We all thought Shantanu Narayen was crazy...
My clients... my former employer... industry pundits... competitors... Wall Street... Everybody.
Some analysts believed Narayen – software titan Adobe's (ADBE) CEO – was making the most boneheaded blunder in Silicon Valley history. I am not ashamed to admit that I thought he had lost his mind.
It was May 6, 2013.
Adobe was the dominant name in publishing software, with $4 billion in revenue. Its products ranged from the ubiquitous Acrobat document creator and reader... to print and digital publishing tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Dreamweaver... to computer-animation tools like Animate... and much more.
But its leaders prepared to make a radical change... They wanted to revolutionize what everyone on Wall Street seemed to believe was a highly successful business model.