Autodesk
Carol Bartz is executive chairman of the board of Autodesk, Inc. Bartz was chairman, president and CEO of Autodesk for 14 years and stepped-down in April, 2006. During her tenure, the company diversified its product line and grew revenues from $285 million to $1.523 billion in FY06.
Bartz previously held positions at Sun Microsystems, 11 years ago serving as vice president of worldwide field operations and an executive officer of the company. Before joining Sun, she held product line and sales management positions at Digital Equipment Corporation and 3M Corporation.
Appointed to President Bush's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Bartz is one of a select group of industry leaders expected to play a key role in shaping and setting the government's high tech agenda-ranging from R&D funding to new broadband incentives. She also serves on the Board of Directors of BEA Systems, Cisco Systems, Network Appliance, and the Foundation for the National Medals of Science and Technology.
Bartz holds an honors degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin. She was granted an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from William Woods University.
Related Links: usa.autodesk.com
Last Updated: Thu, Apr 24, 2008
Autodesk's vision is to keep the design data in digital format. Wireless industry is essential in this area. A small team of engineers at Autodesk banded together and built a wireless product on the fly to address an immediate need.
Carol Bartz, Executive Chairman of the Board and CEO of Autodesk for the past 14 years, reflects on her experience of running one of the largest PC software companies in the world while finding a balance between her career and personal life. She also stresses the importance of continued learning and addresses the challenges of succeeding in a global market.
Autodesk prices and packages its products differently in different countries. Bartz discusses how Autodesk has been successful doing business in emerging markets. She talks about the importance of looking at wage standards and labor standards of the country when selling global products like AutoCad across the world.
Carol Bartz, president and CEO of Autodesk, Inc., argues that entrepreneurship is more important in large companies. The companies that survive do so because they know how to innovate, take risks, and reward risk-taking organizational behavior and structure.
Bartz talks about a slogan inside Autodesk called fail fast forward to counter a fear of failure within an established organization. Their goal was to have employees understand that failure is very acceptable within an established organization--the key is to identify it quickly, and move forward with lessons learned. This is an attempt to break free from those who are worried about risk-taking.
Bartz passion for programming is not about making money; it is about loving what she is doing. Whatever it is your doing, she says, make sure it is something you enjoy. The best leaders who are entrepreneurs are doing what they like.
How do you take a task that you already know how to do and do it a whole different way? Bartz talks about lateral moves within companies to improve innovation. She looks forward to future technology that will allow the creation of rich media content.
Bartz argues that you should learn how to pick your self up, be scared and cover it up, or be emotional and show it at different points in your life. The younger you learn, the better off you are. Do not be something you are not, she says, learn who you really are.
Bartz talks about how people who failed within Buzzsaw, were often given new projects to work on. Failure was valued, she says. Rather than criticizing projects that failed, Bartz notes how people wanted to apply the knowledge they learned from mistakes into new projects.
Carol Bartz, CEO of Autodesk for many years, underlines the silver lining for many stagnating issues in the workplace. Making a plan for yourself is a good idea, but don't let it limit your scope. By bringing value to the organization, you are the one to benefit most. Learning is the most critical aspect of any job; if you're not growing, it's time to uproot. She also points out that bad managers are great teachers, as they are instructive in what not to do when you finally get to fill their role.
Bartz examines long-term balance and encourages people to catch themselves before they fall too far. Learn how to manage the various activities you are involved in, she says. Juggling is pertinent to career development.
Bartz shares her view on the concept of cycles. She challenges entrepreneurs to manage cycles in their personal life, professional life, and within product cycles and the market.
Over the last three years, Autodesk had to change delivery times due to customers' faster delivery demand. Autodesk was able to move forward using software as service, thinking about process, and innovating in an established company.
Bartz argues that you must understand how a company is run. Life is about horizontal and lateral moves. She also talks about the various positions she has held in the past, from analyst to VP of customer service. By the time she became CEO, she had acquired a strong background in various fields.
How do you seek out and promote quality leaders from within a company? Leaders are often self-selected from peers, Bartz says. On way to identify them is to set up a management meeting and tap into the different groups across the company and note who gets picked to represent the individual groups. Usually, these are your leaders. Because they are easy to work with and are creative, they are sought out as leaders at whatever level they are in. No one wants to work with an asshole, however qualified they may be.
In this clip, Carol Bartz points out that young workers needn't be afraid of a lateral career move. Ambition often focuses only on upward motion, whereas well-rounded experience in a number of departments - sales, marketing, or customer service, just to name a few - gives a career a solid foundation. Ladders are unstable, Bartz says, but pyramids have depth, safety, and strength.
According to Bartz, the more interested you are in things around the world, the more interesting you are to somebody else. Make sure your learning curve is always up and to the right, she adds.
Carol Bartz, chairman of the board, president and CEO of Autodesk, talks about the need to speak with customers to tailor a standard product for different customer groups. She uses the example of AutoCad and the way it has been tailored to specific customers to meet their requirements. She also says that the best way to make a product a standard is to get it to volume.
Bartz discusses Buzzsaw.com, a company created to provide a hosted environment for the construction industry. Because Autodesk had no experience in the construction industry, the company spun out Buzzsaw and then bought it back after a successful fundraising round with VCs.
What kind of attitude do you bring into a situation? Are you willing to change and take risks? Bartz reminisces about a team member with a negative attitude and explains how she looks for go-getter attitudes in finding new team members.