Episode Details

Ron Johnson built the Apple Store as Apple's SVP of Retail, and is the author of Shop Different: How Retail Revealed Apple's Genius.

A Note from James:

I love the Apple Store.

I can walk into one without needing anything and still want to stay. I like looking at the products. I like touching everything. I like the space. I like the feeling.

I remember buying one of my first iPods at the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York. I walked out smiling, listening to music from my childhood that I hadn’t heard in years.

And that feeling was designed.

My guest today, Ron Johnson, is the person who created the Apple Store.

Before Apple, Ron was at Target, where he helped prove that design could matter even in mass-market retail. He worked with Michael Graves and helped establish this idea that something affordable could also be beautiful.

Steve Jobs noticed.

Steve had come back to Apple. The Mac was competing in a world dominated by Windows. And he realized there was something advertising could not do: it could not let someone actually experience the product.

You had to touch a Mac. You had to use it. You had to see why it was different.

So Steve hired Ron.

And together they created something that went against almost every trend in retail at the time.

No giant stacks of boxes. No salespeople hiding behind registers. No pressure to buy. Products sitting openly on simple tables. Lots of light. Lots of employees. A Genius Bar. A place where you could come in, play with the computers, ask questions, learn something, leave without buying anything, and then come back again.

Retail experts said it would fail.

And for a moment, they looked right.

When Apple opened its third store in Texas, Ron walked into the Monday morning executive meeting and Steve Jobs looked at him and basically said, “What are you doing here? You haven’t sold a computer in the state of Texas.”

Ron fixed it.

Eventually, Apple Stores became some of the most productive retail spaces in the world.

Ron’s new book is Shop Different: How Retail Revealed Apple’s Genius. And what I loved about the book is that you get to see how someone who has spent decades thinking about stores actually sees one.

Ron can walk into a store and notice the floor, the lighting, the width of the aisle, the employees, the products, where people park, how customers move, what they see first, and whether the place has what he calls a heartbeat.

He sees retail almost like an artist sees a canvas.

And the lessons are much bigger than stores.

They’re about design. Leadership. Kindness. Steve Jobs. Knowing what your customer values. Knowing what parts of your identity are sacred. And maybe most importantly, knowing when not to rush.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why Steve Jobs believed Apple needed its own retail stores.
• How Ron Johnson’s work with design at Target attracted Steve’s attention.
• Why Ron sees retail as a fundamentally human and emotional business.
• How kindness influenced Ron’s relationship with Steve Jobs.
• Why Apple designed the store collaboratively instead of handing the project to a traditional retail team.
• Why location was one of the first messages the Apple Store sent customers.
• How George Blankenship brought critical retail real-estate expertise to Apple.
• Why Apple spent heavily on elaborate window displays in its earliest stores.
• How the Apple Store was divided between new customers and existing owners.
• Why Apple removed almost all visible inventory and boxes from the sales floor.
• How the Genius Bar fit into the original philosophy of service and support.
• Why Apple Store employees were deliberately different from traditional electronics-store employees.
• Why