Experience Stern | Faculty & Research

In September 1960, John Updike sat in the Fenway Park stands and watched Ted Williams take his final at-bat. He drove a fastball 440 feet over the right-centerfield wall, rounded the bases head down and disciplined, and ran straight into the dugout. The crowd begged him to come out, tip his cap, take their adulation. He didn’t. The opposing pitcher waited on the mound, certain Williams would relent. Most players would have. Williams waved him off and never came back out.

Updike titled his account of that afternoon Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu — one of the greatest pieces of sportswriting ever published, about one of the greatest exits in the history of American sport.

Sixty-five years later, two of the most consequential business leaders of this century — Tim Cook of Apple and Reed Hastings of Netflix — have given us the corporate equivalent. No grandstanding. No extended farewell tours. No carefully staged vulnerability on a podcast circuit. Just a clean, disciplined exit. In a business culture that increasingly rewards visibility over substance, both men offered a different model. Neither built their careers around personal brand. They weren’t the story, and they weren’t trying to be. They focused on building institutions that would endure — and in doing so, reshaped entire industries: how we communicate, how we consume media, and how we spend our time.

Read full Fortune article.
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Paul Hardart is Clinical Professor of Marketing and Director of the Entertainment, Media and Technology Program at NYU Stern.