The Most Powerful Man in Philadelphia

Comcast's Brian Roberts on the state of the company, plans for its new building, and how Philadelphia’s fate is now entwined with that of its most high-profile corporation.

Let’s talk about innovation and technology. What kind of work is going to be done inside the new building? Xfinity products primarily are being developed in the cloud, and that was an “aha” moment for me a few years ago — that the company’s capabilities have to go from delivery of hardware — a set-top box — to delivery of software — apps, new guides — that runs in the cloud. That allows us to have the absolute best, state-of-the-art products, because we’re not writing that software to an antiquated set-top box, but rather we’re writing it in the cloud and using super-fast connectivity, so the consumer doesn’t know that the guide on the TV screen is being rendered, the search is being done, the recommendations for shows to watch are actually coming from Denver to your television in Philadelphia as fast as you can click the remote control. When that technology was enabled, we needed to recruit teams of people who could sprint and make various parts of that happen — apps, metadata, new remote controls, a different look and feel on the user interface. And we’re just getting started.

In my mind, both buildings will be part of a campus. When we visited companies like Google and Facebook and Amazon and Microsoft and Apple and start-ups in Silicon Valley that we invest in, we noticed that in all of those companies, there’s a less structured environment, much more open loft-type space. And that, of course, is because they tend to be in more of a college campus environment. And so what Norman Foster has designed, with our encouragement, is a series of lofts that are three stories — I think there are 17 of them — and each of these three-story spaces will allow for laboratories and group meetings. People will share workspaces and not necessarily have their own offices. And the nature of how people create and collaborate with our Silicon Valley office, our Denver office, our Northern Virginia office, and with consultants in India and Canada and China — we have a virtual process. But the heart and soul can be based here in Philadelphia and allow us to see and feel and touch things as they iterate.

Did you seriously consider any other locations for the expansion? New York? Silicon Valley? We did not seriously consider any other locations. We’re already doing a lot of this work in Philadelphia. We have been expanding our Silicon Valley office, and we’re doing a complete renovation of Rockefeller Center. We just recently built an NBC Sports headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut. And then in Florida we’re opening Harry Potter II in Orlando this summer. And in California we’re building a Harry Potter attraction at Universal City and completely renovating the Universal tour. One of the things that make this moment in time so exciting is, regardless of which part of the company you’re in, there’s a sense of optimism, investment in the future and, hopefully, momentum. So we thought: The cable company has always been headquartered in Philadelphia, and this innovation technology center could and should be right across the street.

You’re not concerned about finding technology talent to fill that building up? That’s a very fair question. But I’m excited to say that so far we have had great success recruiting people. We all are sometimes guilty of being too harsh on Philadelphia, when in fact we have such wonderful resources and the lifestyle is more balanced than any city living I’ve ever seen.