The Ledger
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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.”
Canion: Compaq engineered its first portable PC to survive drops
“One of our key engineering talents was to build it so that it, when you dropped it would survive.”
Canion: IBM's 1984 portable launch halted Compaq's customer orders
“They, you know, 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.”
Canion: Radio Shack tried to acquire Compaq in 1986
“Radio Shack tried to buy us in late 86 and early 87, and so that was going on, and at the same time all this was happening.”
Kleiner Perkins agreed to invest in Compaq after a single morning meeting
“So we basically flew out to Silicon Valley, and we went in to meet with John Doerr, 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 …”
Compaq demanded exact internal compatibility to run IBM software perfectly
“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.”
Compaq's initial definition of success was simply not going bankrupt
“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. You know, our expectations were very low. What did succeed mean? It didn't mean become the industry leader. It didn't even mean become…”
IBM initially ignored Compaq because IBM lacked a portable computer entirely
“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 …”
Compaq's orders froze when IBM previewed its own portable computer
“They, you know, 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.”
Compaq secretly stockpiled 20 tractor-trailers of computers across Houston in 1984
“By mid-February, we had about 20 of these trailers full of computers sitting around Houston.”
Canion: Compaq tripled revenue to $329 million in 1984
“We tripled to three hundred and twenty-nine million in our second year.”
Compaq reached $1.2 billion in 1987 with a faster, cheaper desktop
“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 p…”
Radio Shack attempted to acquire Compaq in late 1986
“Radio Shack tried to buy us in late 86 and early 87, and so that was going on, and at the same time all this was happening.”
Compaq co-founder Rod Canion exclusively uses a MacBook, iPad, and iPhone
“I use a MacBook Air and an iPad. Pro and iPhone.”
Canion: Compaq founders gave themselves six months of runway to find an idea
“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.”
Canion: The Compaq co-founder now uses a MacBook, iPad, and iPhone
“I use a MacBook Air and an iPad. Pro and iPhone.”
Compaq co-founders gave themselves six months to find an idea and funding
“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.”
Compaq founders drafted a four-page business plan in under two weeks
“I mean, it was very quick from the ninth 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.”