STEVE JOBS - CEO APPLE Inc.

&
PIXAR STUDIOS

PURPOSE:

To give the individual The power to

stand up to established power. To
empower the dreamers and the
idealists to challenge the status quo
and succeed

THINK DIFFERENT

"Here's to the crazy ones.

The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.

They're not fond of rules.

And they have no respect for the status
quo.

You can quote them, disagree with them,

glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is
ignore them.

Because they change things.

They push the human race forward.

While some may see them as the crazy

ones,
we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough

to think they can change the world, are
the ones who do."
ADMIRED SPECIFIC-RELEVANT-
CONTEXTUAL

Revolutionized seven industries: personal

computers, animated movies, music,
phones, tablet computing, digital
publishing and retail stores

Once Steve decided what he wanted In a

negotiation, he developed something akin
to a religious conviction about it. In his
mind, if he disinterested get what he
wanted, nothing else would take its place,
so he’d walk way. This made Steve an
incredibly strong negotiator. He would dig
into his positions with a fierce, almost
unbreakable grip.
In this dominion Steve was a master,
displaying a level of strategy and patience
akin to a leopard stalking its prey. He
would settle for no less than a big kill, a
feature story in a major magazine. He
would even pass on lesser stories in order
to hold out for the big one.

His ability to weave stories around big

ideas was legendary, and he applied them
with equal force to his own story. Working
for Steve meant working in the shadows;
he wasn’t terribly generous when it came
to publicly sharing credit.

Built the most valuable and admired

company in the world valued at $800
billion dollars

Did not listen to experts, experts listened

to him

Pulled off one of the Greatest business

comeback ever
The company revealed that its cash pile
broke $200 billion for the first time,
hitting some $203 billion. This is up 5
percent from last quarter, and up 23
percent from last year.
There are only 14 companies in the S&P
500 index that have a larger market cap
than Apple's cash pile.

Sense and awareness of Aesthetic

excellence. He attached a high value to
beauty and design

He had the deepest impulse to refine

everything he touched, as if the act of
refining was in and of the total law of his
being

Steve Jobs was know for changing his

mind instantly in the light of new facts,
and I don’t know anyone who thought he
was weak.
Question everything, especially authority

He always had a sense of authority about

himself. An absolute authority

Innately comfortable trusting his gut

Not tentative, knew someone would

eventually agree

Looks outside industry for inspiration

Strong leader of small group of people

The thing that bound us together at Apple

was the ability to make things that were
going to change the world. That was very
important

He had this silver tongue that could talk

anyone into anything. Before Apple was
even a public company, he was getting
parts that were more favorable then the
prices Hewlett Packard was getting in the
1970's

Adolescent problem with authority

Contrarian thinking essential for

breakthroughs

Demystifies complexes subjects into

simplicity for the public

Visionary envisioning the unimaginable

The cure for Apple was not cost-cutting.

The cure for Apple is to innovate its way
out of its current predicament

Did not care for others options

Willing to do whatever he felt it took to

achieve his goals

He made you up your game

Boss who just gets it when you present

an innovative idea to him

It would have been impossible for Steve

to keep his extremes hidden after Apple
had started because it is through the
movement between the highs and the
lows that creativity and invention flesh
out new spaces. Highs and lows are what
it takes to break the mold of previous
consciousness and allow world-shattering
ideas to be birthed

Dictated to the market

A quick study

An instinctive marketer

Could envision revolutionary products

Master of the media

Knew cash flow

Had such radical goals and expectations;
no one seemed to care so much about
their work

The way Apple people work has not

changed either. They turn in long hours
with a passionate, almost messianic
fervour, fuelled by the fear-tinged respect
that Steve Jobs inspires

As far back as 1982, Jobs was actively

encouraging his designers to think of
themselves as artists. At this time, he
took his Mac design team on a field trip to
a Louis Comfort Tiffany exhibition,
because Tiffany was an artist who was
able to mass-produce his art – just as
Jobs wanted to do.

He even insisted that his design team

sign the interior of the Macintosh case,
like artists signing their work. “He
encouraged each one of us to feel
personally responsible for the quality of
the product,” Hertzfeld says.

Could convince unbelievable talent to

work for him for less even though they
had bigger offers from bigger companies

Relished putting on a show to unveil his

digital creations

Spent months polishing his remarks

Had absolute self confidence he could sell

people a sense of discovery in a form
they previously didn't even know they
wanted

A tough negotiator to buy Lucas graphics

group for 5 million

A ballsy negotiator by his willingness to

walk away paid off

His ability to fight back in times of

distress. In other words, taught him how
to keep his head and fight back when
cornered

His ability to make the most of an

innovation that put him ahead of anyone
else in that field, meaning how to run like
the wind in the open field

Knew how to deal with powerful people;

was clear there was an immediate match
between them

He would only put himself out for stories

that promoted his company's products

Tough negotiator - he'd walk into a room

and say "which one of you has the
authority to buy our computers?" "I only
want to negotiate with someone who can
make the deal"

Certainty and faith in his own opinions

Always remained encouraging. When we

screwed up it wasn't oh, you guys
screwed up. It was always "what are we
going to do to move forward?"

