Biography | The Story of Markus Spohn

Welcome to Life With Strings Attached. I'm your host, Jamie Gale. This episode was filmed live on location at Tom Anderson Guitar Works in Southern California. My guest today is Markus Spohn, co-owner of Tom Anderson Guitar Works. Born in a mining region of West Germany, the story begins far from the guitar workshops in Southern California.

Markus first came to Anderson as a player and a customer. Then he became the person helping build the system behind the company and over time he became known to the people, trusted by the shop and deeply connected to the culture of the work.

Eventually, Tom Anderson asked Markus to help take Anderson Guitar Works into its next chapter by becoming his partner and successor. This is a biography about risk, timing, humility, and the courage to step into the unknown. 

I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Markus Spohn, and I hope that you do as much as I did.

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Learn more about Life With Strings Attached, Boutique Guitar Showcase, and Jamie Gale's work in the guitar industry:
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Thank you for listening and supporting the ongoing conversation between music, makers, history and the future.

Transcript

[01:00:00:00 - 01:01:14:00]
 My life has been so far a string of lucky circumstance. I was like, I mean, some people always, or some people try to actually give me credit for any and all of this, like, wow, you know, the way how you navigated your life. And I'm like, you know what, there's really not much credit I can take for any and all of this, because I mean, for the most part, if you think no idea what to do after school, I ended up being just in the right place at the right time, doing, you know, the working with the special needs kids, getting into the IT industry and making it here to America was basically similar thing, right, at the right time, meeting the right people and then going to Salesforce, which was a wild ride, same thing that eventually coming here, exactly the same thing again, I don't know that I particularly did anything to deserve any and all of this. The one credit that I always say, like, that I may be able to take is that this brings us to the beginning of the of the interview is I've never been shy to make big decisions. Welcome to Life With Strings Attached. I'm your host, Jamie Gale. This episode was filmed live on location at Tom Anderson Guitar Works in Southern California. My guest today is Markus Spohn, co-owner of Tom Anderson Guitar Works. Born in a mining region of West Germany, the story begins far from the guitar workshops in Southern California.

[01:01:15:06 - 01:01:41:25]
 His musical beginnings involve a tennis club, a converted World War II bunker, and the kind of practical curiosity that leads a player to ask why guitar works, why it doesn't, and what could be made better. Along the way, he worked with special needs children, studied education and engineering and found his way into technology almost by accident and built a career that eventually took him from Germany to San Francisco's Silicon Valley through Oracle and Salesforce.

[01:01:43:04 - 01:02:27:03]
 Markus first came to Anderson as a player and a customer. Then he became the person helping build the system behind the company and over time he became known to the people, trusted by the shop and deeply connected to the culture of the work. Eventually, Tom Anderson asked Markus to help take Anderson Guitar Works into its next chapter by becoming his partner and successor. This is a biography about risk, timing, humility, and the courage to step into the unknown. There's also a story about learning quickly, caring deeply, and recognizing the rare moments in life when saying yes changes everything. I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Markus Spohn, and I hope that you do as much as I did.

[01:02:28:12 - 01:04:41:15]
 Jamie. It's great to see you. Thanks for being on Life With Strings Attached. Of course. Yeah, thanks for hosting us here in the Anderson Guitar Works. What do you guys call it? You guys have a special name for it, The Shop, or is it just? Usually it's The Shop or The Factory. Some people actually email us, say, "I want to talk to Anderson Guitar Works Headquarters," but there's only one office, so I guess this is Headquarters Factory Shop. All of the above. Yeah, yeah. Great. So we're at an interesting moment in time here because you are the co-owner, not a founder, but a co-owner where you came into the company. And so we're at this point of eventual succession, we presume is part of the plan. And so you're the first sort of successor that we're interviewing with the biographies and interviews today. And so I'm excited to go into this, particularly because I know some of your background already, and I think that you've done already interesting work, and I'm excited to sort of see how things evolve under your leadership. Sure. Yeah, yeah. So for the record, we like to sort of go back and start at the beginning. You were born in what year and to whom? The name of your mother and father, if you have any siblings. And then from that point on, the moments that maybe if they didn't happen, you wouldn't be who you are and doing what you're doing today. I'll give you an example of that. People ask me all the time, like, "You travel all the time. Don't you miss home?" I moved 20 times by the time I was 20. I've lived in 43 different places now. And so my sense of home is not the same as most people's sense of home. And so that informs you a bit about how Jamie's business can operate the way it does. And so you know what I mean in the sense? So those moments in your childhood and through that are integral to the storyline, let's say. Sure, sure. Yeah. So when, where, and to whom were you born? So I was born in 1973 in a small city called Maas in Germany. It's sort of like I always call it

[01:04:42:21 - 01:05:03:01]
 this area that I was born in is near the Dutch border, big coal mining area. So I always call it the Pittsburgh of Germany. But yeah, I mean, left bank of the Rhine River. My parents were, or are, they're still both alive, Hans-Peter Spohn and Marianne Spohn, Marianne Margrech Spohn.

