Intuit co-founder Scott Cook still remembers the first line of an email he received in 1994 from billg@microsoft.com: “This really is Bill Gates.” Intuit’s personal finance product Quicken had survived being crushed by Microsoft Money, and its new accounting software Quickbooks was thriving as well; instead of competing, Gates wanted to buy Intuit for $1.5 billion and take it worldwide. A deal was struck, hands were shook, but there was just one problem: The U.S. Department of Justice.
In this episode, Scott and Joubin discuss finding happiness in your career, who Scott aspired to emulate when he was a young CEO, recruiting for excellence, the radical decision to make Quicken easy to use, the power of paradigms, pulling out of the death spiral, the “oncoming train” of Microsoft, United States v. Microsoft Corp., stepping back from a leadership role, what Scott learned from his successor Bill Campbell, and investing in Snapchat.
In this episode, we cover:
- Allocating your time for both family and work (07:05)
- Working with Meg Whitman, Steve Ballmer, and other future stars (11:11)
- How Scott recruited his co-founder Tom Proulx, and other key figures at Intuit (15:32)
- Why more than two dozen venture capital firms refused to invest in Intuit (24:03)
- How Wells Fargo kept Intuit alive at its most desperate hour (33:00)
- The impact of Intuit’s struggle on Scott’s personal life, and going direct to consumers (37:45)
- Scott’s history with Kleiner Perkins chairman John Doerr (42:34)
- Quicken vs. Microsoft Money in an era when Microsoft crushed every competitor (45:31)
- Microsoft’s attempt to buy Intuit, and the antitrust lawsuit that sunk it all (54:32)
- Stepping down as CEO of Intuit and recruiting the “trillion-dollar coach,” Bill Campbell (01:02:00)
- How Scott met Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel and became one of his first investors (01:12:30)
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