Learned to act less impulsively

With this headstrong conviction and a

seductive charm, he would push people
past their limits to hasten or perfect the
latest Apple project

Jobs was notorious for bending facts to fit

his will. Once he made up his mind, he
refused any contrary evidence

Most fulfilled when tackling something

gripping and important

Great aesthetic taste

Asceticism and minimalism could

heighten subsequent sensations

He was a visionary
The power of personality to rally the
troops

Was always risking failure to achieve

success

Extraordinary work at any cost

Kept the greater needs of the company

first and foremost, whatever the cost;
even if cruel

Determined to lead a company staffed by

the best people possible

He didn't desire fame in and of itself. He

craved recognition for the quality of his
work

Great storyteller and performer and

believed he was best person to tell story

He was really good at surrounding himself

with really good people and motivating
them both philosophically and financially

Didn't waste time on niceties when it was

simpler to be clear

Tried to be a great father to his kids and

a husband to his wife

He was more willing to reshape his goals

as the development process revealed
either limitations or new opportunities

He encouraged spirit of constant

inquisitiveness and willingness to push
boundaries

We followed where our own desires led us

Nothing would ever be enough, he liked

the challenge

Amazing willingness to turn around and

do it again, till they do get it right
No use for typical marketing research
when formulating product strategy

He was the best delegator I ever met, he

was so clear about what he wanted that it
gave you great freedom

Excellent customer experience that

customers started demanding that from
other companies; ripple effect

An Essential characteristic of great

leaders: Deep restlessness...is far more
important and powerful than simple
ambition or raw intelligence. It is the
foundation of resilience, and self
motivation. It is fueled by curiosity, the
ache to build something meaningful, and
a sense of purpose to make the most of
one's entire life.

Suffered humiliating setbacks early in his

career, and persevered through a long,
arduous climb back to an even greater
prominence

He never gave up. He didn't ever quit on

Pixar or Next. What have his particular
restlessness real depth, then, was its
relentlessness.

Apple executive Jean-Louis Gass e

observes, “Democracies don't make
great products. You need a
competent tyrant.” And if tyranny is a
by-product of perfection as a brand value,
then Apple’s shareholders don’t care a
jot.

Cordell Ratzlaff, Esslinger's former

colleague at Frog Design—a firm known
for recruiting ex-Apple designers—agrees.
"Great design comes from dictators,
not democracies," says Ratzlaff, who
managed Apple's Human Interface Group
in the 1990s and who now works as
Director of User-Centered Design for
é
Cisco. "Democracy works well for running
a country and choosing a prom queen.
The best product designs, however, come
from someone with a singular strong
vision and the fortitude to fend off
everything and everyone that would
compromise it." In other words, success
can often come down to instinct and taste
—bad news for those after a more
tangible, quantitative, metrics-driven
approach

Saying no to speaking engagements

constantly and commencement speeches
was simply a question of return on
investment. He hardly ever traveled and
he did none of the conferences and get-
togethers that so many CEOs attend. He
wanted to be home for dinner.

Incredibly intelligent, strong-willed

person who made things happen, but at
the same time enabled people
Late in his career, he would provide this
kind of one-on-one mentoring in private
rather than berate you if you didn't
measure up

When he has the upper hand, he's good

at using time to wait people out

Very articulate, he could refine and

describe ideas so much better than
anyone else could

Maintained a singular focus even in

reaction to an illness

He learned given the choice, people 'do'

discern and value quality more than we
give them credit for

He prioritized ruthlessly, in just about

every area of his life. To maintain his
focus, he made clear decisions about
what mattered and what didn't
Could be tremendously helpful to friends
and colleagues in times of need,
especially when they or their families
needed medical treatment

He had the courage to admit he was

wrong, and to change

He cared deeply about the why. The why

of the decision, why he thought or did
something, or why he looked at
something in a certain way

He wanted people to work for a greater

cause. Not just work for Apple, but really
love apple, and really understand at a
very deep level what Apple was about,
about the values of the company

He saw clearly what was not there, what

could be there, what had to be there

Possessed an uncannily large sense of

possibility
Love of beauty, his impatience with
ugliness

Captivated so many with his engaging

intensity

Created a company that was so imbued

with innovative creativity that it would
outlive them

His desire for complete control of

whatever he makes derived directly from
his personality and the fact that he was
abandoned at birth

A passion for making nicely designed

products for the mass market

Was not disposed to accept authority;

authority will beat any curiosity out of
you

Honed his trick of using stares and

silences to master other people; he would
stare into their eyeballs, ask some
question, and would want a response
without the other person averting their
eyes

Very inquiring mind that was enormously

attractive, he refused to accept
automatically received truths, and he
wanted to examine everything himself

Able to turn charm into a cunning force,

to cajole and intimidate and distort reality
with the power of his personality

He had an aerial view of things and could

catalogue information that implied scope
and goal

He intuitively knew he was going to be

extremely wealthy

A drive for perfection meant caring about

the craftsmanship even of the parts
unseen

In his presence, reality is malleable. He

can convince anyone of practically
anything
Had a way of motivating by looking at the
bigger picture

Had an uncanny ability to always get

what he wanted, to size up a person and
know exactly what to say to each person

Found ways to ignite blasts of publicity

that were so powerful the frenzy would
feed on itself, like a chain reaction

He spoke in carefully constructed

sentences, even when trying to answer
an unexpected question

Storytelling power could generate

something magical

Felt a deep restlessness to change the

world, not just build a mundane business

Believed the biggest problems were ones

that took many years to challenge

You have to be ruthless if you want to

build a team of A players, otherwise as a
team grows you will put up with a few B
players, and they then will attract a few
more B players, and soon you will even
have some C players

Had premonition that he would not live a

long life so he felt a sense of urgency
about all he wanted to get done. That
was why he was driven and impatient

Had a way of focusing on something with

insane intensity. He had the power to
focus like a laser beam

Is obsessed with getting it right, and isn't

satisfied with anything less than
perfection
Personal drive led him to seek fulfillment
by creating a legacy that would awe
people. A dual legacy, actually: building
innovative products and building a lasting
company was one of his motivating
passions

Wanting control was ingrained in his

nature

He could seduce and charm people at

will. Could be charming to people he
hated just as easily as he could be
insulting to people he liked

He craved perfection, and he was not

always good at figuring out how to settle
for something less. If he knew for sure a
course of action was right, he was
unstoppable

Great strength was knowing how to

focus. Deciding what 'not' to do is as
important as deciding what to do. That's
true for companies, and it's true for
products

Putting on a great show piqued his

passions in the same way was putting out
a great product.

