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Seagate CEO: We help people "Buy more Crap"

money.cnn.com — At a San Francisco dinner on Tuesday evening, he was candid about his company's ultimate mission: "Let's face it, we're not changing the world. We're building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn."

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  • NoNom, on 10/12/2007, -2/+104Who knew an interview with a CEO could be so entertaining.
    • PatrickFisher, on 10/12/2007, -8/+61In my case, it's definitely the "watch porn" option.
    • kooft, on 10/12/2007, -11/+56He must be an avid porn 'user' otherwise he'd have lumped porn in with crap. Interesting distinction he made.
    • OverloadUT, on 10/12/2007, -8/+34Maybe the distinction he's actually making is that most people don't "buy" porn anymore...
    • skyshock21, on 10/12/2007, -2/+118I will be buying nothing but Seagate hard drives from now on.
    • thespace, on 10/12/2007, -6/+62Lol! could you imagine the board meetings?

      VP Marketing: "This is perhaps the wave of the future in storage technologies!!"
      CEO: "But how much more porn can we store on this thing? How many high def movies are we talking here?"
      VP Marketing: "Lots!"
      CEO: "Giddy! Giddy! Giddy! Giddy!"
    • Ascendant, on 10/12/2007, -3/+46If you buy one of Seagate’s drives, down the side there’s a vertical list of one word sentences written in 100-point font that describe what you can put on their drives: “Work. Music. Games. Movies. Stuff.”

      I always wondered if “Stuff” was really just a euphemism for “Porn.” Now we finally know the answer.
    • TimDigg, on 10/12/2007, -15/+4more like we help people pirate more crap
    • contradictator, on 10/12/2007, -1/+31@thespace

      I think you mean "Gigitty".
    • xoineg, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20It pays to know your customers....
    • RGCook, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18My next hard drive will be a Seagate. :-)
    • laserdisc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Nice to see a CEO I can like, and because of this interview all my future hard drive purchases, be it for personal, business or for friends will be Seagate drives.
  • hipstershaun, on 10/12/2007, -4/+50At least we know Seagate won't be producing a smug cloud any time soon.
    • alwaysmc2, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12It's nice when big business can be honest. ^_^
  • RadiantBeing, on 10/12/2007, -3/+44He could have phrased it like "We help you store the music, videos, and documents you care about" but that would have been *****.
  • RichPowers, on 10/12/2007, -2/+108This guy is awesome:

    What he said about the media: "People worry that newspapers are going out of business. So what? It's the content that's important. No one gives a s**t about the delivery mechanism. Think about mail. You had the pony express, truck delivery, airmail, email. You don't care how it gets to you. I read more now than I ever did, but I get it off my PC. I don't need to go down to the end of the driveway and pick up the newspaper. It's the content that's most important."
  • mntpng, on 10/12/2007, -3/+44This is why all my hard drives are made by seagate.
    • JohnboiWaltune, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23Seagate is the most reliable. I have a terabyte RAID 5 that is all Seagate. Their drives have a 5 year warranty when most of the other manufacturers have 1 or 3.

      Then again, I'd be mightily embarrassed if anyone saw what I kept on my Seagate drives, so I'd probably never make a warranty claim. :)
    • thunderhammer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1As hard drive capacities get larger it gets increasingly difficult to explain why you need so much space.

      "A terabyte!" your girlfriend exclaims, "what on earth do you need a terabyte for? On a RAID array!?" (this is assuming your girlfriend is "in the industry" as it were and knows what these things mean.

      "Uh, for my mp3s. And my documents... And christmas pictures... and Unreal Tournament maps..." you respond. These things take up a grand total of 40 or 50 GB on most people's computers.
    • encognito, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1I appreciate his candor and honesty but who needs that much porn? I like porn just as much as the next guy but when the bandwidth became fast enough to make on-line streaming porn a reality, I stopped storing the stuff. I have a 30GB HDD with 10GB of free space. I can't imagine having a 500GB HDD filled with porn. It just wouldn't be possible for me or desirable. Now, loss-less rips of CDs and DVDs from the library...
    • anon1234, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0@ encognito

      "I like porn just as much as the next guy but when the bandwidth became fast enough to make on-line streaming porn a reality, I stopped storing the stuff."

