SAS at 50 : Founder and CEO Dr . Jim Goodnight on innovation , AI and what next

WRAL sits down for an extended conversation with SAS founder and CEO Dr. Jim Goodnight to discuss the company's 50-year history, the future of artificial intelligence, innovation, and what's next for SAS. This is a transcript of that conversation. Cristin Severance/WRAL: Dr. Goodnight, thank you so much for doing this. Dr. Jim Goodnight/SAS CEO and Founder: Certainly. We'll be glad to. Cristin Severance/WRAL: SAS is obviously rooted in North Carolina, but it quickly gained this international presence. How and when did that happen? And how extensive is that presence? Dr. Jim Goodnight/SAS CEO and Founder: Well, about four years after we moved off campus to start the company, I went to England to recruit someone to begin an office there. We were starting to get a lot of orders coming from Europe. A couple years later, the head of our European operation in England decided to move headquarters to Germany. Cristin Severance/WRAL: So almost from the start then. Dr. Jim Goodnight/SAS CEO and Founder: It was. We used to fill orders directly from here in Cary, well, in Raleigh at the time. We decided that we needed a presence in Europe. After that, we went to Japan and established a…