Make hit products and promote them with

terrific marketing

In most places, huge decisions would

have taken months. Steve did it in a half
hour

His management mantra was "focus". He

eliminated all excesses from extraneous
features to excess short term life
inventories

Under Steve Jobs, there's zero tolerance

for not performing

Hiring processes could be intimidating,

but Jobs had an eye for talent and
building a team of A players to
collaborate together

There can be something he knows

absolutely nothing about, and because of
his crazy style and utter conviction, he
can convince people that he knows what
he's talking about

The mark of an innovative company is not

only that it comes up with new ideas first,
but also that it knows how to leapfrog
when it finds itself behind

One of his talents was spotting markets

that were filled with second-rate products
ie. iTunes opportunity

He'd redefine the problem or approach,

and our little problem would go away

If you don't love something, your not

going to go the extra mile, work the extra
weekend, challenge the status quo as
much

His business rule was to never be afraid

of cannibalizing yourself. If you don't
cannibalize yourself, someone else will

He was a strong believer in face-to-face

meetings to develop ideas rather than
email and text

Had absolute ability to make you believe

and have all the confidence that you
would flourish

He takes contrary positions to create

more discussion, because it may lead to a
better result

Rare is the CEO who will soar one-on-one

with customers and bloggers like this.
Jobs deserves big credit for breaking the
mold of the typical American executive
Job's "high ground maneuver" was
destined to be studied as a new public
relations standard. Apple's response to
the iPhone 4 problem didn't follow the
public relations playbook, because Jobs
decided to rewrite the playbook. If you
want to know what genius looks like,
study Jobs' word

You don't make plans more then a year

out, and that's bad. You need to force
yourself to plan as if you will live for
many years

Accountability is strictly enforced

He doesn't have social graces, such as

putting himself in other people's shoes,
but he cares deeply about empowering
humankind, the advancement of
humankind, and putting the right tools in
their hands

He had no trouble leading because he

was not reluctant to offend people or piss
them off.

My job is to say when something sucks

rather than sugarcoat it

Polite and velvety leaders, who take care

to avoid abusing others, are generally not
as effective at forcing change. Dozens of
the colleagues whom Jobs most abused
ended their litany of horror stories by
saying that he got them to do things they
never dreamed possible. And he created
a corporation crammed with A players

"What I loved about working for Steve"

"is that you learned that you could
accomplish the impossible. Again and
again

His personality was reflected in the

products he created

His obsession is a passion for the

product, a passion for product perfection

He is the leader of the most outstanding

company in the history of business

He doesn't hear the word "no" and is deaf

to "we can't" or "you may not"

His relentless insistence on simplicity,

elegance of design, and intuitiveness

You have to be biting with "an idea, or a

problem, or a wrong that you want to
right." If your not passionate enough
from the start, you'll never stick it out
about half of what separates successful
entrepreneurs from the non-successful
ones is pure perseverance

Absolute, Fundamental need to focus in

on a single aspect or detail, clearing
everything from his vision and his mind
until he arrived at the decision he was
looking for. Success is in the details
Every product should create an
experience so satisfying that the user
would feel an emotional attachment to it

The phenomenon of his focus and passion

for every single element of the product
was something I had never seen before,
and I wholeheartedly bought into it

Each time he has been faced with a

challenge, he has managed to come up
with extraordinary people

A power of vision that is almost

frightening. When Steve believes in
something, the power of that vision can
literally sweep aside any objections,
problem or whatever. They just cease to
exist

He was always discovering imperfections

in everything, from the design, to the
user experience and user-interface, to the
marketing and packaging, to how the
product would be marketed and sold

The passion for the details at its finest -

passion combined with courage in his own
vision and his confidence as the ultimate
consumer

When you believe in your product and in

your people as Steve does, your people
will stick with you; the meaning of
charisma

Apple had one of the highest retention

rates in Silicon Valley, and even higher for
the product teams

Has become so effective as a corporate

leader and has created such a stream of
extraordinary products because he is so
focused on paying attention to even the
smallest details and getting every detail
right. To Steve, everything matters
He doesn't hesitate or waste time once
he's made up his mind about somebody

It's the relentless emphasis on being the

best that makes Apple so attractive to top
people

Impressive character trait: how much

thought he puts into letting people know
that they are important and that what
they do is critical

He thinks regularly about how to build

enthusiasm. He's got a natural talent for
it but also makes a point of observing
others who have this ability. Exactly what
do they say? What is their manner? How
do they tell if the other person is listening
to what they're saying?

