that we wouldn't succeed. And as I look back now, I think, wow, that was such a long shot. Our expectations were very low. What did succeed mean? It didn't mean become the industry leader. It didn't even mean become one of the leading companies. It meant build a company that doesn't go out of business, that has a product that solves a real need and you don't lose money on it. We felt like we knew how to do that.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Except pretty similar didn't cut it. You had to be exactly the same in order to run the software from an internal standpoint. And so they came to work for us right away and began first reverse engineering the product and then designing our own.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the first thing we do is begin hiring people. The three of us, we're sort of the head of each area, but we need engineers mainly to go figure out how to reverse engineer and how to design the things. So we hire three engineers.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, they were coming into town for another meeting and we put this business plan in front of them and began to describe it. And then they started talking to each other. One of them said, yeah, I had this idea, you know, like three months ago. And I said, well, if you think it's such a good idea, why aren't you more excited about it? And they said, well, look, we like the idea, we like you guys, but we're new in this industry. So what you need to do is we need to send you out to Silicon Valley and go meet with Kleiner Perkins. And if they'll invest, then we will. So we basically flew out to... Silicon Valley, and we went in to meet with John Door. And we spent a good morning, probably three or four hours being questioned. And sure enough, about a week later, we got a call that they were willing to invest. And so it was a go.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I called up Jim Harris and then later got Bill Murto involved and we thought about it and talked about it and decided, you know, that would be a great product if we can do that. Let's put together the business plan. And so that was the next thing we did. I mean, it was very quick from the 9th of January to when the idea came up to the 22nd of January when we met with the venture capitalists. We basically put together a very short, a four-page business plan and prepared to meet and discuss it with them.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I knew that the IBM PC was relatively unprotected. It would be a challenge, but it could be reverse engineered legally. And we could make our computer run the same software. And that was the idea that Senatill down my spine. Wow, what's wrong with this idea? There's got to be something wrong with it. It's too good to be just hanging around here.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, most people remember the Osborne. It was made out of cheap molding and sort of strung together. It had a five-inch diameter screen. And it had two floppies, but you could immediately see some ways to make it a lot better. We decided we could do a nine-inch screen in about the same size box. And while that seems small, turns out it's about the same size as what the original iPad screen is. And we can make it rugged so that when you carried it, it was not damaged. But not worth really spending the time on unless we could get some software that already existed. Because I had learned that the key software like spreadsheets and Word processors and others Every different brand of computer had to have its own version of the popular software programs. So I said, well, what if we could make this great portable run?”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the idea came to me actually one morning. It was strange how you remember those pivotal points in your life. But I was thinking about the idea for a portable computer. There were a number of them that existed at the time, probably, you know, just guess 15 or 20”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't remember being worried about it. The three of us, none of us had any money to invest, so what we did was we saved up money. And the idea was we'll give ourselves a runway length of six months to come up with an idea and go get funding. You know, I think this was an adventure. Let's go see what we can do.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Jim Harris and I turned in our resignation right away. Bill Murto waited because his wife was about to deliver their first child.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We met and talked about how we were going to go start a company. There were a lot of startup companies in California, in Silicon Valley. One of the first things we realized is, gee, these guys are having fun. They're making a ton of money and they're not any smarter than we are. They're just out doing it themselves. There was also this awareness that something really big is going on in that personal computer market. When IBM entered the market in August of 1981, We realized that that market was going to explode. And then what happened is that Fall Comdacks came along. We went out to the conference and saw all of the companies and all of the things going on. It was just, that did it. We went back to Houston and talked about we're going to miss this if we don't get going.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Basically, it was being told to go spend the next two years of my life being my head against the wall and end up in failure.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, if you have a PC at home or at work and you buy some software like Word or Turbotex, it doesn't really matter if you have a Dell or an HP or a Toshiba, because if it's a PC, it will run PC software, and that makes perfect sense, right? But believe it or not, in the 1980s, in the early days of personal computers, that is not how it worked. If your computer was, say, an IBM, well, you needed software written for an IBM. And IBM was the biggest player by far. In fact, some people thought that IBM would eventually crush all of the competition and become the only PC maker. But all of that changed when Rod Canyon started Compaq. Now, Rod wasn't your typical, restless entrepreneurial guy. In fact, he had a good and stable job at Texas Instruments as an electrical engineer. And he was pretty happy.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it's assumed that if IBM enters the market, they take over and push everybody out. In February of 1984, IBM introduces their own portable into the market. Our order stopped because before it actually was introduced, they were showing it to dealers and customers, and they just stopped ordering ours. That was a very, very life-threatening situation. We had this factory running full speed and no place to go.”
2019-03-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Compaq Computers: Rod Canion (2019) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT