Autodesk’s new CEO Martyn Day caught up with Andrew Anagnost to hear the new Autodesk CEO’s vision for the company, including subscription, enterprise licensing, 3D printing and the future of Revit
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n February, after being at Autodesk Autodesk with two acting co-CEOs, longon and off for over 24 years, compa- time Autodeskers Andrew Anagnost ny CEO, Carl Bass, stepped down. who pretty much ran the move to the Having run Autodesk since 2006, company’s business model and Amar Bass changed the company culture to Hanspal, who was in charge of all prodfocus on product innovation, developing uct development. Meanwhile the board new code streams, addressing new design pondered internal and external candiareas, with a focus on manufacturing. dates for the role. In June, Autodesk announced that The company’s business model also changed towards delivering services on Anagnost had won the job and on that the cloud with a move from perpetual news Hanspal decided to immediately leave the company. In just a licensing to subscription. few weeks the company had While Bass was planning lost two of its most experito leave his role after 11 enced product development years, he also fell foul to champions but was now free active investors, Sachem of the direct interference of Head Capital and Eminence the active investors. Capital, which bought Anagnost is certainly a safe enough stock to join the pair of hands, he has been board of directors and responsible driving the new demanded changes to the business model, and over company’s business to make the decades has held various it more profitable, quicker to roles within Autodesk, reward shareholders – I am super product managing in the something which Autodesk used to be focussed on under excited about manufacturing division, and previous CEO, Carol Bartz. the industrial- he had been Chief Marketing Officer and SVP Bass offered a refreshing isation of of Business Development. change by investing more in construction, Anagnost was one of the product diversity and driving forces attempting to drive value in that presents a original behind the development of its tool suites. The active lot of problems Inventor in the company, investors wanted more profwhich need to Autodesk’s first serious new it now and went on record be solved code stream after AutoCAD, saying they wanted to and prior to joining replace Bass as CEO. Autodesk, he worked at With the transition to subscription creating a ‘trough’ as income Lockheed Aeronautical Systems and changed from big perpetual acquisitions NASA Ames Research Center. Anagnost inherits a company with a to long term payments, as investors love more regular subscription more than buoyant share price and gets to continue ‘joining fees’, eventually Autodesk share with his model of moving the $2.14 bilprice rose by 70-80% on the prospect of lion company to Subscription and the higher income in the future with new cloud, but he can now obviously control subscription model. A deal was reached all aspects of the company, including with Bass stepping down if the investors product development direction. At also left the board in February. This left Autodesk University in London, AEC
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Autodesk University 2017 special edition
Magazine had a Skype call with Anagnost to find out a little more of his vision for the company and to hear his views on some key areas. AEC Magazine: Historically you have come from the manufacturing side of the business, so which of Autodesk’s divisions is your natural passion? Anagnost: I have a passion for solving really big problems. There’s no doubt about my background being in manufacturing but there are two areas I’m really excited about. One is that I am super excited about construction — and I guess I am cheating a little bit here, as it’s industrialising and we have the opportunity to bring the BIM model into construction. Here I think it’s exciting for our customers and for Autodesk, I think we have a really big value which we can add, as we have a lot of knowledge as how models progressing in manufacturing as models become more important in driving that process. And the other area that I am excited about is getting us to push button manufacture. I know it sounds whacky at the moment but five years from now we are going to be really close to automate the process of having a really complicated 3D model, pushing a button and getting a part come out the other side from a multipurpose factory. I am super energised about that. So I am super excited about the industrialisation of construction, that presents a lot of problems which need to be solved and we have these push button manufacturing issues that we are monitoring. So that’s what I’m looking at in the long-term. In the short-term, I have more customer based objectives. I’m excited about subscriptions and collections; we aren’t there yet, and I’m going to make sure that they get there. www.AECmag.com