He never quit. He turned out to be the

model of how to act in a time of crisis:
keep charging ahead until you ring that
new road
What a goal for all of us to aspire to:
creating an aura so strong that people
who never met us still feel our presence
after we've left

Has always been particularly astute in

seeing business opportunities others can't
see

Recognized early on that when you want

something passionately, you can tap into
the power to convince others as well

Has imagination that allows him to

envision those new products or new ways
of living. You have to feel that making
something different, better, and special is
'the' most important thing

In the art of branding, you soon realize

he has a master craftman's ability to
create a consistent, positive product
image in the minds of his customers
He had the vision of being directly
connected to the Apple customers

He is a stellar recruiter. It's just not that

easy to say no to him, because he
understands how to make any invitation
he offers sound nearly irresistible

Reached the billion dollar-a-year sales

figure in their third year of operations,
which was faster than any other retail
operation in history

Suppliers and contractors, even those at

the top of their profession, say they
needed to raise the bar another few
inches when working with Steve

Most presenters change their language

for a pitch or presentation. Jobs speaks
the same way onstage as he does
offstage. He has confidence in his brand
and has fun with the words he chooses.
Some critics might say his language
borders on hyperbole, but Jobs echoes
the sentiments shared by millions of his
customers

one of the most important aspects of

Steve Jobs’s impact on Apple: he has
little or no patience for anything but
excellence from himself or others

he is single-minded, almost manic, in his

pursuit of quality and excellence

I’m convinced that the only thing that

kept me going was that I loved what I
did. You’ve got to find what you love

One analyst, Shaw Wu, had a different

take on all of it. Apple without Jobs would
prosper, he argued, because his spirit had
been “institutionalized.” Wu said Apple
had an uncanny ability to attract
hardworking entrepreneurs who are
looking to change the world
Steve Jobs is the most captivating
communicator on the world stage. No one
else comes close. A Jobs presentation
unleashes a rush of dopamine into the
brains of his audience. Some people go to
great lengths to get this hit, even
spending the night in freezing
temperatures to ensure the best seat at
one of his speeches. When they don’t get
that buzz, they go through withdrawals

At this writing, there are more than

35,000 clips of Steve Jobs on YouTube, a
far larger number than for most other
high-profile CEOs, includ- ing Virgin’s
Richard Branson (1,000), Microsoft’s
Steve Ballmer (940), and the former
head of General Electric, Jack Welch
(175)

No American CEO is more intimately

identified with his company’s success . . .
Jobs is Apple’s visionary and carnival
barker

He is a passionate perfectionist and a

visionary, two qualities that create a
combustible combination when the way
things are do not match the way Jobs
believes they should be

Jobs is a showman and, as with all great

actors, he rehearses until he gets it right.
“Be a yardstick of quality,” Jobs once said.
“Some people aren’t used to an
environment where excellence is
expected.”7 There are no shortcuts to
excellence. Presenting like Jobs will
require planning and practice, but if you
are commit- ted to reaching the top,
there is no better teacher than Apple’s
master showman

Jobs is “the master at taking something

that might be considered boring—a hunk
of electronic hardware—and enveloping it
in a story that made it compellingly
dramatic,” the ability to turn seemingly
boring items into exciting brand stories

Steve had the deepest impulse to refine

everything he touched, as if the act of
refining was in and of the total law of his
being

a CEO who believed that he could change

the world and his company could put a
“dent in the universe

a company whose methods go against

decades of well-established management
maxims. It’s as if Apple weren’t paying
attention to what they’re teaching in
business schools. In fact, it is not

Apple is secretive at a time when the

prevailing trend in business is toward
transparency

The greats of business history, however,

are “productive narcissists,” visionary risk
takers with a burning desire to “change
the world." Charismatic leaders willing to
do whatever it takes to win and who
couldn’t give a fig about being liked

Jobs brought an artist’s eye to the

scientific world of computers.

His paranoia built a company that is as

secretive as the Central Intelligence
Agency. Jobs, perhaps more than any
other businessperson of the last century,
created the future others couldn’t see

he is among the most imaginative,

decisive and persuasive people they’ve
ever met. They admit that he inspires
astounding effort and creativity from his
people. And all suggest—although his
tantrums and nasty critiques have driven
the people around him crazy and driven
many away— they are a crucial part of
his success, especially his pursuit of
perfection and relentless desire to make
beautiful things. Even those who despise
him most ask me, “So, doesn’t Jobs
prove that some assholes are worth the
trouble?”

Gary Martin, an early Apple accountant,

told Moritz. “He had to get the lowest
price they had. He’d call them on the
phone and say, ‘That’s not good enough.
You better sharpen your pencil."

A narcissist to be sure, Jobs also had

obsessive traits, and he made sure the
people below him obsessed about details
as much as he did. Indeed, Jobs’s
requirement that things be done his way
—and his persistence in verifying that his
will be done—created Apple’s obsessive
culture and called to mind a domineering
orchestra conductor.

“You had a visionary leader and people he

trusted implicitly who had a knack for
executing his vision. Jobs stayed involved
from beginning to end to make sure
everything matched his vision. He’d check
off on the smallest things. That’s how you
get discipline.”

How Jobs behaved as CEO will remain

relevant at Apple for years because he so
thoroughly infused the company with his
idiosyncrasies. His unwillingness to follow
other people’s rules gave Apple
employees license to ignore the rules of
the people with whom they do business.
Jobs’s brutality in dealing with
subordinates legitimized a frighteningly
harsh, bullying, and demanding culture at
Apple. Under Jobs, a culture of fear and
intimidation found roots throughout the
organization. If the narcissistic leader
didn’t care about being loved and was
willing to take extraordinary risks in the
interest of winning, then so would his
subordinates. “High-performance teams
should be at each other’s throats” is how
one person with relationships with
multiple Apple executives summarized
the culture. “You don’t get to the right
trade-off without each person advocating
aggressively for his position.”

A former executive described the Apple

culture in similar terms. “It’s a culture of
excellence,” this executive noted. “There’s
a sense that you have to play your very
best game. You don’t want to be the
weak link. There is an intense desire to
not let the company down. Everybody has
worked so hard and is so dedicated."

“It’s a culture of excellence,” this

executive noted. “There’s a sense that
you have to play your very best game.
You don’t want to be the weak link. There
is an intense desire to not let the
company down. Everybody has worked so
hard and is so dedicated.”

