895 Ron Johnson: Author of Shop Different

Retail is not dead. Bad retail is. ✨

On The Kara Goldin Show, I sit down with Ron Johnson, the creator of the Apple Store and author of Shop Different: How Retail Revealed Apple’s Genius.

Ron worked directly with Steve Jobs and helped build one of the most successful retail concepts in history — not by making stores look cooler, but by rethinking what a store was actually for.

The Apple Store was not built to move boxes. It was built to teach, help, solve, connect, and build trust. The Genius Bar. Mobile checkout. Employees hired for curiosity, not pressure selling. All of it was designed around a simple but still radical idea: the customer relationship matters more than the transaction.

We talk about what most retailers still get wrong, why physical stores may become even more important in the age of AI, what he learned at Target bringing great design to more people, and what his very public J.C. Penney chapter taught him about timing, leadership, and change.

If you care about retail, leadership, innovation, customer experience, or building something that actually deserves people’s attention, this is a conversation worth hearing.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts. 🎧

Are you interested in sponsoring and advertising on The Kara Goldin Show, which is now in the Top 1% of Entrepreneur podcasts in the world? Let me know by contacting me at karagoldin@gmail.com. You can also find me @‌KaraGoldin on all networks.

To learn more about Ron Johnson and Shop Different:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/shopdifferent/

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