Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

An Insider's Take on Steve Jobs

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the quite-a-bit-of-new-money-to-go-with-it dept.

Jerry Rivers writes "Business Week has an interesting, if short, interview with Edgar Woolard Jr., the man who brought Jobs back to Apple in the dark days of 1996. "Old money" Woolard offers some interesting insights into the man behind the iMac and the iPod, including his take on Jobs' 'five special characteristics' that make him the success that he is."

8 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. The fifth quality is true by KrisCowboy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah. This damn guy knows exactly how to make money. When every company was making computers, he decided to produce art and he still made money. How many CEOs would work for nothing just to prove that they aren't there for the money? Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer wouldn't - that's for sure.

    1. Re:The fifth quality is true by That's+Unpossible! · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm no Apple-ologist, but to say Steve Jobs is an overpaid CEO is to be a fucking moron.

      If any CEO has ever deserved the millions they earn, I damn well believe it's him.

      --
      Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
    2. Re:The fifth quality is true by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Jobs has carefully constructed Apple so that the Macintosh can survive profitably with a 2% marketshare. There's no way he would have the patience to manage a product that serves 90% of the IT market like "M$" Windows or Office does.

      That's why consumer devices are the growth market for Apple -- They can focus on Style and Ergonomics exclusively with none of those pesky backward-compatibility and legacy and integration issues to worry about.

      --
      Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
    3. Re:The fifth quality is true by Inoshiro · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ""So I can get the company's [Apple] health plan." I think that speaks volumes to his personality."

      Yea, he's a realist. Have you ever looked into US health care?

      --
      --
      Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
  2. Jobs is like Caesar by catmistake · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Jobs, who had been a consultant since late 1996 after Apple bought his NeXT Software, refused to take the CEO job at first

    I'd heard this before, too. I thought this must be corp. myth, similar to the way Caesar refused to be emperor... each time he refused, he was less resistive to the idea.

    --
    The Admin and the Engineer
  3. Re:Great interview. by macserv · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Definitely true, John... most people are underinformed. I think the Amelio chapter of Apple's history is one that most Mac fanatics are wrong about. The man got the right people into the company, stopped the downward slide, set the designers free (there were curvy, bondi designs long before iMac), and welcomed Steve back in to the company.

    Gil could have done a lot better, but even if he had, the people would have still wanted Steve back, and quite rightly. The company needs Steve, and his influence is obvious. His ability to be prepared when opportunity strikes (some would call that luck - I don't believe in luck) is legend. Apple has an easier time dealing with huge corporations that most any other company, since Steve is at the helm.

    I think that the only downside of his CEO position is that he doesn't get to spend enough time walking around, communicating with his engineers and designers, and corraling their managers.

  4. Re:The more I read about him by aussersterne · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They're opposites, you're right. Steve Jobs is by nature the person Bill Gates has been trying his entire career to be. Throughout modern computing history, Steve Jobs has consistently been involved with projects that were both visionary and innovative (Apple, Macintosh, NeXT, Pixar, etc.), often so innovative that they were unviable in the marketplace simply because no one quite knew what to do with them yet despite waves of "oohs" and "aahs."

    Bill Gates, on the other hand, has never innovative, nor has his company innovative. While Steve Jobs' projects have always been light on their feet, leading edge, ahead of their time, and customer-oriented, Gates' projects have always been heavy-handed, borderline plagiarism, behind schedule, and very, very corporate-bureaucratic in nature.

    You're quite right in your assessment that what Jobs has managed to do by merit (win a place for himself and his creations in history), Gates has done via ruthlessness, leverage, and mere financial brute force.

    --
    STOP . AMERICA . NOW
  5. Re:The more I read about him by Khelder · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I'm reminded of something Jobs said in Triumph of the Nerds:
    The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. I don't mean that in a small way. I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas and they don't bring much culture into their products. I have no problem with their success -- they've earned their success for the most part. I have a problem with the fact that they just make really third-rate products.

    [Quoted from FoRK Archive.]