The contrast with the non-Apple world is

stark. “When you interact with people at
other companies, there’s just a relative
lack of intensity,” said this engineer. “At
Apple, people are so committed that they
go home at night and don’t leave Apple
behind them. What they do at Apple is
their true religion.”

He used to talk, for instance, about

making Apple an “insanely great” place to
work, but he wasn’t talking about
irresistible perks or liberal benefits.
Instead, he was talking about creating an
environment where you would work
harder and longer than you’d ever worked
in your life, under the most grinding of
deadline pressure, with more
responsibility than you ever thought you
could handle, never taking vacations,
rarely getting even a weekend off... and
you wouldn’t care! You’d love it! You’d get
to the point where you couldn’t live
without the work and the responsibility
and the grinding under pressure. All of
the people in this room had known such
feelings about work—feelings that were
exhilarating and personal and even
intimate—and they’d known them while
working for Steve Jobs. They all shared a
private history of their work together at
Apple. It was their bond, and no one who
was not there could ever fully understand
it

“People are incredibly passionate about

the great stuff they are working on,” said
one former employee. “There is not a
culture of recognizing and celebrating
success. It’s very much about work.” Said
another: “If you’re a die-hard Apple geek,
it’s magical. It’s also a really tough place
to work. You have products that go from
inception to launch, which means really
late hours.” A third similarly dodged the
question: “Because people are so
passionate about Apple, they are aligned
with the mission of the company."

The packaging room is so secure that

those with access to it need to badge in
and out. To fully grasp how seriously
Apple executives sweat the small stuff,
consider this: For months, a packaging
designer was holed up in this room
performing the most mundane of tasks—
opening boxes.

"He was unwilling to let product planning

become burdened with analysis, focus
groups, decision trees, the shifts of the
bell curve, or any of the painful drudgery
he associated with large companies. He
found Apple’s prototype customer in the
mirror and the company came to develop
computers that Jobs, at one time or
another, decided he would like to own.”

Steve Jobs explained Apple’s core

strengths. “Focusing is powerful,” he said.
“A start-up’s focus is very clear. Focus is
not saying yes. It is saying no to really
great ideas.”
“There’s no dilemma.” As for urgency, “If
you want to get something done, the
meeting is this afternoon. Or tomorrow.
You don’t wait to get something on the
calendar"

Apple is the ultimate top-down

organization, the art of corporate
communications began at the top. “Steve
was a storyteller,” reflected one departed
executive. “He could weave a story the
company could get behind. It’s almost
unheard of in a company that size.”
Executives committed the corporate
stories to memory long before they began
telling them to customers. That’s because
they already had debated, vetted,
tweaked, and tested the story line
repeatedly from the time Steve Jobs first
told it to them to the time they talked
about it in public.

Jobs knew better than any business

executive in the world how to land
himself on the front cover to promote a
product. Apple also gets free publicity
when its products appear in popular TV
shows and films. The company says it
never pays for product placement, but in
2010 Apple products appeared 386 times
in original broadcast programs, according
to Nielsen

Apple’s PR strategy with journalists,

hobbyists, and careerists from every
corner of the earth is to be extremely
judicious about doling out information.
It’s a posture almost no other company
can take. The norm in the corporate
world is for public relations professionals
to maintain relationships with reporters.
They schmooze them, flatter them, feed
them tidbits—not to mention food and
drink— keep abreast of their personal
lives, and invite them into the company
for periodic updates from senior
management.
Apple plays this game only at the highest
levels. "They are highly aggressive and
communicative when they want
something from you,” reflected a publicist
for a major technology company that is
an Apple partner. “But the moment you’re
no longer needed, it’s as if you didn’t
exist anymore. They’ll literally stop
returning phone calls. Nobody else can do
that.”

ability to envision world-changing

products before the products had been
built

Apple would again ride roughshod over

Cisco three years later when Apple
decided that it wanted a new name for its
mobile operating system, heretofore the
“iPhone OS.” For nearly twenty years,
Cisco had been referring to the core
operating system for its equipment as
IOS, for “Internet Operating System,”
though the product had been fragmented
by other offerings. The second time
around Apple was more cordial if no less
matter of fact with Cisco before taking
the name for its own. This time the two
companies reached a deal before Apple
went public with the new name. Apple
debuted its renamed iOS when Jobs
unveiled the iPhone 4 in June 2010.
Recalled an executive who was involved
in the Apple-Cisco negotiations: “Jobs
basically did what he wanted.

Apple has a take-no-prisoners mind-set.

It doesn’t tolerate mediocrity on the
inside, and it fights viciously against
perceived wrongs on the outside. In his
calm-toned repartee, Cook showed his
bite to be as sharp as Jobs’s.

Apple’s soft selling sales job seems to be

working. The stores generated an
average of $43 million in revenue apiece
in 2011. This represented revenues of
$5,137 per square foot across its stores.
In comparison, Best Buy’s stores in the
US average $850 per square foot, and
Tiffany squeezes $3,004 per square foot,
according to brokerage firm Sanford
Bernstein

In the case of retail, Apple executives

didn’t just look at existing stores for
inspiration. They asked themselves: What
are the best consumer experiences
people have? Hotels in general—and
specifically concierges—came up in
response again and again, and the
concierge became the inspiration for the
Genius Bar. They also talked about what
turns people off in stores—clutter, bad
design, unfriendly or pushy salespeople.
The look of the stores shows Apple’s
obsession with detail. While each store is
distinctive, Apple’s architects work with a
limited vocabulary of design elements;
only three materials, for instance—wood,
glass, and steel—are used for store
interiors
Jobs had done more to ensure that his
DNA remain a part of the company than
he ever let on publicly. For years, he and
other board members had insisted that
Apple had a succession plan in place
without disclosing what it was. The plan
included the obvious manpower issues—
who would succeed Jobs as CEO—and
also some other measures to make sure
that Apple’s core values would be passed
down to successive generations of
leaders.