[01:05:04:20 - 01:10:25:07]
 And then I had one older brother who unfortunately passed away already. And then I have one younger half brother. So yeah, that's the when and where. But yeah, I mean, I grew up in the town that I was born or close. So I was born in Maas, which is the larger big city where the hospital was. But then I grew up in a city called Rhineberg. I always joke that there's only two things that Rhineberg is famous for. Number one is an afternoon, a drink that you might have heard of called Onderberg. So it's sort of like a, what do you call it, like a herb? Digestive. Yeah, like a digestive, exactly. So that's from my hometown. And I drink it actually all the time, and I had a heavy dinner. And the other thing is Claudia Schiffer. So the German supermodel, she is actually from Rhineberg. I went to school with her sister on Carolyn. But yeah, sleepy town, pretty small. Let's see, defining moments, I would say one of the defining moments of my life was certainly when my parents divorced. So they divorced or separated in 1988. And so that threw me into a somewhat different reality in life. I will say that my mom, much more so than my dad, was probably a little overprotective of her two sons. So we were very well guarded. I think my dad always went as far as saying that my mom put us into a golden cage. So we had everything. We were very much loved, very well taken care of, of course, but my mom was very much like, oh, no, no, you cannot take your bike and ride outside the street. It's too dangerous for you. So it's very pampered if you I guess, well, and I never liked that as a child because I was like any other boy, I wanted to do stuff. And I couldn't. And so when my parents divorced, I was let's see 88, I would have been like, what, 15 or so. And that, of course, gave me a whole bunch of new freedom all of a sudden. And I enjoyed this tremendously. And I would actually say that if it's, while it's sort of like a sad occasion, really, your parents divorcing, I ended up staying with my dad. My mom subsequently moved to Italy. But given that my dad was working full time, like I said, I had a lot of freedom all of a sudden. And I think that really made me partially the person that I am today, because I literally had from one day to the next or a relatively short succession had to figure out like, hey, how am I going to deal with this? And how do I run my own life? Because my dad surely didn't really have the time to look after me 24 by seven, like my mom did before. So yeah, so I would say like, that was definitely one of the big moments early on in life. And you're 15, 16 years old at this point in time. So you're capable at this age to make some decisions in that direction. Right, exactly. Yeah, I mean, of course, that was already the first bad decision to make in life. Right. It's like, imagine 15 years old, you're in front of a judge, and your two parents sort of sit behind you and it's like, so Marcus, who do you want to stay with? And you're basically stuck between a rock and a hard place. Right. It's like, you know, that whatever decision you make, you're going to upset one of your parents, which you of course dearly love. So, so yeah, I mean, that probably, maybe actually, as I think about it now, it's probably two things, the independence and how to deal with that and how to manage that was one thing, but probably also this, hey, you know what, I mean, I have to make this decision and it's big and I don't like it, but I yet have to make it. I think that was something that I learned pretty early on in life. Not by choice, but I had to learn it nonetheless. Yeah, life happens to us. Indeed. And then we get to choose. Yeah, I mean, I don't look back on it and say, oh God, how terrible. I actually, like you basically teed this up. I mean, I look at it as a life defining moment. And I mean, this is nothing against my mom, but I'm not so sure that if my parents hadn't divorced and my mom would have had another, I don't know, five, 10 years or so, let's say five, until I was 20, influence over me. I'm not sure that I would be the person that I am today. Yeah. Okay. I saw any questions, but this is a biography. It's about you. So next. So you're 15, 16 years old, you're living with your father now, your mother moved to Italy somewhere. You still see her during this time? I spent actually a decent amount of time in Italy during that time. So I would, I forgot actually when she moved to, I think it was like, yeah, 89 or maybe 1990. And so then I would, of course, go and see her. So I would spend a decent amount of time in the summers during summer break in Italy. I would go most Christmases, I think. And then there's a reasonably long spring break and also fall break in Germany. So yeah, I mean, I found myself in Italy quite a bit, which I tremendously enjoyed. Where was that in Italy? She was in a small city called Ferrara, which is north of Bologna. So in Emilia, Romania. Yeah. So yeah, very nice area, picturesque Italian countryside, as you of course know, also. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, it was a great time. Home of the Ragu, lasagna, I know. Yeah. Mortadella. Oh God, I'm getting hungry now. Certainly wasn't good for my waistline. I do remember actually I went one summer

[01:10:26:16 - 01:12:59:15]
 and a good friend of mine who was actually still in touch with me today. He was the singer of the band that I played in back in the day. I came back after six weeks with my mom and people were shocked. And he said, "Marcus, what the heck happened to you? You look like you gained at least 20 kilos." So I guess I over ate a little bit, which was easy to do because A, we were in Italy and number two, my mom is a great chef. So she cooks really nice food. Wonderful. Yeah. But yeah, so that- This is an interesting time in Germany. I mean, you're talking about 89.90. This is reunification. This is when the wall comes down. This is when Berlin, East and West Germany get reunited and you're a teenager. So I mean, you had to be feeling this. This is a real cultural moment. And you're at the age where you take authority for your life. And so what was that like to be there during this time? I mean, it was very, very interesting. I actually remember, funny you bring it up, when the news broke, and I mean, keep in mind, this was pre-internet, right? So if you were traveling, I mean, you didn't have a cell phone, you could whip out and consume the news like we can today. So I was actually on a train ride from my mom's place back to Germany with my grandmom when we learned that the wallet come down. And yeah, I mean, that was a very emotional moment probably for most Germans. I mean, we had my paternal grandfather was from Berlin. And so Berlin, as you knew, was sort of a divided city by itself, right? So it was actually in the heart of former Eastern Germany, and the city of Berlin itself, that's actually where the wall was, was divided into East Berlin and West Berlin. And so yeah, I mean, it was a very emotional time for Germans to see the country being reunited. Did you have family that was in the East? Were you? No, no, all of our family was actually in the West. So yeah. Yeah. Because I mean, as the story goes, there are many people who, you know, brother, sister, parents just lived on the other side of the divide. And correct. There's no question about it. Yeah, it was easy for Western Germans to go over into the Eastern part, though it came with certain no pun intended strings attached. But I mean, there was a mandatory for currency exchange. And I mean, it was heavily guarded and regulated. But at least we could go if we wanted to. But if you were Eastern German, obviously, you couldn't go to the West, right? Because the regime at the time was worried that you would not come back. Yeah. Yeah. And fairly oppressive regime, obviously.

[01:13:01:08 - 01:13:21:21]
 Yeah. Okay. But yeah, emotional time, I do remember. And I mean, obviously, the whole reunification is not something that happened overnight. But I would say like the most emotional night was probably when the news broke that people had stormed sort of like the wall. And I mean, people literally took hammers to the wall and tore it down.

[01:13:22:25 - 01:13:48:10]
 Yeah, I know people who went there to be a part of that historic moment. Right. Of course, now in my head, I can't help but sing Winds of Change, you know, the scorpions had a huge hit in English around this event also. And I mean, it was it was great that it was them that had this hit, because it seems so appropriate, you know? Right. And yeah, let your ballo like say

[01:13:48:10 - 01:13:53:11]
 what my guitar has to say, I think is the line as they go into the guitar solo. Right. Yeah, it's fast.

[01:13:55:07 - 01:14:19:16]
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[01:14:19:16 - 01:14:21:13]
 So yeah, I mean, from there on out, let's see.

[01:14:23:11 - 01:14:47:00]
 So obviously, of course, I still had to finish high school. That happened in what was it like, I think in 1994. Towards the end of my high school career, I wasn't really the best student. That was probably one of the things that didn't go so well after my mom left. I was a really good student until she was or as long as she was there. And then when she left for Italy, I got a little lazy.

