Nobody cries when a tech CEO leaves their job. However after they do, the subjective query of “Did they leave the world a better place?” is usually a helpful KPI for measuring legacy. Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen undoubtedly did that.
Narayen introduced on March 12 that he’ll step down after 18 years as soon as the corporate names his substitute. Surviving — really, thriving — for that a few years places him in uncommon air. His key to longevity, no less than partly, concerned surrounding himself with sensible individuals — and listening to them, stated Liz Miller, analyst at Constellation Analysis.
Although Narayen signed off on the selections, he opened himself to others’ massive concepts, comparable to launching Advertising Cloud in 2012. On the time, that represented a giant pivot for Adobe, whose bread and butter for many years had been functions.
Thus, Adobe advanced from the period of disks and CD-ROMs to the cloud, from field licenses to on-line subscriptions, and in recent times from guide labor to generative and agentic AI automation. By all of it, Adobe valued above all of the human possession of inventive concepts, defending the creators, designers and authors who flip their concepts into petabytes of pixels.
The cloud factor hasn’t gone completely — extra on that beneath — however Narayen maintained Adobe’s gold-standard popularity for inventive and doc administration know-how.
Alongside the best way, he grew Adobe’s advertising and e-commerce platforms each from scratch and thru acquisitions comparable to Marketo, Magento and Workfront. They’re now utilized by giant client corporations comparable to Coca-Cola, Lowe’s, Walmart, Disney and Sephora.
“I joke that he’s like ‘Uncle Shantanu’ to every marketer out there, in his quarter-zip, coming out telling us that everything’s going to be okay,” Miller stated. “Shantanu is also very smart. He is someone who really enjoys playing three-dimensional chess — seeing all the different pieces of the business, seeing all the different pieces of the market. He is one of those people who really believes that customer feedback is a gift.”
I grew up with PDF. Its 1993 launch was one of many first tales I wrote as a tech journalist.
In 2000, Adobe co-founder and authentic CEO John Warnock was succeeded by Bruce Chizen, the corporate’s second chief government. A number of years later, Narayen, then Adobe president and COO, popped up on the primary quarterly earnings name I ever coated.
Hoping to mix what was heard on the road with the angle of Adobe brass in information tales, I paid shut consideration as he seemed into his crystal ball, deciphered gross sales and market developments, and dropped opaque hints about how Adobe’s product line was to evolve within the close to time period.
A lot later, again on the Adobe beat for TechTarget’s buyer expertise website in 2017, Narayen would take my questions at noisy press-and-analyst scrums held on the Adobe Summit consumer convention. Another CEOs want to name on acquainted, pleasant faces at occasions like these. The remainder of us get to observe the identical outdated individuals lob the identical outdated dumb softballs and grind the identical outdated axes. That is tiresome. In distinction, Narayen did his greatest to provide everybody, together with me, a good shot.
In his signature quarter-zip, Shantanu Narayen, on the fitting, talks with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at Adobe Summit in 2019.
PDF was the muse
When most individuals consider Adobe know-how, they consider flashy stuff: beautiful photographs in Photoshop and Illustrator. TV exhibits and have movies made in Premiere. The business print and digital content material we eat in InDesign. AI graphics and audio in Firefly. Digital apps on Expertise Cloud.
Earlier than all that — earlier than the web went mainstream, again when “Adobe” meant “Illustrator, Photoshop and PageMaker,” when Warnock was nonetheless CEO — Adobe launched PDF, the Moveable Doc Format.
If legends are gospel, Adobe had completely no clue what it had when it launched PDF. Warnock was trying to create a digital equal of paper in order that individuals who did not personal his dear apps may preview what a picture or publication seemed like on the display screen with out having to purchase a seat license or obtain a heavy file. (The unique PDFs did certainly pressure a whole lot of modems, however finally they turned a lot lighter.) That blew up into trillions of PDFs floating across the web as we speak, with extra created each second. It began as a method designers may proof their recordsdata on paper and e-mail them round.