      Um, tell me exactly where you get high def or even quasi high def porn of the particular genre you enjoy streaming for free online? I haven't found good quality streaming porn for free yet, so I'm guessing that you IN FACT do not like porn "just as much as the next guy". I have 160 GB of hard drive space, and I'm running out of space, albeit that's not all porn (a lot of it is legitimate stuff - documents, photos, data, etc). But I just tallied it up, and I've got at least 56 GB of porn. It's not all high def, but it's not YouTube fuzzy crap either. So each 15 minute video might be 200 MB. And watching the same lesbians over and over gets old, so having a couple 100 videos or more is reasonable.

      The other problem that I see is that you only run into good quality porn once in a while. So when you do run across it, you have to save it, because you'll never know when you'll run across it again. I find it gross that people (men or women) like to watch dudes and chicks having sex - I mean come on, you either like the dudes or you like the chicks. But 99% of porn is dudes on chicks - I don't get it. Having said that, I'm the type that likes chicks (go figure), so when I run across good lesbian action or strap-on action, I have to save it to the hard drive. It has taken me a while to build my collection. And to tell you the truth - I think most guys would be pretty envious of it.

      Wow, a serious discussion about my porn viewing habits - I need to get help.
    • encognito, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Wow, a serious discussion about my porn viewing habits - I need to get help."

      I concur. By your own admission you are NOT normal and your pron rant confirms it. Jesus man, it's digital T&A not the secret formula to Coca-Cola. Obsessed much?
    • Petronski, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You have 56 gigabytes of pr0n?


      Dude...
    • anon1234, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0The thing is, there are people out there with MUCH bigger porn collections. Like a whole box of DVDs stashed under the bed, or many full length DVDs on their hard drive equaling several GB each. So, by comparison, my collection is probably pretty small.

      And another comment on the original topic at hand is that another large usage of hard drive space is CD and DVD images for games and software (mostly games). When I buy a new game and know that I'm going to be popping the CD or DVD in and out every time I want to play the game, I just go ahead and rip an image to my hard drive and then load it up with Alcohol. Doing that, you can easily surpass several 100 GB for a small collection of games.
    • JohnboiWaltune, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1""Uh, for my mp3s. And my documents... And christmas pictures... and Unreal Tournament maps..." you respond. These things take up a grand total of 40 or 50 GB on most people's computers."

      Lossless DVD rips take up a lot of space (5-8GB per DVD). I also record over-the-air HD broadcasts. You can easily fill 1000GB with such things.
  • monkeyrun, on 10/12/2007, -3/+30Well, that's the truth of the whole truth.

    He's just too honest about it :P

    I'll make only buy seagate hard drives from now on.
  • newsxplorer, on 10/12/2007, -12/+5Well put.
  • Carlothos, on 10/12/2007, -84/+6BRILLIAAANT! THIS GUY BLEEPING RuuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUuuuUUUULES!

    SEAGATE 4 LIFE!
    • jcounterman, on 10/12/2007, -6/+73Burried because you type like a 12 year old girl on a sugar-buzz.

      If you are a 12 year old girl on a sugar-buzz, please disregard.
  • orlyfactor, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18He could be my CEO anytime...
  • DaveV, on 10/12/2007, -62/+1*yawn*

    This is news?
    • jcounterman, on 10/12/2007, -6/+30yes, as a matter of fact, it is.
  • coheedcollapse, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22It's pretty funny to see a CEO not let PR get in the way of saying what everyone wants to hear. Either that or he has a great PR manager that knows that most of the people who actually buy hard-drives separate from computers are people who would generally appreciate this kind of open humor.
  • Topher06, on 10/12/2007, -9/+6Lets face it, what other need to people need 1 terrabyte drives for? Honestly. 10,000 high quality "home" pictures only take up like 10 GB and 10,000 songs consumes around 40 GB. but only 100 movies takes up 400 GB, bingo.
    • jcounterman, on 10/12/2007, -3/+28The engineers I work with on a daily basis are handing literally 700 - 900 gigs of data...in single datasets. Having that data on one external drive would be a godsend for them, as they are all-too-often lugging computer towers up and down the halls to meetings and such. I don't see terrabyte drives as being immediately useful to the everyday consumer, but for business, science, and research? There are thousands of applications.
    • YourTechSupport, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14Well. That's what I want to hear from a CEO.
      If Katuragi had said something like that instead of "Our fans are stupid, loyal, and wealthy, and will buy anything we throw to them" he would still be president of Sony.