[01:14:48:13 - 01:17:19:05]
 I remember we were a small class, the class of 94, there was probably 52, 53 of us or so. And then word came after all the exams were written and done. One person didn't make it and all fingers pointed to me as like, oh, yeah, it's got to be Marcus. Luckily, it wasn't me. But to give you an idea, I think what was it like you needed the maximum number of points you could get to get an A or you know, in Germany, it's a one is 800 you need to get a minimum of 400 points to actually get your high school diploma. I think I had 400 one or 400 two. So it was tight. I didn't once I graduated from high school, I had really no idea what to do with my life. I did already play guitar. One of my ideas was and I did talk to my dad about it. I really wanted to actually come here, Los Angeles funny enough. One of my guitar teachers had done the summer session program at MI. And that sounded like a ton of fun. So I wanted to do that too. But my dad was not, you know, I mean, that's that's not really something serious. I mean, you do something, you should really do something a little bit more serious with your life, you know, become an engineer like your brother or do something. So I had really no idea what to do. The good news was, at the time, we still had to draft in Germany. So you either had to after high school, go to the military for a year, or you had to do social services. Yeah, I decided that was probably one of the best decisions in my life. I decided to do social services. And the keyboard is of my band that I played in at the time. Did the same a couple of years before me. And he worked with special needs children for 15 months, right? So we had to do the social services a little bit longer. And that was something that was fairly far outside of my comfort zone. But I decided, you know what, he did it, and he could do it. I'm pretty sure that I can do it too, even though it's not something that will come to me naturally. So that's what I chose to do. And I worked with the special needs kids, I actually elongated the stint for another three months. So I think it was it was 18 months. And I would actually I look back at this time and say, like, that was probably one of the best times and most rewarding times of my life. It was just, I mean, working with those kids was just great. And the people that I met were great too. What was it about it?

[01:17:20:18 - 01:18:05:13]
 Oh, I think, I think it was probably the first time in my young life where I realized that I can make a difference in somebody's life. Right. And I would also say when you work with special needs kids, your first reaction and that included mine is that you look for distance, right? Because it's like, I have no idea, you know, if somebody is, you know, mentally and physically pretty, I don't know what the handicap, let's say, the interaction is very different than with a person that is not handicapped. And so I think we all are probably pushed out of our comfort zone at first. So yeah, I think it was I realized that this was a moment for personal growth for myself.

[01:18:06:21 - 01:18:49:18]
 But actually seeing how the kids reacted. If you put the warmth and the care in, you get it back hundred fold. And that's what made it so rewarding. That was a great time. And the people that I worked with, so it was organized as a school. And so the teacher that I worked with, great people actually still in contact with them today. So yeah. Wonderful. Yeah. I have a bit of this in my background also. That's why I asked about it. Right. It's something that I think everybody should have to serve at some point in time. I agree. I don't, like, I think that there are people who do jobs and such, but they're not

[01:18:50:21 - 01:19:34:13]
 putting themselves aside and putting someone else first. Right. I think that's a really important lesson. Yep. Lesson to learn. But especially when we talk all this time about anxiety and mental health illness, and there's no difference in mental health or depression. So besides thinking about yourself, it's the same thing clinically. It's thinking about yourself, depression, same result. And so the answer is to go out and take care of someone else. And you learn this. And they're remarkable, wonderful people that don't give enough chance at first. But yeah. So that's part of the history. All right. So you've done your civil service. You've sent it up to 18 months.

[01:19:35:23 - 01:20:23:05]
 Yeah. Which also lined up with, so I think that what I wanted to study, which actually was, I was so impressed with this time in my life that I said, you know what, I will become a teacher for special needs kids. So that's actually what I wrote. You know, that's what I started at the University of Dortmund. So there was three helpers at that school. And all three of us said, like, you know what, we all want to do the same. So we're all signed up for university in Dortmund. We lived actually in a flat chair together for the first year, year and a half or so. And so, yeah, we all went to university and, you know, not that the German word means anything, but we studied, well, Zondappeter Gogic or education for special needs kids.

[01:20:24:28 - 01:20:44:28]
 Zondappeter Gogic. So pedagogic is... Pedagogy, which is the method of teaching. Yeah. And then the special needs... Is what the Zondappeter part is. Exactly. Okay. Yeah. So I guess that's what I started with. I had to also pick a major, if you will. So even if you...

[01:20:47:04 - 01:24:18:18]
 Even though you're a special needs teacher, you still have to pick a topic that you'd like to teach. And given that I was my whole life a technology nerd, I was like, well, you know, technology is actually something which was mainly woodworking, in fact, and metalworking. So I'm like, yeah, you know what? I mean, that seems like a good thing to do. And I actually really enjoyed when I was working in that school, there was a teacher that I was paired up with who took the kids into a wood workshop and would do basic woodworking. So that's what I did. The university chair that was actually holding the lectures for that particular part was the chair of mechanical engineering. And so I don't really recall exactly how this worked or why I made that decision. But after about a year, I guess the nerd in me came through again. And I'm like, you know, this whole special needs kids thing. I mean, it's a lot of fun, but my student colleagues were not exactly... I mean, they were all very, very nice people, but I was just like, you know, I think I'm a little bit more nerdy than them. I remember this was the time when, for example, cell phones came out in Germany, I was like, okay, I got to have one of those. And everybody in my class was like, Marcus, what is wrong with you? It's like, why do you need this technology? I'm like, well, you know, I'm just a nerd. So anyway, long story short, after I think it was two semesters, I switched over to mechanical engineering and computer science. So it was sort of like a mixed study. I did this for, I think, like another two or three semesters. And I guess what's noteworthy is this was, of course, the end of the 90s. Everybody that ran computer systems towards the end of the 90s was freaking out that the year 2000 will bring doom, right? Because yeah, exactly. The Y2K problem. And so we found ourselves oftentimes being approached by headhunters that were literally waiting outside the university, you know, the classrooms and or they were on campus and they would say, well, do you do anything with computers? Or are you an engineering student? And like, yeah, yeah, I'm an engineering student. And they would literally kind of like almost like try to approach you. I resisted for a long time. But then one semester break, I remember I couldn't get my usual semester break job, which was a forklift driver in a pump factory for heating pumps. And they're like, you know what, this time it doesn't work out. And a colleague of mine who I was working with said, Hey, why don't you come to the company that I work for? It's, you know, we're doing database applications. I was I think in my first semester of doing mechanical engineering. So I hadn't touched a computer in a long time before that. But I'm like, yeah, okay, well, I need money. Let's go. So I got interviewed by the founder and owner of the company, Dick Brockhouse. I think he was a mechanical engineer by trade. And the interview really went something like, well, so Marcus, so I see you study computer science. Yep. First semester or second semester. Do you own a computer right now? No, not really. Do you know no, not really. Do you know anything about databases or Oracle databases? No. And I was like, okay, this is it. And he was like, well, okay, why don't you start 15 bucks an hour next week?

