Chet Kapoor, Chairman and CEO of DataStax.
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As a teenager, Chet Kapoor dreamed of working for tech mogul Steve Jobs.
One day, this dream became a reality when Kapoor was hired as an intern at NeXT, the software company founded by Jobs.
“Steve is an iconic figure, but I didn’t know him… I was the guy who brought coffee to the guy who made the coffee,” Kapoor, now CEO of dataStax, a generative artificial intelligence company, told CNBC Make It.
“I was one step below the guy who opened the door, but it didn’t matter because I worked 20 yards from him (Jobs) every day.”
Kapoor rose to prominence in Silicon Valley as CEO of cloud software company Apigee, which was acquired by Google in a $625 million deal in 2016.
However, he attributes much of his success to his early experience as a Jobs intern.
Kapoor explained that he pays more attention to the questions Jobs asks during all-hands meetings because it can provide insight into his thought process.
“The exposure is absolutely stunning,” he said. “I can attribute a lot of my success to my first two or three years at NeXT.”
“This is the person I want to work for.”
Kapoor, 57, who was born in Kolkata, India, recalled his mother taking him to the British Council library so he could read while she shopped.
“In 1983, I read a book called ‘Little Kingdom,’ written by a guy named Michael Moritz,” Kapoor said. “The book was about two Steves. Of: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak It’s all about. apple. I was very impressionable because I was only 15 or 16 years old.
“I thought, ‘This is who I want to work for,’ and it was clear to me that I wanted to come and work with Steve Jobs,” he added.
CUPERTINO, CA – APRIL 8: Apple CEO Steve Jobs speaks during a question and answer session during an Apple special event on April 8, 2010 in Cupertino, California. Jobs announced the launch of new iPhone OS4 software. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
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Inspired by the book, Kapoor took computer classes and began applying to colleges in the United States. In 1986, he eventually enrolled at Arizona State University.
During this period, Jobs left Apple and founded a new software company called NeXT in 1985.
NeXT launched a program called Campus Advisors and began hiring college students to work part-time for them—Kapur became one in 1988.
The company asked Kapoor and a select group of students to join the company as interns after graduation, where they rotated through various odd jobs.
“Five years after I imagined myself working for Steve, I started working for NeXT,” Kapur said.
Jobs fostered ‘strong engineering culture’
Kapoor said Jobs created a very “product and design-centric” environment at NeXT.
“It all starts with the user experience. How will the user interact with it? It makes a world of difference, and the crazy focus on this is absolutely amazing,” Kapoor said.
It’s reminiscent of Apple’s culture, Jobs said in his speech 1985 Newsweek interview He likes to “make things.”
“What I do best is find a group of talented people and create things with them,” Jobs said. “My philosophy is that everything starts with a great product.”
Kapoor explained that iPhone users just saw a new beautiful interface, but there was a lot of “hardcore engineering” happening behind the scenes.
“It all starts with a very strong engineering culture,” he said. “He set a very strict, rigorous schedule because otherwise, you drop it and it becomes a science project. He’s very driven in that regard.”
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