The man who volunteered to save the BlackBerry

John Chen is a very versatile person. Born in Hong Kong, he was hired by BlackBerry in November 2013, a technology company based in Canada, also known as Research in Motion, which was a pioneer in mass mobile communications before Apple’s IPhone entered the market.
Chen, 60, is a big age for American business. He is well known in Silicon Valley as the head of Sybase, who returned her financial strength. 55 quarters in a row there was an increase in profitability, and the market capitalization increased from $ 362 million to $ 5.8 billion, and then it was acquired by SAP in 2010.
The Washington Post interviewed John Chen for an hour in a conference room located in the Gulf (San Francisco) on one of the rainy days. He discussed everything from the influence of the Catholic high school, before planning to save the BlackBerry.


What did you do on your first job?
My first job was in high school in Hong Kong, where I worked at a travel agency, doing all kinds of things. At first, I was not given any work. One day my father asked, "How is your work?" I answered him. He said “Come to work very early in the morning, before anyone comes. I would like you to sharpen each employee's pencils. ” That was the best advice I've ever received. People came very early and saw me sharpening pencils, and asked, "What the hell are you doing?". So I got a real job. It taught me a lot.
Most of our professional life you think of work that is lower than you. You are sitting and waiting for someone to give you a really interesting job changing the world. You just have to earn it right.

How did you end up studying in the States?
One day, I ran into my mentor in a high school I attended in Hong Kong. He asked me what I want to study. I replied, "I like math and science." He said that the University of Hong Kong is an excellent educational institution, but "You have to think about crossing the ocean." I was in love with Ivy League schools. Just because of the look.
Brother Michael said that I am a very capable student, but this is not enough to get from the University of Hong Kong to the Ivy League. But he said, “There is another way. You have to go through prep school. ”
I applied to Andover, Exeter, Northfield Mount Hermon, the Deerfield Academy and Choate or something like that (he probably had in mind the Shoet Rosemary Hall College). I did not go to the first two. So I got to Northfield Mount Hermon.
Then I transferred to Brown University. It was great. The first year was more than just training. It was a time of socialization. I didn't speak much English. I understood what others were talking about and could read some text. I could write something. But I could not speak as we do now.
')
What are you doing well?
I play bridge very well. But I do not play more. I participated in the championships in high school, intercollegiate - as long as it did not interfere with my normal student life.

How did you get into management?
Mainly due to racial problems. I was an engineer, helped with the development of chips, printed circuit boards. I enjoyed it. The company where I worked was called Burroughs. We created mainframes.
I noticed that the company mainly promoted whites, despite the fact that others worked day by day and were better prepared to do the work for which they nominated others. I thought it was weird.
I turned to my leader, he was a middle-aged European (in fact, everyone there was middle-aged Europeans) and asked, “Why is this happening?”. What he said had a huge effect on me. He said, and it was stereotypical, “You guys are very good at engineering, math, science, and other such things. Excellent staff and things like that, But I'm not sure that you are very presentable. ”
It was the end of the 70s and the beginning of the 80s. I did not quite understand what he meant. I thought he meant presentation skills. So I went and hired a local TV producer and his wife for my own money, who ran a communication and presentation skills class. They wanted $ 2,000 for six hours or something. As an engineer, I received $ 2,100 before taxes.
Well, I did it. They gave me a VHS tape, set me up at the desk, and said, "Read." It was terrible. All that could go wrong went wrong. I was swaying, dizzy. I spoke not clear. I did not look at them. I was looking down. I was not sociable. And this is what I learned. I speak not only about English. Not about pronunciation or diction. This is really how you can communicate.
So I started working on it.
The company supported me in my undertaking and then returned $ 2000 back. After that, the company quickly began to promote me. They gave the task to spend six months in each department. By this time, I studied accounting. I studied the materials on requisition. I learned how the plant works. I studied software, sales, marketing, program management.
After two or three years, I became the director of this plant. Ultimately, the one who told me about presentability, then worked for me.

How did you get into sybase?
I received an invitation from the board members of Sybase in 1997. Sybase was a great company, but things didn't go well for her. It took me a long time, but we did it.
I am quite good at finding talents. I put together a team that had certain characteristics, was ready to try new things, that was not afraid of ups or downs, could laugh at failures and celebrate success. This is a completely different type of personality. Most people, when things are not going well, usually want to run away and join the winners.
I do not want to ascribe to myself the successes of others. We lost a lot of people in BlackBerry. Very talented people. I would prefer not to let them go, but if their thoughts are not with the company or they do not want to have a relationship with it, then it is not right to leave them.