Jobs thought about far more than who

would be the next CEO, however. In the
same way that he obsessed on Apple
products, he spent years preparing for
ways to make sure his vision continues.
Starting in 2008, as his health waned and
he prepared for a liver transplant, Jobs
created a management-training program,
but one that was as different from
programs that Hewlett-Packard and
General Electric had offered as the iPad
was from other tablets. Jobs already had
some experience with in-house
management training. Pixar University
offers courses in drawing, painting,
sculpting, and filmmaking, as well as
leadership. Jobs was thinking beyond
vocational skills. He wanted to record,
codify, and teach Apple’s business history
so that its future leaders would have a
reference to ensure they thought
different. With little fanfare, he created
Apple University

“We don’t hire a lot of MBAs, but we

believe in teaching and learning,” he once
said. “We do want to create our own
MBA, but in our image. We’ve got more
interesting cases than anyone.”

Drawing comparisons among the

visionaries he researched, Tedlow
observes that the men who created these
great enterprises suffered from “the
derangement of power.” He notes, “It is
very common among the very powerful
and very destructive. Norwegians have, in
fact, a word for this syndrome. It is
stormannsgalskap, which can be
translated as ‘great men’s madness.’ ” If
any company could fairly be described as
being influenced by a leader with
stormannsgalskap, it was Apple

Apple tends to be a one-big-thing-at-a-

time company, reflecting the legendary
CEO’s willingness to concentrate only on
one big thing at a time. Jobs’s refusal to
spread himself too thin at Apple—a
problem alleviated only somewhat when
he sold Pixar to Disney in 2006 and
stopped spending a day a week at the
animated film company across the San
Francisco Bay— was consistent with how
he wanted Apple to run. Generally
speaking, Apple doesn’t multitask. The
lower down employees are in the ranks,
the more they focus on one project. The
virtues of this approach are evident in
Apple’s exceptional and limited product
lineup

Jobs for years was insistent that Apple

maintain a strong balance sheet, so
fearful was he of reliving the late-1990s
experience of nearly going broke. He
loathed stock buybacks, arguing, with
good reason, that they are bribes to
investors rather than good uses of
capital. Keeping more than $75 billion
lying around is nobody’s idea of good
financial management, however. And Wall
Street types have all sorts [ave Ke of
suggestions for how Apple could do better
here, such as paying dividends or
investing the cash more aggressively.
Such topics were considered off the table
with Jobs. He treated cash as if he had
lived through the Great Depression. What
investors would view as modern balance-
sheet management would have to wait
for a CEO with an MBA
The question Apple faces is whether or
not Steve Jobs’s view of the world has
been imprinted enough on the top
leadership of Apple that they can carry on
without him, but on their own authority,
not his. “The first and second rungs of
Apple management were exposed to him
for a long time,” said one former Apple
executive, who continues to monitor the
company closely. “Through a process of
forceful osmosis they have gotten good at
channeling him.”
This hopeful notion holds that the top
executives at Apple, and the single layer
of managers beneath them, have become
so good at their discrete jobs that they’ll
know exactly what to do in the future.
Before Jobs died, Apple engineers would
end debates by invoking a threat along
the lines of: Do you want to be the one to
tell Steve that can’t be done? Keeping
such auto-editing going will be possible
for some length of tim
One of the things that happens in
organizations as well as with people is
that they settle into ways of looking at
the world and become satisfied with
things. And the world changes and keeps
evolving and new potential arises, but
these people who are settled in don’t see
it. That’s what gives st [whas. art-up
companies their greatest advantage. The
sedentary point of view is that of most
large companies. In addition to that,
large companies do not usually have
efficient communication paths from the
people closest to some of these changes
at the bottom of the company to the top
of the company which are the people
making the big decisions... Even in the
case where part of the company does the
right thing at the lower levels, usually the
upper levels screw it up somehow. I
mean IBM and the personal computer
business is a good example of that. I
think as long as humans don’t solve this
human nature trait of sort of settling into
a worldview after a while, there will
always be opportunity for young
companies; young people to innovate, as
it should be

Over the next fifteen years or so, the

business world will get to watch the
drama of whether Apple truly has found a
way to cheat the hangman’s noose or if
the period between 1997 and 2012 or so
was a golden aberration driven by one
extraordinary individual the likes of which
we’ll never see again. If the former is
true, then Apple will defy almost all of
business history

Few of the millions who grieved for him

knew him personally. He was not a movie
star or statesman or athlete. Yet one
million people signed an online tribute
page to him on Apple’s website. Mothers
brought their children by his house to pay
their respects—so that their children
could one day tell their grandchildren of
this brush with greatness. Love for Jobs
was strong, and love for his company was
stronger, even among those who don’t
like companies. As Jobs neared the end of
his life, a grassroots protest movement
with anarchist undertones mushroomed
into mass demonstrations against Wall
Street specifically and capitalism
generally. Right-wing critics delighted in
pointing out that the protesters used their
iPhones to take pictures and their
MacBooks to create propaganda.
Capitalism of the Apple variety was okay,
Goldman Sachs not so much.

An unsung attribute of Steve Jobs that

Apple also will miss is his role as a
masterful networker and gatherer of
information. Had times gotten really
rough, Jobs would have made a fine
journalist. He furiously worked the
phones, calling up people he’d heard
were worthy and requesting a meeting.
No one turned down the chance to meet
with Jobs, of course, and he used the
opportunity to soak up information. His
uncanny insight into trends in business
and technology weren’t a fluke. Jobs
worked hard for his market intelligence.

