John Chen Couldn’t Help But Run BlackBerry Ltd (BBRY)

BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY)’s CEO John Chen does not think he is crazy for taking over the top post of his company just when it seemed all it could go to would be rock bottom.

In a light-hearted interview with Emily Chang for Bloomberg, Chen was asked why he agreed to run the troubled BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY). According to him, it all boils down to him “flunking retirement”.

There’s a whole bunch of reasons. I can give you reasons [like] being iconic in the industry, [it] being a great company [having] a lot of technology therefore I think there’s a lot of potential. All that is true, but that doesn’t automatically answer the question ‘Why am I doing it?’ he said.

He noted that he started being the chairman of the company whose primary task was to formulate a strategy and form a team to lead BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) out of the trouble it has gotten mired in. He said he thought he was too old to be running around the world leading the lifestyle of a busy executive trying to turn around an ailing giant.

However, he said that once he got to doing his job, he found it too hard to just guide the team supposed to revive BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY). Add to this the fact that he thought the company did not have a lot of time if it wanted to regain the foothold it lost in the technology market.

Asked whether he is crazy, he said that he thinks he isn’t. There’s a lot of potential still for the company, he said. Nonetheless, he did jokingly concede that maybe one of the failings of his personality is the need to be needed.

Prem Watsa’s Fairfax Financial Holdings is the institutional investor with the biggest share in BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY). It held about 46.65 million shares in its fellow Canadian firm by the end of the third quarter.