How the 173-year-old glassmaker behind Edison’s light bulb became a Silicon Valley darling

How the 173-year-old glassmaker behind Edison’s light bulb and iPhone screens became a major Silicon Valley player.

Transcript

00:00Corning is a 173-year-old company that you've probably never heard of.

00:04They made the glass for Thomas Edison's light bulb back in the 1800s,

00:07and they made the Corningware and Pyrex cookingware that you or your grandma may have

00:12in your kitchen. And they're most famously known for creating the gorilla glass that

00:15sits on the face of your iPhone, answering Steve Jobs' call to do that back in the early 2000s.

00:20But you may not know that they brought in some $13 billion in revenue last year,

00:24and their stock is up some 50% since January, all thanks to Gen AI and a big bet on fiberoptic

00:30cable to power it. Corning created optical fiber, which is a highly pure optical glass about as thin

00:36as a strand of human hair, all the way back in 1970. And before that, copper was used. So today,

00:42optical fiber connectivity in a data center allows you to do things like stream a movie or a video

00:46like this one on your phone, post to a social network, or pose a question to a Gen AI app like

00:51chat GPT on your mobile phone. So how is this new fiber different? Well, Gen AI is requiring 10

00:58times the amount of fiber currently used, but it needs to fit in the exact same space. So these new

01:04fibers that Corning is creating are thinner, and they're allowing customers like Microsoft to fit

01:08two to four times the amount of fiber into their already existing ducts and infrastructure. And

01:12today, optical fiber accounts for 30% of Corning's revenue. Johnny Ive, who is famous for designing

01:19the iPhone, met Wendell Weeks with Steve Jobs in the early 2000s after Steve Jobs cold called Weeks

01:25asking him to create a glass for his newfangled invention, the iPhone. Fun fact, Weeks told me

01:30that he mistakenly thought Johnny Ive was Steve Jobs security guard, but all was forgiven. They've

01:35since become close friends. They now vacation together. And Johnny shared with me a favorite

01:39anecdote he had about Wendell and his careful listening. So Johnny told me that Wendell will

01:44remember a question or a problem that he's struggling with, and then four years later,

01:49bring out a case or a prototype or a sample of something that solves the problem, even though

01:55Johnny has since forgotten about it. So for more on this, please read my story on fortune.com.