When the founders of Adobe, the late John Warnock and Chuck Geschke, called me into the company’s boardroom in 2007 and offered me the role of CEO, I felt an immense sense of gratitude and awe. To be asked to lead an organization that had had such an impact—from the advent of desktop publishing with PostScript to digital documents with PDF to imaging with Photoshop—was the opportunity of a lifetime. Adobe was a beacon of innovation, had been profitable since its first year, and was on track to announce $3.16 billion in revenue later that year.
A version of this article appeared in the November–December 2023 issue of Harvard Business Review.