[01:24:20:02 - 01:24:46:28]
 And I was like, Oh, this is a surprise. The perfect kind of ignorance. I know. I mean, I don't think that I've actually I mean, we're sometimes still in touch. Probably one day I should ask, it was like, what on earth did you see in me that you even gave me a job. So I started working in the company. I had no idea what I was doing. He put me with his team and they were doing what is called entity relationship diagramming. So you know, building relationships within the database.

[01:24:48:21 - 01:28:27:11]
 To me, it was just like, okay, you know, we're moving boxes and errors to, you know, it was more like a design exercise. So I really know context as to what was going on. And I think it was after maybe like a month or so that he got really upset with me. And he came into the room where we all were sitting. And he said, like, you know, I spawn, you know, last name, I had it with you now, you know, it's like, I don't know what the heck you're doing here. So I'm just going to throw you into the cold water right now. It's like, here's a $400 advance, go to the store and get yourself two suits. And then next week, you're going to be in Frankfurt, and you're going to be a programmer for Lufthansa German Airlines. And I was sitting there, I was just like, you have to be joking. It's like, I mean, I mean, I was a student, right, I was not a bona fide software engineer. And I said, like, how are you going to even make this work? I looked, I mean, that has unfortunately changed when I when I was, I was what, like 23 or something at the time or 24. And I probably looked like 17. So I'm like, you know, they're not going to buy that I'm a software engineer. But he was like, yeah, don't worry, you know, I already faked your profile. You know, you're as far as we're concerned, you are you're a software engineer. And I bought two suits. And one or two weeks later, I found myself reporting to Lufthansa German Airlines, or actually Oracle was the company that implemented and no idea what the hell I had to do, honestly. And then it was pretty much learning on the job, he sent a colleague along. And yeah, long hours trying to figure out how to make this work. The funny part is, when the project was initially done, I think I was booked for three months. Very much to his surprise, they're like, oh, this guy's awesome. This guy, Marcus, yeah, we want to have him for another three months. And he came down to Frankfurt and he we had lunch and he said, like, what the hell are you doing here? And I said, like, what do you mean? It's like, they just asked me for a three month extension of the contract. And I'm like, isn't that good news? It's like, yeah, but I sent you here thinking that you would miserably fail. And here they are, like, you know, wanting to extend the contract. And I think I stayed in the project for I think nine months or so. So that went well. And then of course, when I came out of that project, my boss talked me into like, well, what do you really want to go to university for again? Like, you know, here's the next project that you can work on. So from there, I went on to I think it was Lake Constance, which of course is a beautiful area with summertime, had a great time there. And then I at some point, I just ditched the idea of ever going back to university. So I dropped out and started working as a an IT consultant. That lasted. So I mean, there were like multiple oracle, no, actually for this small company called Rockhouse Software and Consulting. Late 90s. So right around, actually, it was like, yeah, 1999. Oracle, which was the company that I was always sold to in Oracle projects, they approached me and said, like, well, you know, you're always working in our projects. Why don't you come and work for us? I had a pretty long termination clause at this first company that I worked for. So I remember I had to give like a half year notice or something. But then in actually, on doomsday, January 1 2000 was actually my first day at Oracle in Germany, in Frankfurt. And so then I worked for them for another two years.

[01:28:28:19 - 01:29:12:10]
 And actually started working a lot on a European level as a specialist for something. And then the software that I was using the Oracle software that I was using as that specialist, the team in San Francisco at Oracle headquarters, at some point heard my name and said, like, hey, we want to meet this guy. And so they invited me to a training session to San Francisco. And then at some point said, hey, would you be interested in joining us here at headquarters, we could use somebody like yourself who has field experience that who has actually used the software and implemented it to product manager. So that was in that happened actually just around like September 11 2001.

[01:29:12:10 - 01:29:37:28]
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[01:29:37:28 - 01:31:08:29]
 My transfer actually got delayed because of that. Okay. So yeah, then in 2002, I picked up my life in Germany and found myself moving to San Francisco. Okay. So that was probably Yeah, that was there was another defining moment. And I think that was, you know, tying those two maybe things together, that was a big decision to make. Right, like leaving your home country, you know, moving into a different culture. I mean, I'd never been to America before, actually wants to go to that training in Redwood shores, which is just south of San Francisco, and then was presented with this opportunity. So it was it certainly felt at the time, hey, this is quite a bit like rolling the dice and moving to America, knowing nobody here, no family, no nothing to suitcases for that said, okay, you're 2930 years old at this point in time, I was 2828. Yeah. But, you know, ended up being the right move. So I worked for Oracle in the United States in San Francisco for another four years. And then again, you know, another defining moment was a bunch of people had left Oracle. We don't have to go into the reasons why. And so some people, of course, started working for other software companies. And then those other software companies were pretty rapidly growing at the time again. And so then I got a call from a small startup at the time called Salesforce.

[01:31:10:08 - 01:31:32:02]
 And I remember when when I started interviewing with them, people were like, well, Marcus, that doesn't really seem like a good move because it has dot com in the name, right? And obviously, at late 90s, the dot com bubble had burst. And that wasn't really good for a lot of people in Silicon Valley. So people were hesitant to see how this could possibly be a good move. Yeah.

[01:31:33:07 - 01:31:57:21]
 But yeah, another roll the dice moment is like, you know what, I'm not really all that happy at Oracle anymore. Let's let's do something fresh and new. So then in 2006, I joined Salesforce.com at the time. I was one of the first thousand employees. I think my employee number was something like thousand something. When I left in 2021 to come here, we were 80,000 employees.

