Robert Stephens; Geek Extraordinaire!
Our Speaker for Thursday, April 11th was Robert Stephens, the founder of The Geek Squad. Robert founded the Geek Squad in 1994, joined forces with Best Buy in 2002, and built the company into the largest tech support company in the world. Robert described this amazing story in a humorous and anecdote-filled manner. Robert is an original thinker. He is laser focused on marketing, service and innovation.
The iconic Geek Squad logo is a great example of his marketing skills. It has a simple antique scheme, like an old metal sign. The idea of having Geek Squad computer repair employees wear black pants, a white shirt and a tie was also geared towards showing reliability, straightforwardness, and a geek-like attention to computers. In other words, true geeks don’t care what they are wearing; they put on the easiest, most general ‘outfit’ and concentrate on fixing your computer!
When his business grew enough to need cars, he bought French Simca 7’s and painted them black and white! As he said, French cars have 7 ashtrays and no seat belts. Later, he had to fight with the CHP over his efforts to paint his vehicles with the CHP cruiser scheme! Robert is now looking for new investments and enterprises in northern California. He believes that with the upcoming crop of public offerings in the Bay Area, Sonoma County is going to be the place of choice for hundreds of newly minted millionaires. In other words, Sonoma County is the place to be. We agree! Thank you, Robert for the entertaining and thoughtful presentation.
