Rod Canion
On 1 show, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
1shows
2appearances
45statements
21resolved
20supported
1contradicted
95%fully supported
3said about them ↓ Everything Rod Canion said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Canion: Founding a company gives no inherent right to run it
“And just because you started the company doesn't give you any right to continue to run the company. You know, it needs to be run by somebody that can make good decisions and can manage that complex an operation.”
Compaq stockpiled inventory instead of doing layoffs when IBM attacked
“We're going to keep building these things. We're going to store them and wait for the orders 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.”
Canion: Founding a company gives no right to keep running it
“And just because you started the company doesn't give you any right to continue to run the company. You know, it needs to be run by somebody that can make good decisions and can manage that complex and operation”
Canion says Compaq would never have sold to HP under his leadership
“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 w…”
Canion now attributes 90% of Compaq's massive success to pure luck
“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.”
Canion: Compaq legally reverse-engineered IBM's ROM without infringing patents
“You know, we had reverse engineered the ROM following advice from top notch intellectual property lawyers. So we were very careful around that. Their product was not protected by patents in any other way.”
Canion: Unsold Compaq computers filled 20 tractor trailers across Houston in 1984
“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.”
Canion: Compaq outsold the IBM Portable eight to one in 1984
“I think by the end of the year, we were outselling it, ah, seven or eight to one.”
Canion: Compaq would never have sold to HP if I led it
“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.”
The original IBM PC was unprotected and legally reverse-engineered by Compaq
“And 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.”
By late 1984, Compaq outsold IBM's competing portable computer 7-to-1
“I think by the end of the year, we were outselling it seven or eight to one.”
A fierce disagreement over Asian outsourcing led to Rod Canion's ouster
“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 marke…”
Canion: Compaq generated $111 million in sales in its first year
“We sold one hundred and eleven million dollars worth of compact computers.”
Canion: Compaq tripled revenue to $329 million in its second year
“And, ah, we tripled to three hundred and twenty-nine million in our second year.”
Canion: IBM could have easily put early Compaq out of business
“They could have easily put us out of business if they had come out with a real comparable product.”
Canion: Compaq doubled sales to $1.2B with desktop 3x faster than IBM
“The thing that took us from six hundred million in 86 to 1.2 billion in sales in 87, we came out with our own desktop, which was, ah, essentially three times faster than IBM's desktop for about the same price and began to establish ourselves as not only the po…”
Canion: Ben Rosen wanted Compaq to outsource low-cost PCs to Asia
“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 marke…”
Canion: Compaq's success was 90% luck and 10% hard work
“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.”
Canion admits IBM could have easily put Compaq out of business
“IBM maybe underestimated us. They didn't really study what had made our product successful. They could have easily put us out of business if they had come out with a real comparable product.”
IBM's 1987 PS/2 computer launched without running any existing PC software
“Because this thing not only didn't run all the software, it didn't run any of the software.”
Severe burnout led Rod Canion to subconsciously guide his own firing
“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, that allowed it to happen. I almost guided it to the point where I was goin…”
Canion: Silicon Valley founders were not smarter, they just took action
“One of the First things we realized is, gee, these guys are having fun, they're making a ton of money, and, you know, they're not any smarter than we are. They just, they're just out doing it themselves.”
Canion: Early PC brands each required separate versions of popular software
“Every different brand of computer had to have its own version of the popular software programs.”
Canion: Kleiner Perkins agreed to fund Compaq a week after pitching Doerr
“We went in to, ah, meet with John Doerr, and we spent a good morning, probably three or four hours, being questioned, and sure enough, ah, about a week later, ah, we got a call that they were willing to invest, and so it was a go.”
The other half of the tape: Rod Canion's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 3 times in 3 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Guy Raz 3
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
How I Built This 3
2020 1 mention in 1 episode
2018 1 mention in 1 episode
2017 1 mention in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Rod's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | 2 | 45 | 95% 20/21 | full record on How I Built This → |