Why Intellectual Capital Trumps All

Nestled up against the banks of the great Columbia River where Vancouver, Washington meets Portland, Oregon you will find what I'll affectionately refer to as an 'orange site'. An unassuming, off the grid office where a covert team of designers, developers, analysts and retail operations professionals cloaked in orange aprons are helping to alter the landscape of retail.

There is something special going on in this facility. A place dancing the tango between keeping Portland weird and Vancouver normal. To most it is probably not recognizable unless you have access to Department of Defense cultural radar detection technology (which of course doesn’t exist). The special DNA that weaves itself throughout this facility resides just below the surface – the dermis layer of the organization. It's hard to notice, but it's there.

I’ve always felt the most powerful asset any organization has is its intellectual capital – its people. Some of the world’s most intelligent corporations will spend billions of dollars to acquire another organization’s founders, technical talent and other product visionaries. They don’t care about the product. They care about the widgets they can’t create. Humans and the free thinking ideas and creations that come with those humans.

Let's head to Apple for a moment.

I’m really digging the new Apple Music feature. I, like everyone else, am jamming to the beat of the 90 day free tunes offer. I’m slowly developing listening habits as the service roots itself into my must-have-everyday consumption lifestyle. A sacred place typically reserved only for my favorite obsessions - pizza and Grapefruit Sculpin IPA. 

I just love typing in my favorite artist and building a truly great playlist for any mood on any given day. It’s like I just cannonballed into musical selection utopia. I’m sure I’ll be battling full blown digital addiction by the time my 90 days are up. But hey – so will everyone else. That's the point - right?

No time to roll snake eyes these days as the apples are being accused of falling too far from the Jobs tree.

Apple Music is genius. The brainchild behind its roots? Jimmy Iovine - music mega-mind and former head of Interscope / Geffen records. Iovine's fingerprints are all over the place from U2 to Stevie Nicks to Sixteen Candles, 8 Mile and the discovery of artists such as Eminem, Lady Gaga, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Tupac and many others.

How did Jimmy Iovine carve such a path? He joined up with one of his artists, hip hop icon Dr. Dre and formed a little headphone company called Beats. Oh yea they also came up with a streaming music subscription platform that Apple had wanted desperately to nail. No time to roll snake eyes these days as the apples are being accused of falling too far from the Jobs tree with recent struggles in the Apple Watch launch path and constant accusations of less than world beating sales figures for ipads, iphone and everything else i-have-to-have-gadgets.

Let’s get real. Apple is not going anywhere. They simply dominate and will continue to do so. They will do it because of acquisitions like that of Beats. Because they see the value in visionary people to solve problems and create solutions. They bought intellectual capital they couldn't make - Jimmy Iovine.

Did you know?

Maybe you missed this - Jimmy Iovine and Steve Jobs were close buds. With Jobs giving death bed praise to Iovine: “You know, you’re one of the few people--if not the only person--who came out of software and made a piece of hardware successfully.” Jobs was referring to Iovine’s massive success from crafting music to creating a multi-billion dollar headphone empire.

I don’t claim to know Steve Jobs. But Jobs knew talent; respected few and heaped praise like that upon even fewer. At least publicly chronicled for the arm chair quarterback authors of today’s digital age.

Back to Portlandia

I'm no Steve Jobs, but I also know talent. And I know that talent comes in all kinds of shapes and sizes. On my plane ride home from Portlandia I was thinking about what I just witnessed in the Pacific Northwest.

I went out to understand what technology we are cooking up in one of our digital development centers; a small startup software company that we acquired back in 2013 that has been doubling in size year after year and averaging 100% year over growth.

What I witnessed was a team of people supremely driven to a single cause. A team of people with eerily similar life stories, upbringing and love for life. I asked the same questions and got the same answers. It wasn’t scripted either.

 My extended orange family running covert ops in the ‘Silicon Forest’ fueled by passion, family, innovation, oysters, craft beer and ridiculously good coffee!

They all love where they are, the culture of their office and the genuine friendships of their peers. Whether throwing darts in the office, frothing milk for their wicked cool espresso machine or discussing the finer points of West Coast hops among craft beer aficionados - these people really want to continue to do amazing things in retail ecommerce and they're having a blast doing it!

I now understand why these people are so unique. Why we are scaling their awesome business to further drive our remarkable HomeDepot.com growth.

People make all the difference in the world and I’m pulling for these people of whom I now call family. My extended orange family running covert ops in the ‘Silicon Forest’ fueled by passion, family, innovation, oysters, craft beer and ridiculously good coffee!

Keep it normal, weird, caffeinated, wired or whatever the flavor of the day is out there guys. Just keep it orange!

If you are interested in hearing more on our QuoteCenter development center, #OrangeLife or learning about the huge amount of technology hiring we are going to be doing in the greater Portland area email me directly below.

Please remember views expressed in my articles are mine and not necessarily those of The Home Depot.

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the topic. Advice to other readers? Suggestions? Your comments and ideas are welcome below!

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Here are some recent posts I've written:

• Retention Begins At Recruiting
• The Color Orange: My Experience at Home Depot
• 3 Interview Questions Companies Pray You Don't Ask

About the author: Philip is a proud dad to two daughters, husband and avid DIY'r who is deeply passionate about recruiting and enjoys putting pen to paper every now and then in the hope that someone reading finds a pebble of humor within an ocean of much more credible content widely available.

Connect with Philip on Twitter @newman or on LinkedIn.