- Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen told the WSJ that leaders who don't love what they do can't do their jobs.
- Narayen has been Adobe's CEO for 15 years, a longer tenure than that of most tech leaders.
Leaders need to love what they do if they want to stay at the top, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
Narayen, who has been Adobe CEO since 2007, gave his advice to other leaders looking for long tenures.
"I love what I do," Narayen said. "And I have other passions. That allows me to have the longevity that I've had."
He added that he has "no idea" what he would do if he wasn't Adobe CEO.
Compared to other CEO tenures, Narayen's 15 years is longer than most. Bloomberg reported that the average tenure of CEOs on the S&P 500 Index is currently about seven years.
Since his ascension to his current role, Narayen has overseen Adobe's transformation from selling boxed creativity software into a cloud-based subscription-services company. The company's revenue has increased more than fivefold, from $3.16 billion in 2007 to over $17 billion in 2022, and its workforce grew from 6,000 to 22,00.
He's also focused on building up the company's employees, telling Insider in 2021 that all of Adobe's intellectual property "is in our employees' heads."
"I'm probably not as out there as other CEOs," Narayen told Insider. "I'd rather focus my effort internal to the company because they will then be my brand evangelists."
Narayen is highly rated by Adobe employees on sites like Comparably and Glassdoor, and Adobe continues to rank as one of the best companies to work at, according to Glassdoor.
In December, Adobe announced it cut around 100 roles at the company to reduce expenses, but said it wasn't planning on doing company-wide layoffs and was still hiring.
The company's most recent move sent its stock falling 15%: In September, Adobe announced it would be acquiring design-software competitor Figma for $20 billion. Designers who use Figma weren't thrilled about the acquisition. A lot of Figma's services are free, easy to collaborate with, and work in a browser, while Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions are expensive and have performance bugs, according to designers who spoke to Insider.
However, Scott Belsky, chief product officer at Adobe Creative Cloud, said the company is committed to keeping Figma autonomous and doesn't want to "get in the way" of its growth. Since the initial stock drop, Adobe's share price has slowly climbed.
Narayen told the WSJ that Adobe has "been talking to a number of customers," who "could not be more excited about" the work Adobe and Figma can do together.