Now that we have a bit of background about Raychem’s history, we can begin the conversation with Paul on the philosophy and mechanics of building the company, and what we can learn from it. SM: To get started, I would like to ask you to share some thoughts about your philosophy, and perhaps give some
SM: Most of the expense reporting is around travel. However, there are other expenses to be incurred, right? SS: That is exactly correct, there are expenses which occur outside of travel. The same solutions can be applied whether it is business travel or taking a client out for lunch. The core point is that as
[This part of the story is written by Paul Cook] Our first crisis occurred in September when the “tube” of our GE EBG burned out. Halperin got the job of getting a new tube fast so that our manufacturing could continue. The new tube didn’t work nor the one after that nor the one after
Another beneficial attribute of the company was a very specific focus and area of expertise. Maintaining that focus has allowed them to develop into pureplay domain experts, and depth of expertise is always valued. SM: OK, so the focus has been on-demand expense management solutions. That has been the case from 2001 until now, right?
[This part of the story is written by Paul Cook himself] Late in 1956, I rented a building in Redwood City, bought some used office furniture and arranged to acquire the world’s first commercial electron beam generator from the General Electric Company. I moved in on New Year’s Day 1957. I hired a handful of
Paul Cook is a legend. I had the great honor to spend some time with Paul over the last few weeks, understanding the story of how he built Raychem from scratch. Today, Silicon Valley has embarked on yet another evolution in its history, and has been consistently committing huge chunks of capital on a genre
The stock price of Concur dropped before the dot com bust, but while the rest of the industry was faltering, Concur began to climb. SM: You changed course in 2001. Was that due to the market? SS: The change actually happened in 2000, and it was due to our business strategy transition. The market did
SM: 1998 you went public with $6M a quarter revenue. What happened after that? SS: The company did well in the public market for a period of time. One of the major changes for us was in April 2000, before the bubble burst. A true story, which gives you some context about us. I was