      As for a 1tb HD, let me know when I can get a six-pack.
    • Capta1nA, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4people working in audio an/or video need as much free space as possible. Uncompressed media eaTs iT up fasT
    • BenDuffy, on 10/12/2007, -7/+5Lets face it, you're a moron sounding like technology loosers did in the 80's who said "Who even needs an internal hard drive?"

      Storage needs increase proportionally to the quality and length of the media and documents being stored. You may like having your super compressed mp3's on your portable player but I guarantee you once those things have 1tb of portable flash storage in them we'll all be listening to songs at the highest quality possible.
    • cell00, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5stop saying "lets face it". no phrase annoys me as much as that one - except for "maybe, maybe not" as a comeback.
    • ActionableMango, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13At 9.5gigs per hour for HDTV recordings, I think lots of people will need terabyte drives.

      Also consider there isn't a decent way to archive HDTV recordings, so you have to keep all of the shows you want to rewatch on the hard drive instead of archiving to DVD.
  • sinner0423, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17A CEO acts like a normal human being and it makes the news. Go figure.

    Whatever happened to regular people running business?
  • omnithought, on 10/12/2007, -6/+30The internet is for porn!
    The internet is for porn!
    Why you think the net was born?
    Porn! Porn! Porn!
    • sithlordoflanc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Dugg for the broadway reference.
    • Derrekito, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1nice poem...
    • ArmandoM, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Sticks and stones Katemonster.....
    • ryodoan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Ahh yes.... The video with that song set to WoW characters is a classic.

      (yes I know it was from a broadway play first)
  • repruhsent, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3It's nice to see someone like this acknowledge that perverts account for like 70% of their sales.
  • FunkyWorm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Reminds me of what happened to Gerald Ratner here in the UK.
    Ratner made a speech at the Institute of Directors in April 1991. During the speech, he said:
    People say, "How can you sell this for such a low price?" I say, because it's total crap.
    The speech was instantly seized upon by the media, an estimated £500m was wiped from the value of the company, he was given the boot 18 months later, and in 1994 the Ratner name was expunged from the company,
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ratner
  • theokandroid, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7At least he's honest.
  • jbaxt2217, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2*Cum* on? Who doesn't like porn.
  • fornulf, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9I like his style. Honest, brutal and funny.
  • draxenato, on 10/12/2007, -4/+42Seagate - It's Not Just Our Drives That Are Hard
  • geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -17/+2"Let's face it, we're not changing the world. We're building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn."

    I just bought "enterprise" hard disks from him, and although this is funny to some, I'm not laughing. If they ever fail I'll make sure to include that quote to seagate when I demand a free replacement. Good thing it will be RAID 6 / RAID 10.
  • bennyboy371, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13Thats hilarious. I'm glad to see someone in the business world with the balls to truly speak his mind and make good products at the same time.
    • jer2eydevil88, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3There are still CEO's like this in almost every industry, they are the ones who build the industry before the lawyer like folk inherit it.
  • will0861, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7"The engineers I work with on a daily basis are handing literally 700 - 900 gigs of data...in single datasets. Having that data on one external drive would be a godsend for them, as they are all-too-often lugging computer towers up and down the halls to meetings and such. I don't see terrabyte drives as being immediately useful to the everyday consumer, but for business, science, and research? There are thousands of applications."

    It's funny that while Science and business really have the most significant use for huge drives, it will probably be the home user storing porn that will drive the push for larger and larger drives. That really says a lot about our society that we value seeing some chick get a pearl necklace and a hot carl over curing cancer, or discovering where the universe came from.

    Oh well I'm off to bangbus.com.......
    • Philoushka, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I honestly had to google 'hot carl'. Boy, am I glad I did!
  • flightgamer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Just Awesome
    Seagate from now on for me.
    Love the honest talk of that guy!!!
    Someone needs to send this thread with our supportive comments to Seagate when all is said and done.
  • clickwir, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Segate may not be my first choice in harddrives. But there's no denying they are running a heck of a business.

    Just from that statement right there, other CEO's should take note. There's something sweet and simple to be learned here.

    He knows what his customers use their products for and what customers want in future products. No bull *****. No corporate glossing over.

    Do that and you have half of what being a CEO is all about.
  • danmanx, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Dugg'd for honesty.