[01:31:58:26 - 01:32:04:13]
 So hyper growth, obviously. So yeah, it was an interesting ride, to say the least.

[01:32:07:01 - 01:32:18:01]
 So you're with them right up until coming here? Pretty much. Yeah, exactly. I had left once before that was in 2012. And there was

[01:32:19:01 - 01:33:08:08]
 lightweight talk about Tom and myself even back then. Hey, you know, is this maybe the right time for me to join on a more permanent basis? I mean, we haven't talked about like how I met Tom quite yet in that story. But yeah, in 2012, we we thought about, hey, you know, would there be a permanent role for me here? But we decided, you know, but not the right time. So I was with Salesforce until I eventually came here. Okay. So that's sort of your professional training. Here, it's some of your childhood and such. What about the guitar? Where does the guitar sort of come in? You said you were playing guitar already back in high school. Correct. Right. And so I presume your interest in guitar has a fair amount to do with why you're

[01:33:09:15 - 01:33:11:20]
 here at Tom Anderson's artwork. Right.

[01:33:12:21 - 01:34:13:28]
 Once you fill in some of those missing blanks for us. Sure. You mentioned your band along the way. You played along with this keyboard player. It is funny, actually, my mom recently, or somebody asked me, what's your first guitar memory ever? And my first guitar memory, I mean, it's actually not my memory, but it's a story that my mom loves to tell people. So I think at some point, when I was maybe four or three, I got like a little more like a play guitar ukulele for Christmas. And like I said, I had an older brother who was four and a half years older than me. And so my mom loves to tell the story where apparently, you know, we weren't fighting a lot, but we were fighting and she came into the room and I had already raised the guitar over his head. I was just about to execute my move when she yelled my name. And then I obviously was startled and threw the guitar away and didn't hit my brother with a guitar. But so the guitar maybe not in the way intended came into my life very early on.

[01:34:15:07 - 01:37:14:28]
 The first time that I actually remember that I wanted to play guitar was when my brother was big time into ACDC. And again, this was well, maybe actually this was already the time an MTV came and you could look at music videos and people playing guitar. But I remember looking at those album covers and you would see Angus Young with this SG. And I remember like, Oh, wow, that's a really cool guitar. However, my parents weren't really I mean, my dad played a little bit guitar. But you know, nothing too dramatic. He can he can strum a few chords. But my parents were really big time into tennis. Now you wonder what is that to do with guitar playing? Really nothing. I found myself on the tennis court all day long. Makes a good air guitar. I know. Yeah. Johnny be good with the tennis rack in a lot. Correct. However, the tennis courts had a convenience store attached to it. And so there was a gentleman by the name of Manfred Hootner, or money for short, who would run the convenience store together with his wife. They were kind of like the hosts of the tennis courts that my parents played at. And he played guitar. And the other thing that the tennis the grounds had was an old World War Two bunker, which he actually converted into his blues bands rehearsal room. Sure. And so of course, you know, I was probably like 10, 11 years old, and two very interesting things, right? A guitar. And of course, I wanted to see what the heck is going on down in that bunker, but nobody had ever been down there, except for adults. So one day he invited me down there. And so that was probably the first time that I saw somebody playing the guitar, like in person, you know, a full band. And that's what sparked the interest to eventually pick up the guitar. So I told my parents, I think I want to play guitar. I must have been like, yeah, 11 or 12. And so then I got a Hootner classic nylon string guitar. My mom was obviously still around. So she wanted me to do this properly. And I signed up for classic guitar lessons at the local music store, which I did probably for like, like two, three years. Then I got my first electric guitar. And the band I played in for most of my teenage and young adults would live was the school rock band project. So the high school that I went to had a really nice music teacher who unfortunately also passed away already. But he had two projects, one kind of like orchestra, and one cover band rock band. A friend of mine was the guitar player in there. But he he didn't really enjoy playing electric guitar as much as I did. And then one day he called me out of the blue and said, Marcus, you know what, I don't want to do this anymore. It's like, how about you fill in for me? And can you come to rehearsal tonight? The guys want to meet you. Sure. And so that's how I got the gig. And I played in this top 40 cover band.

[01:37:16:03 - 01:37:23:06]
 Probably let's see, I mean, I must have been 16 or so all the way until I left Germany.

[01:37:24:17 - 01:37:36:17]
 So the band actually outlasted all of us graduated from high school. And we actually became yeah, like a party band cover band, top 40 bands that was actually pretty heavily booked.

[01:37:37:25 - 01:38:06:21]
 Great. Yeah. And I think it was during that time that I probably also took an interest in fiddling with guitars. I mean, I remember like my first guitar was also a HONA ST 200. I looked it up the other day. So like a Strat copy with a vintage tremolo. And of course, the vintage tremolo would never stay in tune when you would use it. And so pretty early on, I started looking into like, okay, so how can I make this better? Or how can I make it work actually, not even better.

[01:38:09:01 - 01:38:11:21]
 So yeah, but I would say like the tinkering with guitars

