Losing the Signal: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of BlackBerry Read Online Free PDF Page A

fraud.”
    The Canadian outsider learned to overcome his insecurity with humor. The edgy barbs that landed him in boiling water in grade school had morphed into nuanced parodies of professors, many of them aging business chiefs. He became so good at mimicking teachers that classmates captured his act on video. In one he stuffed a pillow up his shirt and waved menthol cigarettes and a can of cream soda as he ummed and ahhed through a lecture. The skewered professor delighted his class in his final lecture by airing Balsillie’s parody. “This was huge,” Balsillie remembers. “All of a sudden your social cachet goes to the moon.”
    Just as promising were Balsillie’s career choices. He interviewed with a number of prestigious Wall Street firms, including Goldman Sachs, but his master plan took an unexpected turn in his final year when he met a groupof business chiefs from the Young Presidents’ Organization at a campus cocktail party in early 1989. When Balsillie arrived at the event, one of his classmates steered him to a tall, lean businessman with penetrating blue eyes. A fellow Canadian, Rick Brock warmed immediately to the animated student, inviting his new friend to dinner with a group of other presidents. The young entrepreneurs shared stories, offering frank advice about corporate and personal challenges. Balsillie felt like a business insider for the first time. When it was his turn to talk, Balsillie revealed his humble roots and lofty ambitions.
    “I was impressed,” says Brock. So impressed, he ordered a limousine and ferried Balsillie to a series of Boston bars. Near the end of the evening, Brock slapped more than a drink on the table. “Why don’t you come and learn to run a business?” he asked. The business was Sutherland-Schultz, a midsized electronic equipment maker based near Waterloo, Ontario. Brock could offer only half of what Balsillie could make on Wall Street, but he convinced the student that a senior job at his plant would teach him more about operating a company than he could ever learn as a banker. When Brock woke up the next morning with a screaming headache, he reached for the phone and dialed Balsillie’s number. “Remember that offer I gave you last night?” Brock asked. “I was afraid you wouldn’t,” came a nervous reply.
    Balsillie was on his way back to Ontario. His friends were stunned by his career choice. Wall Street was the number one destination of any aspiring finance grad. It was the nerve center of what was then the biggest corporate takeover binge in history. Junk bonds, buyout barbarians, and Michael Milken were such household names that Hollywood named a blockbuster movie
Wall Street.
Balsillie’s Harvard peers had never heard of Waterloo and Canadian friends knew nothing of Sutherland-Schultz. “We were astonished. It didn’t seem to fit Jim’s game plan,” said Wright.
    What they failed to grasp was that Balsillie’s career vision had shifted: new spreadsheet applications at Clarkson Gordon revealed to him the power of technology. Lining up for job interviews with Fortune 500 companies, he realized he would be competing for years to make his way to the senior ranks. That prospect didn’t interest him. Balsillie even sabotaged an interview with influential strategy consultant McKinsey & Company, giving wiseacre answers and accusing an interviewer of asking “stupid” questions. Brock was willing to give him an executive title immediately in a company that was just starting to automate manufacturing systems with computers. “I realized the onlyway I was going to make it [fast] in this world is by rewriting business rules,” Balsillie says, “and technology is an opportunity to rewrite business rules.”
    Lazaridis could hardly believe what he was seeing. Standing face pressed against the glass wall of a narrow walkway, he peered down at a cavernous room that looked like a sci-fi movie set. Paneled in lurid red floor and wall tiles, the chamber was