
Silicon Valley’s Legendary ‘Coach’ Bill Campbell Has Died - ghshephard
http://recode.net/2016/04/18/silicon-valleys-legendary-coach-bill-campbell-has-died/
======
drusenko
Very, very sad indeed. I had far too few chances to interact with Bill, but
when I did, they were always incredibly memorable.

One of my favorite quotes came at the SV Angel CEO conference a few years ago.
When asked about culture, Bill said: "Culture is not about the free food or
the ping pong tables. Culture is about how you treat your people and how they
treat each other."

Rings very true to me. My condolences to his family, Bill was a great man.

~~~
spydertennis
Says volumes about our level of discourse that this is considered a pearl of
wisdom.

~~~
hkmurakami
Unfortunately this was particularly the case around 2011 :(

------
hyperbovine
I am surprised that the Bill Campbell described in this article could be the
same one who oversaw Intuit, a company which has engaged in some very shady
business practices with regard to tax reform
([https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-maker-of-
turbotax...](https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-maker-of-turbotax-
fought-free-simple-tax-filing)). This is not to speak ill of the dead, only to
note that people are complex and full of contradictions.

~~~
blazespin
Bill Campbell was also the one that helped negotiate the wage theft that Apple
and Google were sued over. [https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-
silicon-valle...](https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-
valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-
wages/)

~~~
pinewurst
There's an interesting portrayal of Bill and his actions in Biz Stone's
"Things a Little Bird Told Me", his memoir about Twitter and other things.

~~~
throwaway6497
Can you add more to this?

~~~
blazespin
At board meetings, Campbell would appear to listen to Ev’s presentations on
the state of the company. After Ev’s sermons were done, the coach would clap
loudly and hug his protegee, proclaiming again to everyone in the room that Ev
was “doing a fucking great job” and asking them to clap… Then, after Ev left
the room, proud that his mentor thought he was doing such a great job,
Campbell would shout at the group: “You gotta get rid of this fucking guy. He
doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.”

[http://fortune.com/2013/11/04/6-things-we-learned-from-
hatch...](http://fortune.com/2013/11/04/6-things-we-learned-from-hatching-
twitter/)

~~~
pinewurst
That's from the other Twitter history by Nick Bilton but both agree as to the
nature of "coach" as betrayer.

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mathattack
What makes him so special is that he was the one "Adult in the Room" who was
welcomed in. He understood that technology is a Long Game, not a Short Game,
and encouraged great leadership and management. This is an enormous loss.

I would love to see comments by people who had personal interactions with him.
Please. :-)

~~~
curun1r
It's interesting you say that (Adult in the Room), since my interactions with
him were kind of the opposite. I don't mean that he was childish, but that
saying evokes a feeling of tempering one's impulses in a way that he didn't
seem interested in doing.

I met him at one company mixer and he was regaling us with many stories from
Intuit's past. Someone asked him if he'd like another beer (he'd had a few
already) and his response was, "I can't drink from an empty bottle." I also
saw him do tequila shots with the head of our business unit on stage at a
fireside chat they had. I don't mean to paint him as a lush, because that
didn't seem like the case, but more to point out how genuine he was. With him,
there was no concession to propriety. He did and said whatever he felt like
doing or saying.

I can see why the companies he lead and advised tended to have great culture
because I think the first step is for the leaders to be as warm/friendly and
genuine as possible and Bill had those qualities in spades.

~~~
mathattack
Thank you for sharing. This explains why he was so welcomed. By "Adult in the
Room" I mean being the person to instill perspective and a longer time horizon
in executives.

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shrugger
This should constitute a black bar for today.

Campbell was responsible for shaping some of the greatest minds the tech
industry has ever known. I mean, the amount of money that the people who
learned from Campbell control can be measure in TRILLIONS. This man was the
absolutely one of the most influential people I can even think of when it
comes to tech.

I wish I could've met him!

~~~
fizwhiz
> TRILLIONS

C'mon now, let's not get ahead of ourselves...

~~~
blazespin
Apple and Google alone have over a trillion in market cap.

~~~
vkou
How much of that valuation is due to his efforts, and how much is due to the
decades of labour by over a hundred thousand talented engineers?

~~~
endlessvoid94
That's not what he suggested:

> the amount of money that the people who learned from Campbell control can be
> measure in TRILLIONS

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gjmulhol
A truly sad day. I had a chance to meet Bill 4 or 5 times as a student and as
an entrepreneur, and you would have no idea that he was such an institution:
completely approachable and willing to give advice and support even to a
random kid from North Carolina.

~~~
shrugger
Hey, I'm from North Carolina too, from Clayton!

