Back in January 2000, Ron Johnson joined Apple as Senior Vice President of Retail Operations with a mission to create and roll out Apple’s retail operations.

Back in May, Johnson appeared, one-on-one, on Stanford Business School’s View From the Top interview series. The video of that interview is embedded below.

From ifoAppleStore:

Former Sr. VP Retail Ron Johnson told a Stanford University audience in May that store high-speed Internet connections—nearly unheard of at the time—were intended to attract visitors, allowing them to check their email or surf the Web. Johnson spoke as part of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business “From the Top” series that spotlights company executives. Johnson was an undergraduate at Stanford, and also attended Harvard Business School (HBS). Johnson recalled his close relationship with Steve Jobs, and the main lesson he learned from him—‟You have to be willing to start again.” He recounted the previously-told story of how the original Apple store design was re-done at almost the last minute in 2001, because Jobs’ trusted Johnson’s evaluation that it didn’t match up with the company’s “digital hub” philosophy.

Based on Johnson’s statement, in fiscal 2013 the retail stores generated their $20.2 billion in revenues from just 3,950,000 customers, or one percent of the total visitors. Those figures indicate the average in-store purchase during 2013 was $5,114.

Fascinating insight into Johnson’s approach to retail.