The Exchanges

Q And when you, when you stayed close to your customers, and obviously you're famously close to a lot of leaders around the world that you, that you work with on these different things, like were the problems in the U.S. similar to the problems in the Middle East, some of the problems in Europe, or were there actually very different problems around the world?

A No, the problems were the same. It was one thing about the internet, ah, is the internet had a common language and a common goal and direction. Now, the languages might be different, or the cultures you were doing was different, but it came back to if you treated your customers really well, they treated you well, to the best of my knowledge, because you and I never had a customer we could go back to and either interface to or sell to again, and we'd move heaven on earth. I listened to every critical account every night myself, 365 days a year, because if the top leaders pay attention to it, our team does. And oddly enough, customers who had problems that you helped solve the problem, uh, even if it was created by us, uh, ended up being more loyal customers and actually grew faster than the ones who didn't.

AI assessment note: “No, the problems were the same.”

Q Tell us a little bit. I think people are interested. What are you trying to do to turn West Virginia around? What are you doing?

A Well, the vision on that is to become a startup state, and Uh, it is not doing it as a series of transactions. They outline how you're going to change the academic agenda, how you're going to graduate, uh, your students from the two great universities there, West Virginia University and Marshall. Both of their, their presidents are completely bought into the program. Uh, you focus on the outcomes and will train people for where the jobs will be. You then outline a startup mentality, and as you know, most of your startups, whether they're here near Stanford or near University of, uh, Texas at Austin, or near MIT in Boston, they tend to congregate around the innovative type locations, and then you create the environment where you get it going. We've got 35 startups at the university from zero. Um, we've attracted now ten billion dollar projects into the state. Uh, we have the support of the Democrats and Republicans completely united at the national level. Two great senators, uh, Shelley Moore Capito and Joe Manchin. Uh, we have the Governor, the Speaker of the House, the President of the Senate, And there is no disagreement. We know that we, if we don't change, we get left behind. And there's nothing more motivating than a common vision of what needs to be done when you know if you don't, the outcome is something you do not want.

AI assessment note: “Well, the vision on that is to become a startup state”

Q a lot of good philanthropy there, and you seem to have a lot of, a lot of, you're someone who inspires more loyalty than almost any other leader I've worked People really like working with you. They're very loyal to you. Is there anything from your background or your past or your culture growing up that you think gave you some of that ability? Like, where does that come from?

A Well, I was fortunate to have two doctors as parents, and my dad taught me the long-term vision, and my mom taught me the emotional approach. I'm dyslexic, and when you're dyslexic, you never laugh at somebody else. You always say, how can you help? Because you had troubles and challenges growing up, but I also learned West Virginia when I grew up was at the center of the universe. We were the coal mining center of the world, 250,000 coal miners, greatly paid, 6000 engineers. We were the Silicon Valley of the chemical industry. Carbide, FMC, DuPont, but because we didn't change, we got left behind. Now we're going to try to correct that, Joe, and it's a journey that we're on now, but coming around, it's a movie we've seen almost every phase of before, and we've goofed it up at least once, which is a real advantage because you know what to do differently.

AI assessment note: “my dad taught me the long-term vision, and my mom taught me the emotional approach.”

Q And, and, and John, when you, when something like this remains, enterprise network has been broken for so long. It takes on this aura of invincibility. Like why, why is not able to do this now? Like why now versus 10 years ago?

A Well, I, I think a lot of things came together, uh, Uh, and direction. Uh, the CIOs around the world don't want to do things that other people can do better. Uh, they don't want to have a, a large amount of their staff just making the data centers work, or making the networking gear work. Uh, they want it just to work, and they, they see that as, as context, if you will. Core is how do they produce results for them. And this has been one of the few times where, when the team put in the products, people came back and said, we saw a change day one, and you were right. We, we didn't Don't necessarily believe that you'd be able to do this without a management team and a staff and it'd be easy to use. Ah, the second thing is when you're talking about a next generation of an established concept category, you've got to start off with a blank check and a blank sheet to really design it right. Ah, and then you've got to move quickly in terms of the direction. So the ability to really scale rapidly is one of the key elements we looked at as well. And as always, it was customer driven in terms of the end result we wanted.

AI assessment note: “I think a lot of things came together, uh, Uh, and direction.”