SAN FRANCISCO (Fortune) -- Sitting at the arm of a tech CEO during a corporate dinner is rarely as interesting as you might imagine. Usually, the CEO stays on message throughout the meal as a PR flak hovers, smiles, nods and prods the conversation along. Just keep the drinks coming, guys.
Not so with Bill Watkins, the mercurial, salty-mouthed Texan who runs the $15 billion hard-drive king Seagate Technology. At a San Francisco dinner on Tuesday evening, he was candid about his company's ultimate mission: "Let's face it, we're not changing the world. We're building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn."
Watkins is like that renegade uncle you heard so much about as a kid - the one that your parents were always afraid would be a bad influence. An adventure racer and sports junkie, Watkins spends $1.8 million of his company's money every year on Eco Seagate, flying 200 employees to New Zealand every year to do a modified triathlon.
It's a controversial approach to team-building - popular with participants and otherwise widely criticized as a waste of money. But it's consistent with Watkins' style. He does - and says - what he thinks is right.
At San Francisco's Town Hall restaurant Tuesday night, Watkins was game to discuss just about anything. We did go off-the-record once - a wise choice by him - but all else was fair game. Here's a peek at some of the ground we covered.
Seagate (Charts): "The biggest issues in our business are security, DRM (How can we unlock the content?), form factor and power. How can we make a low-power solution? These are the problems." As for upcoming products, "We'll have a terabyte drive out by the summer. It'll probably be about $700, but you know how it works. People will be able to get it for less."
Dell (Charts): "The 90s were all about the enterprise, and that's why Dell did so well. Now, it's all about the consumer, and that's why Dell is having problems. They don't understand the consumer. They want a competitor to the iPod and what do they do? They go with Creative."
'This business is about the consumer'
Apple (Charts): "Apple figured out a long time ago that this business is about the consumer, and the world finally caught up to them. Most companies have a technology and go looking for a problem to solve. Steve Jobs looked at what was happening - people were loading music onto their computers and wanted to take it with them - and he built a product to solve that problem."
Watkins, who has an understandable Apple-envy (after all, what is an iPod but a hard-drive with a sleek-but-simple operating system and nifty packaging?) also discussed the importance of building Seagate's brand. The company plans to introduce a number of consumer-oriented storage products at the tech trade show CES - think high-capacity drives that will be plug-and-play with any computer, so you don't have to carry a laptop - and is readying an ad campaign created by Apple's agency, TBWA Chiat/Day.
very true !
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