Adobe’s CEO on Making Big Bets on Innovation.

ADOBE Systems Inc. 102096559 ADBE

In 1998 the author joined Adobe as vice president and general manager of the engineering technology group. Shortly thereafter he took on layout engineering as well, and the following year the company released InDesign, the powerhouse publishing platform that overshadowed Quark. In 2007 Narayen was named CEO. Two years later the company expanded from content creation to content management, measurement, and monetization with the acquisition of Omniture, a web-analytics software company with clients including Ford, TD Ameritrade, and Walmart. “Any successful technology company needs to look around the corner and make some key assertions about how the world is going to change,” Narayen writes. Adobe’s shift to Creative Cloud was one response. And the company has invested in AI and generative AI for more than a decade, resulting in its introduction of Adobe Sensei (“which helps customers improve the precision, ease, and speed with which they do their work”) and Firefly (“a copilot that augments rather than replaces human ingenuity”). “Leaders must be dissatisfied with the status quo,” Narayen says. “If you set unreasonable expectations, people will amaze you with their ingenuity." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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