The story began after Weeks initially pitched Jobs on a different innovation: a synthetic green laser that could turn smartphones into projectors. Jobs dismissed the idea bluntly. “That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever effing hurt in my life,” Weeks recalled Jobs saying. But Jobs saw potential in Corning’s technical capabilities and eventually contacted Weeks about creating a durable glass screen for the iPhone.
The challenge was enormous. Jobs wanted mass production of a scratch-resistant glass within six months for the iPhone’s June 2007 launch. Weeks told him Corning had invented a material that could work—Gorilla Glass—but lacked the manufacturing capacity to produce it at scale.
Weeks’ board of directors instructed him to suggest a second supplier to Jobs, concerned Corning couldn’t meet Apple’s needs alone. “Steve and I are sitting alone, and he says, ‘No, you’re going to do all of it,’” Weeks said. “And I’m going, ‘what I’m telling you is like, like, I really can’t.’”
That’s when Jobs delivered his challenge: “Do you know what your problem is?” Jobs asked. When Weeks admitted he didn’t know, Jobs continued: “You’re afraid. You know, you’re afraid I’m going to launch the biggest product in history, and I’m not going to be able to do it because you failed, and I’m going to eviscerate you.”
Jobs acknowledged this was a legitimate concern—”Now the truth is, I will, that’s true. If you fail, I will,” Weeks recounted—but then reframed the conversation entirely.
“But look what you’re doing,” Jobs told him. “You are putting your reputation [first]. You’re worried about you looking bad, and you’re keeping your people from greatness. Imagine how they’re going to feel—the folks that are working in that plant in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, all your investors … you’re putting yourself above them and your company.”
The statement hit its mark. “And I said to them, you’re right. I’m afraid. And I’ll go fix that,” Weeks told Fortune. “And we went away, and we said, ‘Yes.’”
Apple CEO Tim Cook described the partnership as creating “the largest and most advanced production line ever created for smartphone glass,” adding that “any customer anywhere in the world who buys a new iPhone or Apple Watch will be holding precision glass made right here in Kentucky.”
For Weeks, the lesson from Jobs extended beyond that single deal. Reflecting on what makes great entrepreneurs different, he noted their relationship with risk. “Most of us view risk as all the ways that that you personally can look like an idiot,” Weeks said on the podcast. But Jobs “looks at things very straightforwardly and is damn fearless.”
The anecdote also illustrates a leadership philosophy Weeks has maintained throughout his tenure. “Fundamentally, every act of creation is an act of passion,” he said. “It’s not an act of cold logic framework.”
Weeks recalls asking company leadership not to fire him. “I said, ‘I’m chaining myself to the wheel here. I’ll be a janitor or whatever it is, but I’m staying until this gets fixed.’ They said, ‘Well, it’s not going to be a janitor. We’d like you to become president,’” he told Fortune.
Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to a plumber father and a secretary mother—both of whom he said were alcoholics—Weeks credited Corning’s culture with shaping his approach. “If you have it in your background, you realize that you come from a pretty chaotic background,” he said. “I was lucky that I was always smart enough to realize that if I wanted to be a better man, I needed to hang out with better people.”