Shortly, PDF turned the bedrock of printing workflows. In the present day, whereas print ain’t what it was, PDF is the usual digital doc format throughout quite a few different industries, comparable to authorized, manufacturing and building, to call a number of.
For all of Warnock’s accomplishments and innovations, the lowly PDF might need been his capstone. Actually, the headline for John Warnock’s 2023 obituary in The New York Occasions was “John Warnock, Inventor of the PDF, Dies at 82.”
In 2007, when Narayen was COO of Adobe, and within the months main as much as his promotion to CEO, the corporate donated the PDF doc normal to the ISO. That call drove the proliferation of PDFs and led to totally different flavors of the doc normal, together with PDF/A for digital archiving.
Making PDF a free normal gave rise to a complete tech ecosystem of unbiased builders who made PDF software program and shared the wealth. Narayen may have gone the route of a associate ecosystem or market just like the App Retailer. As a substitute, he freed these corporations to construct their very own instruments as they noticed match to handle market alternatives.
In the present day, Narayen’s steady help of that ecosystem is a large — and utterly underrated — a part of his legacy.
“Speaking for the industry as a whole, we are grateful to Shantanu for ensuring Adobe’s continued participation in advancing this globally critical technology, and for the collaborative spirit Adobe demonstrates and fosters in the PDF Association and ISO working groups,” stated Duff Johnson, CEO of the PDF Affiliation. This vendor-neutral doc requirements group celebrated its twentieth anniversary final month.
Turbulence forward for Adobe
Presently, although, Adobe’s future is not all roses and chardonnay, which might be partly why Narayen determined to step down as CEO. Adobe faces two large challenges, and the following CEO must take care of them swiftly and decisively.
First off is the “SaaSpocalypse,” a attainable future the place AI creations substitute conventional cloud apps and distributors. Whether or not it is reality or fiction, Wall Avenue buyers have battered tech corporations, and Adobe is not any exception: Regardless of beating earnings estimates, its inventory has dropped 26% since final yr presently, and 60% since its pandemic peak.
We’ll see how Adobe and its SaaS friends decide the right way to combine AI into their merchandise with out AI swallowing them entire.
Adobe inventory, some analysts say, is undervalued, and it is time to “buy the dip.” We’ll see how Adobe and its SaaS friends decide the right way to combine AI into their merchandise with out AI swallowing them — and their market cap — entire.
The opposite situation is way worse: long-term tarnish to Adobe’s popularity stemming from its cloud pricing insurance policies and ways. The corporate got here beneath authorities scrutiny in 2024 for its termination charges and the hurdles it imposed on prospects earlier than they might cancel a subscription.
The day after Narayen introduced his departure from Adobe, the corporate settled with the U.S. Division of Justice for $150 million, agreeing to pay $75 million in civil fines and $75 million in free providers to prospects. He oversaw all the things in that chain of occasions, and it’ll take a while for patrons to neglect this case.
You may’t win all of them. That stated, who amongst us has made 100% appropriate choices over 18 years?
It is exhausting to wax nostalgic about tech executives, particularly proper now, contemplating all that is occurring in politics. However Shantanu Narayen navigated an evolving tech panorama with aplomb for practically twenty years.
As a substitute of capturing from the hip like many tech CEO cowboys, he listened to sensible counsel from the mind belief round him and made essential choices that introduced Adobe via market transition and market turmoil — more often than not, with grace.
You may’t please all of the customers on a regular basis, and it is unimaginable to please cynical journalists even half the time. However via all of it, this man maintained the imaginative and prescient of founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke whereas modernizing Adobe’s applied sciences. Whoever’s subsequent will inherit some market headwinds, but additionally a tremendous legacy.
Don Fluckinger is a senior information author for Informa TechTarget. He covers buyer expertise, digital expertise administration and end-user computing. Obtained a tip? Electronic mail him.