[01:38:13:13 - 01:41:44:12]
 was probably minimal at that time. Yeah, then when I moved from Germany to here, there was probably there was probably the longest period of time where I didn't play guitar, because it was just a my guitars had to arrive here. So I probably didn't play let's see, I arrived here in 2002. And I think I joined my first band here in the US, I want to say in 2005, or 2005. Yeah, four or five couple years. And so that was also the first time that I actually played in a band that was playing originals. And it was around that time that I actually discovered Anderson guitars. So I was playing music band guitars at the time. Great instrument. I mean, I still love them. But as you probably know, those, they're all sort of like silhouette shaped, right? I mean, that's their model, they're a little smaller. I'm a pretty big guy. And I was equally overweight as I am right now back then. And so people would routinely ask me, hey, what mini guitar are you playing when I would come off stage with a short headstock to form to headstock. And so I would always get annoyed. I'm like, yeah, this ain't no mini guitars. It's like, I'm just tall and fat. And this is a regular guitars of music man. I think it was a GP six and a look that I played. Yeah. But so at some point, I was getting annoyed enough with that question that I'm like, you know what, I probably need to find something else to play that is a normal strat size, his own normal strat size body. And so I went into my local music store where I bought pretty much everything else, except they didn't carry the music man guitars. That was a different store. And my salesperson there Keith said like, oh, well, if you wanted to, you know, I wanted a strat with the Floyd rolls, ideally, ideally with active pickups and it EMG pickups, just like the music man look at. And he said like, well, you know, I'm not I'm not sure about the pickups, but everything else. Have you ever heard of Tom Anderson guitar works? I'm like, nope, never heard. They were the local dealer. So he obviously had a few in stock. And so I played it. And I liked it enough to say, well, you know, let's put a custom order together and see how much it would be. And so I put my first Anderson order in probably like in the summer of 2006. And then the guitar arrived in May of 2007. And then I think I put the second one on order, pretty much immediately afterwards. And then the third and the fourth. And I think eventually, I think there was probably at all times between 2006 and 2014 or so there was probably always a guitar with my name in this building in our previous shop. So yeah, I became an instant fan of the guitars because it's like, wow, this is something pretty special. And I ended up selling all of my other guitars and just continued to buy more Anderson guitars. So yeah, so that was actually how I got into Anderson guitars as a customer. The way how I met Tom and the crew here was actually I was still working in Silicon Valley, of course, in 2008. It was actually, and I had a guitar in order. And I told my wife, you know, you have to come up with excuses. Why do you need yet another Anderson guitar? And I said, well, you're pregnant, right? It's going to be our first child that's being born in December. So I think we need to commemorate this with a guitar.

[01:41:45:16 - 01:43:01:16]
 And so I had this particular guitar in order. And I think I was here in the summer in LA, Salesforce set an office in LA. I was there for a meeting. The meeting was boring. And I said, you know what, I'm just going to get a rental car. And I figured that Newbury Park is not too far. So I drove up here, old shop that is just a couple of blocks away from here. And that's when I met Tom, Roy, and most of the crew for the first time. And it was actually then when I asked Roy to make changes to the guitar that I had on order, because I of course saw some things that I liked visiting the factory that I that I wasn't aware of. And when he opened up his laptop, I think it was and we looked at the system together, I said, whoa, that's a really old computer system. And he said, like, Oh, do you know anything about that? I'm like, Yeah, that's what I do for a living. And I casually just mentioned like, well, you know, I mean, we could build this would be trivial to build on this platform that I'm working on at Salesforce. And I, the nice thing about sales was like, you could really quickly build demo. So I on the fly, build like a little demo of what it would look like. And he was like, Oh, this is really awesome. Tom wasn't there that day. And then I flew back to San Francisco. Didn't really think much about this.

[01:43:02:17 - 01:44:21:05]
 What I didn't know is that Tom's friend of probably meanwhile 40 something years, Bob Wilcox was one of the sales managers at Salesforce. Never knew him. But when I came back to the office on Monday, I had an email in my inbox, Tom Anderson, guitar works and Salesforce.com. And I'm like, how I mean, I was just there on Friday. Yeah, how is this possible that somebody already knows about this year? And so yeah, it turned out that Roy told Tom, Tom told Rob, told Bob, and then Bob was like, Okay, let's find out who this guy Marcus is. And what is he going to try and sell to my friend Tom? And so then we all get together here again, pretty much in short order, like maybe like, you know, a couple of weeks later or so I drove down here again. Laurie, obviously, Tom's first business partner, original business partner was still alive at the time, and she had built the original system. And then we said like, Oh, yeah, you know, I would be happy to do it is probably the closest I'll ever get to combine what I do for a living with what my passion is. And we were all in agreement except for I said, look, I already have a day job. My contract at Salesforce is not such that I can easily take on a side job. So

[01:44:22:09 - 01:46:23:21]
 if it's okay with you, I just want to do the you know, I need time because I want to do this on weekends on time off. So I can't get paid for this. And I can't like do this as like a 40 hour or 20 hour a week job. So I it'll take me probably years to build this, but I'm happy to do it. And Tom and Laurie looked at me and said like, Nah, that doesn't really sound like a great idea. But I mean, you do need to get paid. And so it didn't happen at first. But I kept building prototypes and share them with Roy. And so then eventually we said like, Okay, you know, this can happen. Okay, why don't you know, we like this enough? Why don't you do it? And we'll figure something out. But yeah, I mean, I continue to buy my guitars from my dealer, even though of course, the crew here said like, Oh, no, you can buy from us direct now. But I said like, No, no, not not my dealer's fault that we now have a relationship. I don't want to cut them out of the deal. They need to make money and make a living too. And then later on, like, late or mid 2010s, when I finally bought directly from here, I insisted to still pay for my guitars, because I still insisted like, Hey, look, I mean, I can really get into trouble if I get compensated for what I do here. But yeah, I remember when I was trying to pay for my guitars, you know, I would give Lori a check. And she would rip it up in front of my eyes, I would try to PayPal her the money. And she would reject the PayPal, I would leave cash, I find it in my backpack. And then I one year I would say like, well, you do Christmas bonuses, right? Don't you? Like, yeah, it's like, how about you take this money and put it into the Christmas bonus bucket so that every employee gets a little bit like, okay, yeah, we can do that. And then the next year, I came to the NAMM show and all the employees come up to me and said, Oh, Marcus, thank you so much. That was so kind and generous of you. And I'm like, I don't even know what you guys are talking about. Yes. So it turned out that that year then Tom and Lori signed the Christmas bonus cards with Tom, Lori and Marcus. So yeah, that was a bit of a surprise to me.

[01:46:23:21 - 01:46:40:25]
 This space is normally reserved for brands who make stories like this possible, like the Dario and the Cedar Creek Custom Case Shop. If your company belongs in this conversation, let's talk. We partner with brands who value craft, culture, and the quiet power of a well-placed idea.

