Fortt Knox

By CNBCBusiness Technology Careers

Fortt Knox episodes

June 03, 2017 30 - Tom Siebel, CEO of C3 IoT: Billionaire vs. Elephant
To say Tom Siebel has had an interesting life would be putting it mildly. He’s a billionaire, a tech visionary, and the survivor of an elephant goring eight years ago that, by the odds, should have killed him.
Several doctors told Siebel he would never walk again, much less sail competitively. But he does.
So what do you learn about life when you’ve stared down death in the form of a five-ton elephant, been crushed by that elephant, and lived to tell the tale? What do you learn when you’ve invented one of the first killer workplace apps of the PC era, then sold it for about $6 billion dollars?
After you’ve made all that, survived all that, why, at 64 years old, are you still inventing?
Tom Siebel, now the CEO of C3 IoT, sat down with me for the at the Nasdaq Marketsite in Times Square to share some insight into what’s made him tick – and what’s helped him succeed.

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41 min
May 29, 2017 29 - Nicole Eagan, Darktrace CEO: Riding Out the Boom/Bust Cycles
Today she sits at the helm of a promising cybersecurity company. But first Nicole Eagan had to survive the dotcom bust.
Eagan is CEO of Darktrace, a startup that battles hackers using software that gets smarter over time. Invented by mathematicians and former British intelligence operatives, the technology, much like a human immune system, looks for signs of odd behavior in a client's network.
Eagan and Darktrace are on the cutting edge not only in security, but also in a gender-balanced tech workforce. Eagan says half of her employees are women. She knows how unusual that is, having operated in Silicon Valley through booms and busts … as an enterprise tech worker, a venture capitalist, and now as an executive.
Nicole Eagan sat down with Fortt Knox to share lessons from efforts that worked, and efforts that didn't.

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46 min
May 21, 2017 28 - Kevin Busque, TaskRabbit co-founder & Guideline CEO: Married to the Game
You've probably heard of TaskRabbit – the online service lets you pay a contractor to run an errand, clean an apartment, put together an Ikea bookshelf – any number of odd jobs. Before there was Uber or Airbnb, TaskRabbit birthed the so-called "gig economy."
You might not know that Kevin Busque co-founded TaskRabbit with his wife, Leah, who he is quick to admit was the brains behind the operation all along.
In an unusual twist on the typical Silicon Valley story, Kevin and Leah were high school sweethearts, married right after college. They worked at the same company more than once, bootstrapped a business together, and eventually moved across the country to realize the Silicon Valley dream. Leah served as CEO of TaskRabbit for years, and is now executive chairman. Kevin recently launched a new venture, Guideline, a 401(k) platform.

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43 min
May 16, 2017 27 - Citrix CEO Kirill Tatarinov: Solitary Genius Is Not Enough
Kirill Tatarinov grew up in the former Soviet Union, the son of a government computer architect. The family didn't swallow state propaganda: His grandfather once spent ten years in a soviet gulag.
To achieve his dreams, young Kirill would have to get out and move to the other side of the world.
Tatarinov is now the CEO of Citrix Systems, a tech company with tools that make it easier to share information and get work done from anywhere. His journey to this point – to leading a company with a $13-billion-dollar stock market valuation – includes stops in Israel and Australia, working for startups and for Microsoft.
It also included a wake-up call about what it really takes to drive a company toward success.

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39 min
May 07, 2017 26 - Michael Dell, Dell CEO: Starting a Business and Keeping it Going
Michael Dell founded his company 33 years ago, in his freshman dorm room at the University of Texas, Austin. He had $1,000 to buy PC parts, and took orders over the phone.
After that, it ballooned like crazy – and made Dell Computer one of the fastest-growing companies ever. The stock price went on a dizzying tear throughout the 1990s, roughly doubling most years throughout the decade. It also made Michael Dell a multi-billionaire.
Since then, the path hasn't been easy. The era of gonzo growth in personal computers and corporate servers – Dell's bread and butter – is over. Now attention has turned to smartphones and cloud computing.
Sensing weakness, legendary investor Carl Icahn tried to buy out the company four years ago, which probably would have resulted in it breaking into pieces. Michael Dell fought him and won, taking his namesake company private, and then making it bigger than ever.