DESPISED SPECIFIC-RELEVANT-
CONTEXTUAL

I felt patience was the key. Disney hasn’t

said no. But Steve was not accustomed to
being brushed off, and he didn’t like it.
The more time went by, the more his
frustration grew.
Brazenly asserted his opinions as fact

Unwilling to learn from others

Would grow up to express very

sophisticated levels of emotional and
psychological bullying

Perhaps of most concern, from a

management standpoint, was the fact
that he exhibited so little empathy. At
that point in his life, he was simply
unable to put himself in other people’s
shoes, and his sense of humor was
nonexistent.

Snubbed old friends

Hired outside CEOs unsuccessfully

Takes credit for optimistic schedules

Blames employees for missing deadlines

Good negotiator getting better prices

Misses appointments

Does not give credit

When he worked at Atari as a teenager,

he was moved to the night shift because
his coworkers found him so dark and
negative

He lied in order to study people's

responses in order to gather intelligence.
He lied to make himself look more
interesting because he thought he was
too oafish and regular and didn't think he
was enough as he was

He wanted to control what people thought

of him

He refined hatred into the coldest and

most controlled inhuman indifference. He
believed hatred was a legitimate force in
the world and because it gave him such
unassailable power, he used it and didn't
doubt it

Has favorites

Doesn't keep promises

Takes credit for others creations

Very temperamental

No patience in meetings

Unable to manage ups and downs of a

real relationship

Egocentric thinking his ideas were always

best

Unrealistically idealistic

He was a loner and didn't talk much

Failed to account for the trade-offs that
accompanied his fanciful choices

Had chosen a vision over the customers'

real need

Added an unnecessary level of

complexity; meaning more money spent
on accommodations that contributed
nothing meaningful to final product

He believed his own press, that he was a

genius according to the media and his
investors

Lost investors multi-millions of dollars

Jealous of Apple when he was at next

Erratic and verbally abusive at next

Unpredictable anger and screaming

Founded a company Next out of anger
with no real mission of serving clients
needs

Undermined the groundwork of his

employees when making a deal with IBM
at Next

Difficult micromanager

Often gave bad advice because he did not

understand the nature of the business; ie
Pixar

Overreached time and again

Did not handle negative press or stories

well

Disowned and did not face up to claim his

first daughter Lisa Brennan

He has that ability to ignore stuff he

doesn't want to confront. It's just the way
he's wired. When not seeking medical
attention for a rare, curable disease

he's not reluctant to offend people or piss

them off

Undermined CEO of Apple after he sold

Next to them

Lost credibility from empty promises and

airy visions

Erratic and undisciplined when leading

large groups of people

He didn't give his team much formal

feedback. He didn't believe in reviews. "I
give you feedback all the time, so what
do you need a review for? What do you
need that for? That's a waste of time!"

"That's shit!" Was common response as a

pointed question or a thoughtful
discussion
Did not have much of a social life

Believed so strongly in the value of

control, he did not let doctors perform
surgery on him immediately

Early in his career would berate others in

front of others

He wanted to control what people thought

of him

Could be pretty thin-skinned when

someone prominent criticized the
aesthetics of his products ; fuck Neil
young and fuck his records. You keep
them.

He could hold on to grudges for decades

Anger against Google had cost the

company at least $60 million in lawyers'
fees
Was surprisingly sensitive to criticism

Steve like to control you. He liked to have

you under his influence

He moved as quickly as possible when it

came time for a change in personnel

He dismissed people entirely after they

left the company even after knowing
them for 16 years

Could also be cold and insensitive to

coworkers when their personal issues
what he saw as the company's mission,
or distracted them from giving Apple their
full attention

Anticompetitive scheme brought him a

lawsuit from the justice department
alleging it cost workers billions of dollars
in unrealized wage gains they might have
enjoyed with unrestricted job mobility
Not an organization with checks and
controls

He had always been impatient

Chinese workers committed suicide

because of harsh working conditions

He was quick to judge people. That was a

fault and a shortcoming

Attacked a Time correspondent for having

wounded him with a story that was too
revealing

Patience was never one of his virtues

He responds with ultimatums; forcing his

parents to pay for a college they could
not afford

Unethical in that he hid bonus money

from Wozniak on a job they did together
for Atari

He had never been, and would never be,

adept at containing his emotions

Became increasingly tyrannical and sharp

in his criticism

When he did not want to deal with a

distraction, he sometimes just ignored it,
as if he could will it out of existence

He has to abandon people he is close to

Always impatient to get things done and

often felt he could do them better himself

He always did love to tell people how to

conduct their personal lives

His passion for perfection was out of

control and cost the company time is
getting products manufactured and
delivered and money with starting
projects all over again

His need to control events is a trait that

hurt him so much

Neglect is a form of abuse

Believed it was his job to teach people

aesthetics, to teach people what they
should like rather than allow what's
innate and true to emerge

Was indecisive and reticent when he felt

unsure about something. But if he
doubts, he sometimes withdrew,
preferring not to think about things that
did not perfectly suit him

He usually didn't care one iota what

people thought of him; he could cut
people off and never care to speak to
them again

Jony Ive upset with him for taking too

much credit and talking about how it was
his idea

His successes came at a cost, since

velvety diplomacy was still not in his
repertoire; when a supplier wasn't
delivering parts quickly enough he would
break contracts and tell them you'll never
get another fucking dime and this led to
lawsuits

He's very opinionated. When you talk to

him he's always got an opinion

Being strong-willed and without

inclination to find compromises. Loved to
negotiate and hated to compromise

Did not seem to believe he could learn

anything from someone, nor to even fake
by pretending to have anything to learn

There is an arrogance that ties into his

personality. He can react viscerally and
lay out his convictions in a forceful
manner among his selfish traits was that
he tended not to remember anniversaries
or birthdays