[01:46:40:25 - 01:48:02:01]
 But I mean, it gives you an appreciation for so sure. I mean, I did work in Silicon Valley all the way up until like 2021 when I made the move here, but I was reasonably well known already from, well, probably like, you know, 2010 or so, because I would show up four times a year making sure that we built the right things. And then when the system finally went live, like in 2014, I would still come down, you know, four times a year to make sure that everything continues to run smooth, build extensions. And so I was pretty familiar with the company. And of course, all the employees were pretty familiar with me at the time already. That's interesting. I remember trying to put together a price list for another guitar company. And Brian Mitter from the Guitar Sanctuary said, "Oh, Tom Anderson has the best order forms." And it was, I mean, to my understanding at the time, he actually forwarded it to me. I hope that's okay. He forwarded it to me. And I can see all these dropdown menus and things that we can do to place the orders together. Was that you? Yes. Yeah, okay. All right. Yeah, those were, that's actually the first thing we did before we started building anything on Salesforce. I think Roy tried to do, build those forms with the dropdowns in Word documents, but was frustrated with how it would not work. And then

[01:48:03:25 - 01:51:49:19]
 eventually we found that, oh yeah, we could build this in Adobe PDF, right? Because I mean, you can put JavaScript behind this. And so then, yeah, that's the first project that we worked on building those PDF forms. And they could actually, you could unlock pricing, it would price in real time. So it was really nice. I couldn't figure it out at the time. Yeah, it wasn't easy to do. It was like, oh, it's Adobe. We'll figure it out. We couldn't figure it out. Yeah, the reason why it was nice when it worked, but of course, you know, there was PC folks that usually had Acrobat Reader installed and it would work really well in that. But then there was Mac folks and there, yeah. And so you would open it probably in preview and that's when the JavaScript unfortunately failed. So yeah, it didn't really work all that well in Mac, which then prompted us to build it online. Right. So the same basic functionality is now available on our website, but it goes straight into our backend systems. But yeah, that was me. Okay. All right. All great. And so, okay. So how does the final bit happen? It was really, to be honest with you, it was a big surprise. I never really expected that this would go any further than it had gone up until 2021. So I was expecting, you know what I mean, for the rest of my life and for the rest of the time that this company exists, I will be sort of like their remote friendly IT consultant who maintains and extends the system just because I love doing it and I love the company. And I, honest to God, I mean, never really wanted anything for it. And so yeah, we were working on, I remember we were working on a reasonably large project to change something in the system during the pandemic. And so of course, communication had to happen either via phone or email. And one thing to realize is that in the meantime, Lori, Tom's original business partner had unfortunately passed away in 2017, very suddenly of pancreatic cancer. So Tom and the crew were, I mean, obviously Tom was flying solo, but had of course, a lot of help from the crew here. But usually I would work with Lori or Roy a lot. But so then this time I ended up working with Tom a lot on this project. And while we were working through the complexities of that project, he would oftentimes sign emails with, "Oh, Marcus, you're just the best. You're the best that ever happened to this company. You know, maybe you should run this whole place." And I'm like, "Ha ha ha ha ha." Very funny, Tom's like, "Okay, it's just his way of expressing appreciation for what I do." So I didn't really pay a lot of attention to it in the beginning. But then he continued to kind of prod into this direction. And then there was this one email where I said, "Well, you know, I probably should like double click into it and just make sure that we're all on the same page." And so I literally said to him, this is like, "Well, as for me running this place or joining, I mean, you're just expressing gratitude, right? You don't really mean anything." And when he opened up and he said like, "No, no, I do mean that. I'm in my late 60s. I don't know how long I can or want to do this anymore." Or actually, he didn't say that. I think he said, "When I can no longer do this anymore, if I'm not around anymore, it would be a shame if Anderson Guitar Work would cease to exist with me ceasing to exist. Because we have such a special company and such a special crew. So I do need to find somebody who takes this on.

[01:51:51:00 - 01:52:04:17]
 And I think that is you." And I remember sitting at home, I think I read it on my laptop and I immediately closed the lid and pushed back from the table. It's like, "Whoa, what the heck is this?"

[01:52:05:27 - 01:52:13:22]
 And I remember running out of my room that I worked in during the pandemic and looked for my wife. It was like, "You would not believe what I just received."

[01:52:15:19 - 01:52:21:04]
 And so, yeah, I mean, it was of course, I don't know, there were so many emotions

[01:52:22:04 - 01:52:27:15]
 running through my head or running through me at the time. I mean, of course, very flattering.

[01:52:28:17 - 01:53:02:09]
 That was probably, I mean, excitement. It's like, "Wow, I have the opportunity to run a guitar company. How awesome would that be?" And then of course, the other emotions like, "Wow, but how would that really ever work?" It's like, "We're really established in Silicon Valley. We have unfortunately also had at the time a Silicon Valley lifestyle with fancy house and fancy cars." It's like, "This would never translate." And of course, I knew how much money one makes with guitar building versus how much money one makes working in Silicon Valley. Is it not the same thing? Not quite, yeah.

[01:53:04:16 - 01:54:56:10]
 Yeah, so there was of course doubt. It was like, "Well, it would be so awesome, but I don't really see how this can possibly work." And then of course, there was the part of like, "Well, I mean, I know the company very well. Obviously, I know guitars very well." And I had tinkered a little bit more than what I used to do back in Germany. But still, it's just like, "Well, I mean, I can probably run a company like that, but then I don't really know too much about guitar building. So I mean, I would have to learn all that kind of stuff." But that of course was exciting to me because I mean, I think that was just one of the themes throughout my life that I've always been thrown in situations when, for example, I was sold to Lufthansa where I had no idea what I was doing. And in really short time figured out how to make it a success. So to me, that was of course exciting. Yeah, and we discounted it at first and said like, "Well, it would be awesome, but I don't really think it can work." And if I recall correctly, it was actually my older brother who I told this, and he was never really a big supporter of me doing anything with music. So when I told him, I didn't really expect to hear anything in support of, "Oh yeah, you should do this." But I think he literally said like, "Oh, you can't just discount this or swipe it away by on financial grounds." It's like if such an opportunity comes along and if somebody like Tom Anderson asks you to take over his business or to run his business, I think you owe it to him and to yourself to look a little deeper into this and see if you can find some way to make it work. And so we looked a little deeper and we found that while we had to change our lifestyle quite a bit, we actually can make this work. And once we decided that, Tom and I started talking about like, "Okay, so how would this actually work out financially?

[01:54:58:05 - 01:55:33:27]
 Do I run the company? Do I own the company? What is actually the deal?" And so it took us about, I think we started talking in September of 2020 and then it was all email. I still have that email thread. It's like 200 emails going between San Francisco and Los Angeles. And then I think it was in like March that we said, "Okay, I think we talked about everything. We have clarity on everything. Anything else we need to talk about?" Like, "Nope. What do you think? We should do it? Yeah, let's do it." And we showed up here in April to see where we would want to move,

[01:55:35:13 - 01:55:40:10]
 found a house and then moved down here in June of 2021.