    Let's download that pr0n!!!!!!!
  • TimDigg, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1I personally am amazed that more you average is finding more and more use for HDD space, with the average person finding a need for a 250GB HDD


    with most of diggers on the top end finding use for like 1TB.....and thats just the file server
  • bud38, on 10/12/2007, -8/+0I have a terabyte of hard drive space. and I can always use more. And I don't collect porn. (well, not much porn) I'm a movie and music man. High quality rips take up space. The more space the longer between burn sessions.
    (seriously, under a gig of porn...... That's not much, and I watch it with my eyes half closed, cuz I squint when i masturbate. )
  • miket, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2buy a seagate? yeah if i want to lose my data! ill never buy another seagate, i have lost 5 of them so far.
    • Wintermute426, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Really? I've been using Seagates for years and have never had one single failure... This article gives me another good reason to keep using them though.
    • striker1211, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2That's why you backup your data... no matter what hard drive you get if you're stupid enough to think its going to last more than 5 or 6 years its your own fault. Some last a very long time under heavy use, some die quickly under moderate use. The only time i've had problems with seagate was when a drive was loud, so i returned it and got a new (quiet) one of the same model.
  • KJSatz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Unless the WD/Maxtor alternative is SUBSTANTIALLY less expensive, it looks like Seagate for me. Well it was like that before, given their superior warranty and reputation...but!
    • miket, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2whats the point of a 5 year warrantee if you're going to have to keep using it anyway? ill take a WD because theres a lot less hassle using them.
    • dezmd, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Western Digital vs. Seagate is like K-Mart electronics department vs. Fry's Electronics.

      Cheers.
  • mutatron, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Renegade uncle? Reminds me of the Monty Python Lion Tamer sketch. Not Watkins - the author, I mean.
  • Helicobacter, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2He's right, and Seagate makes awesome drives.
  • GhengisKhan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Made my freakin' afternoon. I need articles like this on Friday.
  • stray, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Seagate CEO gets +5 EXP for brutal honesty.
  • randomracoon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Now *this* is some f*ing straight talk express.
  • chesscat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Seagate: Putting the 'hard' in hard drive.
  • Derrekito, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I have over 2 Terabytes of hard drive space, and 0 bytes of it is porn... and I actually had to go check to make sure... but most of them are Seagate. I know better then to go with WD, they are noisy and crap out more often, in my opinion.
    • chesscat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1wow, you must have a fast track to heaven.
    • ArmandoM, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3You had to check to make sure you didn't have any porn?
    • zeiben, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8o-8-=

      (hee hee, when derrekito checks for responses to his message, the lame ascii porn above will write to his internet cache. 5 bytes of porn... FTW! )
  • ArmandoM, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1bah bury..

    stupid broken reply button
  • wintermute0, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Dugg for hillarious honesty. And for cliffosakajapan being useful. Two things that are rare but appreciated.
  • rohcky, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I've been building with Seagate for years.
  • suMMx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1sounds like a cool guy, looks like he is on the ball about what people want
  • Zatechz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Entertaining guy and Digg = Dugg
  • driverafsls, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I have been a fan of Seagate drives since the mid 90's. I still remember my first Barracuda drive. *sniffle*

    Now I know why I went with these guys!
  • V1ncent, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Finally a CEO I can respect!
  • dagamer34, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Now if only Seagate could introduce some easy way to scrub your HDD to remove deleted porn files when giving your HDD to the RIAA/MPAA, I think they might have a winner!!!
  • Bitrate, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2WD is better. A lot of you people are ignorant fools.

    As to what content one stores on a HD. Everyone knows it's Warez, pr0n and other *****.


  • striker1211, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Good thing they bought maxtor, maybe they will clean that companies act up.
  • tmcdigg, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Hmm, all that ranting and the best the guy can come up with is a $700 terabyte hard drive?
    Jeez! The 750gb is around $300 street value.. doubling the price for an extra 250gb seems pretty greedy if you ask me. Besides, no-one will want a terabyte drive as standard desktop equipment in 2007 anyway, right? Might as well throw in a few dozen gigabytes as hybrid flash storage at that pricetag and call it the vista version! Yep, if Microsoft can tweak things just right.. vista will rush in the era of REAL-TIME-COMPUTING with equipment that minimizes the delay factors of xp.


  • jetskidude911, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That's going to be a great quote some day. You wait and see.
  • Cowboy5995, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Lets face it, what other need to people need 1 terrabyte drives for?"

    One single reason. Bragging rights to all my geek friends. How sweet would it be if you had a conversation like this

    Friend: Hey I got a 250 gig hd at the Black Friday sales
    Me :Oh yeah I only have 1 single terrabyte that can barely store anything. You clearly have the better drive.
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