Liked to surprise people by not sharing

information until the last minute, maybe
as a way of keeping you a little bit off
balance and a little more under his
control

When he was in his 20's and going

through a paternity suit, he celebrated
bashfully because he'd gotten off by
paying you so little

Steve's ruthlessness was so stunning that

people often endured repositions of his
cruelty in order to understand what was
happening so that they could figure out
how to get out of the way

He micromanaged to a shockingly high

degree and to an amazingly low level in
the organization. One ex-employee
recalled being responsible for an email
that would be sent to Apple customers
simultaneously with the launch of a new
version of a product. Ahead of the launch,
Jobs engaged this employee in a repeated
back-and-forth by email over the
punctuation in the message. “A first
iteration of anything was never good
enough for him,” said the former
employee

The stress from such secret keeping

becomes too much for some. Jobs made
a habit of personally conveying to
employees the confidentiality of all-
company broadcasts. Recalled one ex-
employee: “He’d say, ‘Anything disclosed
from this meeting will result not just in
termination but in the prosecution to the
fullest extent that our lawyers can.’ This
made me very uncomfortable. You have
to watch everything you do. I’d have
nightmares.”
The stress from such secret keeping
becomes too much for some. Jobs made
a habit of personally conveying to
employees the confidentiality of all-
company broadcasts. Recalled one ex-
employee: “He’d say, ‘Anything disclosed
from this meeting will result not just in
termination but in the prosecution to the
fullest extent that our lawyers can.’ This
made me very uncomfortable. You have
to watch everything you do. I’d have
nightmares.”

Another former insider described the all-

too-common stories executives told of
having personal time off ruined because
of an urgent “Steve request.” “They went
like this: ‘On vacation my product was
going to be in a keynote, and I had to
jump on a plane and rehearse all
weekend.’ ”

One asked why Jobs himself wasn’t more

philanthropic. He responded that he
thought giving away money was a waste
of time. The San Francisco Giants won
the World Series during a dinner session
of that last Top 100—a distraction to the
many Giants fans in the room, and an
irritant to Jobs, who was completely
uninterested in sports.

Jobs treated investors with something

between ambivalence and contempt. “He
was the only CEO I knew who didn’t meet
with investors,” said Toni Sacconaghi of
Sanford Bernstein. “You could be a
shareholder with $2 billion worth of stock
for five years and never have met Steve
Jobs.” Sacconaghi viewed the Apple
management team as nearly useless in
trying to probe for information

Jobs erupted. He called a meeting of the

MobileMe team and berated them for
having disappointed him, themselves,
and one another. Worst of all, they had
embarrassed Apple publicly. “You’ve
tarnished Apple’s reputation,” he told
them. “You should hate each other for
having let each other down. Walt
Mossberg, our friend, is no longer writing
good things about us.”

As for its dealings with suppliers, what

other companies might think of as valued
business partners, Apple calls to mind
how the United States “consulted” with
NATO during the Cold War. Yes, there was
an alliance. But there was only one
superpower. Apple thinks nothing of
sending a twenty-something-year-old
engineer to Asia to explain to experienced
manufacturers precisely how Apple wants
something made. This simply is how
Apple treats partners, loosely defined, of
all stripes. “There is no such thing as a
partnership with Apple,” said a former
Apple executive. “It’s all about Apple.”

Its “Get a Mac” ad campaign, which ran

from 2006 to 2009, stands out for its
nastiness and brutality, a full-frontal
assault on a competitor in an industry
that typically stresses strengths over
comparisons. If McDonald’s had attacked
Burger King or Ford attacked Chrysler in
such a way, audiences might have
recoiled in horror, yet Apple was able to
get away with this public ridicule. This
campaign, widely known as “Mac vs. PC,”
set a new tone for Apple: mean-spirited,
couched in warm and fuzzy

Apple thinks nothing of viciously

attacking its most trusted partners—and
then smilingly working with those same
partners on other projects. Apple
operates by the same rules as the
traitorous capo regime Salvatore Tessio,
in The Godfather: “Tell Mike it wasn’t
personal, just business.”

Jobs was notoriously stingy when it came

to giving away money. He argued
privately that the most philanthropic
action Apple could take was to increase
the value of the company so shareholders
could give away their wealth to the
causes of their choice, not Apple’s. Given
his politically liberal leanings, Jobs
reasoned that investors would prefer
things that way.

User democracy is the antithesis of how

Apple operates. Jobs famously told
customers what they wanted. He didn’t
ask their opinion. “The Apple way is that
Steve picked the color he liked and that’s
the color,” the former Apple engineer
concluded. “He was willing to listen to
counterarguments. But if you [were]
arguing taste or opinion, it was a losing
battle.” This view of Apple as a kind of
consumer-electronics fashion house
leaves little hope for a new creative and
entrepreneurial genius to rise from the
ranks. After all, with Jobs calling the
shots on matters of style across the
company, his subordinates won’t have
been able to try their hands at the game

Then there is Jobs’ unchanging attire– a

visible manifestation of control colliding
with obsession. In his entire Apple career,
Jobs has almost never been pictured
wearing anything other than a black
turtleneck sweater, faux-aged jeans and
trainers. This reliance on uniformity, on
consistency and predictability of
appearance, is redolent of Brett Easton
Ellis’ novel American Psycho, whose
mass- murdering banker anti-hero,
Patrick Bateman, chooses his designer
outfits with a similar pathological
precision. It also suggests that Jobs sees
himself as the uniformed leader – OK,
let’s make that ‘dictator’ – of 80,000 foot
soldiers.