[01:55:43:19 - 01:55:45:00]
 All right. It's been a ride.

[01:55:48:26 - 01:55:49:05]
 And?

[01:55:50:20 - 01:56:08:04]
 Well, the big question of course was like, "So now I'm here." Was it worth it? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I would not trade my current life for my old life under any circumstance, I would say. I mean, the work here has been obviously super rewarding.

[01:56:10:11 - 01:56:17:28]
 I mean, it's a lot of learning. And of course, when I initially showed up, I mean, I think by and large, the crew was like, "Okay, this is awesome."

[01:56:19:16 - 01:58:17:29]
 But then of course, the first question I had is like, "So what is it that I do now?" Right? To run the business part, I was fairly comfortable with that because as a product manager in Silicon Valley, you do have sort of responsibility for the product that you built. So that was pretty much okay. But then, you know, guitar building is like, "Well, I don't know where to even start." I decided to actually go about it sort of like in the reverse way. So one of the first things that I started was, "Hey, you know what? This room that we're currently in is what we call the playroom." And so when the guitars come out of production, we usually sit here and Tom used to play every single guitar, do all the setups. And I said like, "Well, I mean, I can play guitar. I know how to set up guitar. So why don't I learn that first and then work my way backwards?" Because Tom and I felt like, "Well, you know, if you know what the desired outcome is, it's actually easier to work your way backwards. Because if you know what the guitar needs to look like at the very end, then you also know how far you need to go in assembly. What does it need to look like when the assembly process is done?" And so on and so forth. But it's your work backwards. So yeah, I mean, over the last four years, I mean, I've been not in all departments quite yet. But I mean, I spent a decent amount of time like in finishing, staining guitars, clear-coating guitars. Now recently, I got into drawing and design. So that's something that up until now only Tom has done. And we look at things oftentimes like, "Okay, so as much as I would love to learn other things, but it doesn't really make any sense for me to learn, let's say, certain things in the wood shop, because we already have four people that can do that kind of work." So we look at it from a little bit of like a business continuity perspective also. Like if Tom, God forbid, would get sick or the proverbial like get hit by a bus. What do I actually need to pick up so that the business can continue?

[01:58:19:23 - 01:58:50:13]
 But yeah, no, I mean, in the last four years, I mean, I guess awesome is probably an understatement. I mean, learning all this, working side by side with Tom and learning from Tom is of course, you know, very special to me. Learning from one of the best, if not, in my opinion, the best. Yeah, and I'm like a little sponge, if you will, right? Like, you know, when I came here in 2021, I was all dried out. And it's like, I try to soak up whatever I can learn here.

[01:58:51:15 - 01:59:17:27]
 So yeah, a lot of fun, a lot of learning. And as you know, I mean, I tremendously enjoy also being active in the community. So I really enjoy meeting other guitar builders, exchanging myself with them, learn from them, be open about like what we do here. And it's all sort of like a continuation of what Tom has been already doing anyways. So it's been a great time.

[01:59:19:04 - 01:59:27:23]
 Right. Is there, I think that brings us up to date, Mark. Is there anything in that storyline that

[01:59:28:28 - 02:00:44:02]
 you would remiss to have left out? You know, it's that moment, you know, you're out there, you've got the Grammy in your hand. It's like, who did I, I hope I thank everyone. I hope I said all the important things, you know, you feel like on a quick reviews or anything you want to add to that or? Well, I would say like, you know, biggest thanks probably goes to my family, to my daughter, my wife, Annika and Nina. You know, obviously, this move here would have not worked at all without them supporting me in that. And it was truly a family decision. So it was not like me saying, oh, yeah, you know, I want to do this. And, you know, force it down their throats or anything like that. It was it was like, hey, you know, it'll it'll it'll mean a few many things. And are we good with all of these things that this decision comes with? But yeah, no, I mean, they're very supportive. And so I would say like, you know, definitely a big thing. I think you goes out to them. But I would actually say like, they enjoy our new life as well. So it's been a good move all around. But let's see who else. I think I already mentioned money or Manfred Hoopner. I mean, without him, I probably would have not played guitars or gotten into guitar playing.

[02:00:45:16 - 02:03:34:20]
 You know, I think my dad obviously was an early supporter because he played guitar. But I think I mentioned him. Who am I forgetting? I think that's probably it. Okay. Great. Well, thank you. Thank you for sharing your story. Sure. Yeah, my pleasure. Yeah. Great. What do I always call it? It was a my life has been so far a string of lucky circumstance. I was like, I mean, some people or some people try to actually give me credit for any and all of this like, wow, you know, the way how you navigated your life. And I'm like, you know what, there's really not much credit I can take for any and all of this because I mean, for the most part, if you think no idea what to do after school, I ended up being just in the right place at the right time, doing, you know, the working with the special needs kids, getting into the IT industry and making it here to America was basically similar thing, right? At the right time, meeting the right people, and then going to Salesforce, which was a wild ride, same thing that eventually coming here, exactly the same thing again. I don't know that I particularly did anything to deserve any and all of this. The one credit that I always say like that I may be able to take is that this brings us to the beginning of the interview is I've never been shy to make big decisions. And so I think that was maybe the one skill that got me here, that I was like, hey, you know, what if there's an opportunity? And even if it's a big and scary decision, it's like I'm always willing to take that risk and see what what will happen. It's one of my favorite things about you. Really? Yeah. Well, as you were talking about that in these lucky circumstances, I was formulated my mind like, yeah, but you still had to make the decisions to accept those things whenever you have. And then in the conversations that we've had, you counterbalance yourself. And so as I was starting to counterbalance you in my mind, you then said what I was already thinking, I said, of course I did have to. Right. Yeah. And that's what I mean. It's one of my favorite things about you is you'll make an argument, but then you'll make the counter argument. Right. And that brings you to a good place. Yeah. Like I said, right. I mean, it's something that I had to learn very early on in life, right? You know, when my parents divorced. So it's kind of funny how you can actually trace it all the way back to there where you say like, yeah, you know what I mean? That skill or that openness to big decisions comes from that time. Yeah. Great. Thank you, Marcus. Thank you very much.