Why did you take a job at BlackBerry?
This is a very important company. Icon. This is where the smartphones appeared.
They have gone astray. One of the major investors Prem Vasta (Prem Watsa) approached me. He is a very stubborn guy. The first time I said no. But he literally deceived me by saying, “Why don't you just come, gather a management team, establish a strategy, and be the executive chairman?” You cannot establish a strategy, assemble a team without taking active participation.
This company was founded 30 years ago. They started with pagers - two-way communication in real time. Then they began to produce smartphones. At one time, they occupied 49% of the smartphone market. It was a status symbol.
The market has changed, and the company did not change after it. Consumers have gone from a closed environment, where everything works together and well to “Hey! They want an app! ” And then the iPhone came on the scene. iPhone gave what we missed. They gave people a choice. They became more and more integrated into their lives. Music. iTunes. Picture.
And at this time we even held a debate that if you put the camera on the phone, it will lead to internal leaks. So we lost a lot. Well, you know the rest of the story.

How are you going to fix this company?
I want to return to people who really need safety. We will return to security, encryption, privacy, enterprise and many other complex end-to-end solutions.
Now the point of return is that we are focusing on software. Our software works on everything. I'm not talking only about BlackBerry, but also about the iPhone, iOS, devices from Google and Microsoft. We want to manage all these devices in a safe way.
All the acquisitions we make: secure voice, document transfer - these are all the solutions we want to offer our customers.

What about other business lines?
About 60 million cars use BlackBerry software — telematic software, infotainment, radio, and more. We have added many features, such advanced as driver assistance, communication between cars.
Today, the assembly of the machine, if you come to the car factory, is a software platform. They do not collect cars. When you talk to them, they are not talking about horsepower. They do not talk about acceleration from 0 to 60 in 3.5 seconds. They talk more about machine communication, cars have intelligence. Machines determine your condition, and prevent accidents. Web services receive messages, and personalize what you want. Information and entertainment systems. We are rapidly growing in this direction.

Will there be any turning points?
Mobile devices are part of our daily life. They occupy more and more. We will conduct banking transactions on our devices. We will receive medical data on our devices. We will have personal IDs on our devices. Mobile security will be needed much more than today.
Everyone can be hacked. You can’t feel threatened today just because they can read your data. But if I change your medical records, you will be at risk. You can come and buy some of my stuff.

So, how are you?
In the past eight quarters, we have generated profits from our operations. EBITDA (an analytical indicator equal to the amount of profit before deducting interest, taxes, and depreciation charges - approx. Lane) - was positive. We are here. We still have work to do. I do not want to deceive anyone. I would like to make a profit by the end of this year. But I hope we do it a little bit earlier.

What is First Tee?
They take children from poor neighborhoods, families, and teach values ​​through golf. Perseverance Sincerity He works hard. The ability to lose. The way you live. You combine education with something really fun, and it gives an advantage to take the children off the streets, give them something really important. Many of them are going to go to university.
I came from Hong Kong. When I grew up, people were relatively poor. There are not enough libraries in Hong Kong. You can not take a book because there are no books to take. When I first came to the country, and went to the library, I could not believe how beautiful and gorgeous it was there, a billion books and no one inside. My friends from Hong Kong would be in the sky with happiness.
Many people, including my parents, are refugees from China. I have seen many broken hearts in my life. Thus, one of the charitable decisions of my wife and me, when we have some money, is to create a foundation to help and support children.
What business lessons did you learn from your career or from mentors who helped you?
I was very lucky that I had a lot of bosses. I had bad bosses. But I met a lot of good people. Good people taught me how I think about things. For example, if we do something really hard, then we do it wrong. It sometimes sounds very trivial, but it really pushes me, and I sit down and think, “Why is it so difficult for us?”
The reason why it is difficult to do something is because you are walking through a corridor that is getting narrower and narrower. So you can understand what really leads you to some point. Don't be 100% sure about everything. Be focused. I understood that. But this is the limit. From different bosses, I learned that you need to look at any problem from a different angle. The experience that other people share with me, allows me not to do a lot of hard and senseless work.

Why are you on the board of the Walt Disney Company and the Wells Fargo?
Great people. Great management. The complexity of the business of both companies is incredible.
Everyone in the world knows about Disney. It is a giant in the field of entertainment. This is clearly visible in all types of business and it works well. Wells Fargo has $ 1 trillion in a deposit account. This is more than the GDP of most countries.
Being able to sit at the table and learn what they do, how they do certain things and how they think helps me in my daily work. If you think that my problems are big, their problems are simply gigantic. As an observer, you understand which structure really has some needs, and you are convinced that they are currently being decided by someone competent. This is all what you do.

From the translator:
I express my deep appreciation to the user AnnaDeker for help in correcting and translating the text.