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33 min
April 30, 2017 25 - Alexandra Lebenthal, Lebenthal & Co. CEO: Taking On Wall Street's Boys' Club
Alexandra Lebenthal is a third-generation Wall Street power broker. Her grandparents started Lebenthal & Co. 92 years ago, helping to redefine the municipal bond business.
Her company has seen better days – she's in the process of selling much of it to South Street Securities Holdings, though she'll maintain control of the corporate bond operation.
Through the years, Lebenthal has shown a steadfast determination to maintain the family business, and to blaze a path in the boys-club world of finance. I sat down with her to talk about growing up in New York's financial world, her view of gender imbalances in the corporate world, and how she feels now that her college-age daughter has surprised her by deciding to follow in her footsteps.

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39 min
April 23, 2017 24 - Mark Fields, Ford CEO: Be Sure the Sleeves Match the Cuffs
For Ford CEO Mark Fields, the love of cars started early; he still remembers the set of Matchbox cars his dad bought him for his 6th birthday.
Of course, love of cars alone wasn't going to get him to the helm of the second-largest U.S. automaker, and a brand that's been around for more than a century. That would take a mix of competitive spirit, adaptability, and a knack for getting teams to focus quickly.
Mark Fields leads a company that last year sold more than 6.6 million cars, bringing in more than $141 billion from vehicle sales. In the era of Uber and Tesla that's getting harder by the day.
I sat down with Fields to talk about some of Ford's latest efforts, and his own journey to the top.

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24 min
April 15, 2017 23 - Ajit Pai, FCC chairman: The Most Influential Man on the Internet
Ajit Pai doesn't come across as the sort of guy who'd be crossing swords with Silicon Valley.
Question him about controversial topics and his answers come quickly, but always tempered by a Midwestern sincerity. Among the current crop of communication industry regulators, he was the first on Twitter.
But yes, Pai is a controversial figure in the tech world. President Trump appointed him chairman of the regulatory body, and one of his first moves was to roll back regulations that would have prevented broadband providers from using your Internet browsing history to sell you advertising. I asked him about that – and more – for Fortt Knox.

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17 min
April 09, 2017 22 - Jeff Lawson, Twilio CEO: First Get Started, Then Get Smarter
Among the many business lessons Jeff Lawson has learned, there's this: Don't expect to get things done if you wait until you're perfectly prepared.
Lawson is co-founder and CEO of Twilio, a company that makes it easy for apps to contact you. (Ever wonder how you can send a text to your Uber driver in the app, or get one in OpenTable when your seat is ready? Twilio does that.)
Twilio went public last summer at the New York Stock Exchange, and is now worth about $2.5 billion. As it pushes to make apps communicate better, the scrappy San Francisco company has developed a culture that favors boldness and taking initiative, and frowns on perfectionism.
I caught up with Twilio's CEO at a tech conference in Barcelona, Spain to talk about his journey from curious kid in the Detroit suburbs to CEO of a public tech company. Among the things I love about Lawson's story? It's about the setbacks as much as the successes, and learning along the way.

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33 min
April 02, 2017 21 - Bracken Darrell, Logitech CEO: Innovation From Spotting Details & Asking Questions
Not many executives can say they've studied the finer points of everything from deodorant and washing machines, to Bluetooth speakers and gaming keyboards.
Bracken Darrell can. Darrell is CEO of Logitech, a company that once specialized in mainstream PC mice and keyboards. One of the remarkable things about him is his appetite for learning. His curiosity has led him from a modest upbringing in Western Kentucky, to leading one of the smartphone era's most remarkable turnaround stories.
I sat down with Darrell for the Fortt Knox podcast to find out how his upbringing shaped him, and how his curiosity helped him find his way to the C-suite. Logitech's stock has quadrupled since he took over four years ago; the company's now worth $5.5 billion.

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40 min

About Fortt Knox

From the publisher's feed

Jon Fortt co-anchors TechCheck on CNBC, and has covered technology and innovation for more than 15 years. Fortt Knox brings you rich ideas and powerful people. Guests include Intel CEO Brian Krzanich,…