That's really awesome to hear that you were able to meet him. I always hear
stories about people like that, who leave that 'approachable' impression on
people they meet, I'm glad that there are still others like Campbell left, and
that it seems that so many have learned from him. Surely his great work will
continue on in the lives he touched.

~~~
JED3
Boy, has HN grown. I would have never imagined seeing another Clayton native
here!

~~~
shrugger
Well, Clayton has grown quite a bit too. I'm in NYC now, but I visited some
family there a few months ago, and the place has changed quite a bit. Lots of
new developments and such.

------
nickgrosvenor
Absolute Legend. Here's an hour long interview with the man.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFWG51nGmGA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFWG51nGmGA)

------
nxzero
Wikipedia:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Campbell_(business_exe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Campbell_\(business_executive\))

YouTube:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GHLg1wDuc10](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GHLg1wDuc10)

------
3ris3d
This is very sad. Just this week I have been reading "The hard thing about
hard things" by Ben Horowitz and he makes countless mention of how great Bill
Campbell was.

------
dang
Url changed from [http://www.businessinsider.sg/bill-campbell-has-
died-2016-4](http://www.businessinsider.sg/bill-campbell-has-died-2016-4),
which points to this.

------
ggraham
That free food and those ping pong tables are very representative of how a
person treat their employees, though.

They typically mean that the person believes that food and games are
appropriate compensation for continuous overtime. I wouldn't need food if I
was (socially, it's rarely made explicit) allowed to leave at an appropriate
time (5pm, assuming 9am arrival), because I'd have time to make my own dinner.

Similarly, ping-pong tables mean you do not value your employees' focus, and
believe that "whack whack whack" noises are totally okay in a room of
knowledge workers (well, then that it's a single room room means...).

So culture might not _be_ the ping-pong tables and candy, but they're
certainly representative.

~~~
btian
I have plenty of time to make my own dinner, but I don't like cooking, and
hate washing up.

~~~
vaishaksuresh
Yes but people with kids and family would like that time for themselves.
Although you mean good, when enough number of people in the office stay late
for food and in the process work a little, it puts pressure on the family
people. This results in them giving up their family life for the fear of being
perceived as a slacker.

~~~
morgante
The world is not obliged to bend to your choice to have children, just as I
don't expect employers to oblige my decision to occasionally go out drinking
on a Thursday night.

If leaving at 5pm is important to you, work at an employer who ends work then.
There are plenty out there. They also tend to require arriving by 9am (which I
would hate), but I don't derail other HN threads to complain about that.

~~~
vaishaksuresh
>The world is not obliged to bend to your choice to have children

But they are when someone stays at office because they don't want to cook
(which is the reason the comment I replied to gave)? Nobody is asking for
extra privileges for having kids, the problem is being penalized for having a
life outside work.

~~~
morgante
> But they are when someone stays at office because they don't want to cook
> (which is the reason the comment I replied to gave)?

Offices certainly aren't _obligated_ to provide food and in fact the majority
don't.

Different companies offer different perks which appeal to different workers.
If you don't like the perks of a particular company, it's not a "penalty"—just
work elsewhere.

~~~
vaishaksuresh
You don't seem to grasp what I'm saying. Giving or not giving food is not the
penalty. If some people stay beyond work hours for food and work while they
are there, but some people don't stay, it should not be held against them.

>Different companies offer different perks which appeal to different workers.
If you don't like the perks of a particular company, it's not a "penalty"—just
work elsewhere

First, this is a general trend, not an exception. Most new companies advertise
free food as a perk. Second, just work elsewhere is not always possible for
everybody. If you can't relate to other people's situation and problems, keep
quiet. Don't say it is not a problem because you don't think it is.

will you say the same thing about working conditions in sweatshops? Should the
kids assembling iPhones also 'find' another job?

~~~
morgante
> will you say the same thing about working conditions in sweatshops? Should
> the kids assembling iPhones also 'find' another job?

Comparing highly paid software engineers to kids working in sweatshops is
ridiculous at best, insulting at worst.

Some companies have strict working hours of 9–5. There are plenty of job
openings at such companies. Again, should I complain about the penalty I would
inevitable receive from such companies for not showing up at 9am?

~~~
vaishaksuresh
>Comparing highly paid software engineers to kids working in sweatshops is
ridiculous at best, insulting at worst.

Yes because money is what determines the ethics and attitude that companies
and managers have towards employees.

>Again, should I complain about the penalty I would inevitable receive from
such companies for not showing up at 9am?

No because that is a written rule that conforms to labor laws that you have
agreed to, before you joined. Not staying back after work because I have life
outside of work is neither.

