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An Insider's Take on Steve Jobs
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."
People have been talking for years about how Steve "schemed" to replace Amelio. Woolard makes it very clear what really happened.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
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.
So, Bill Gates dies, and goes to Heaven, and he meets up with Saint Peter, and says "Hey, it's Bill, I'm just going to go on in." And Saint Peter says, "Sorry Bill, everyone is equal here. You need to stand in line like everyone else."
Begrudgingly, Bill Gates walks to the end of the enormous line, but as he's waiting to get into Heaven, a limo drives up, and there in the limo is Steve Jobs! Now, Bill Gates is furious, so he walks up to Saint Peter and complains, "Hey! I thought you said everyone was equal here! But, I just saw Steve Jobs, yeah, Steve Jobs roll with a limo!"
Saint Peter laughs, and responds, "Oh no, that wasn't Steve Jobs. That was God, he only thinks he's Steve Jobs."
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
"If Steve has a good relationship with you, there's nobody better in the world to work with. He trusts you, and he listens, and he bounces his ideas off you. But if he doesn't trust you, it doesn't work."
I thought he was talking about Balmer but it says ideas, not chairs.
From the article...
1. Incredibly creative and has great vision.
2. Absolute perfectionist.
3. Great ability to attract outstanding people to work with him.
4. If he respects you, he will interact with you and modify his ideas
5. The damn guy knows how to make money!
PowerLevel.com - A next generation marketplace for virtual items and services
Anyone who leaks information gets killed.
No, just fired. And deservedly so.
Not long after I got to Apple, a director there explained to me what the secrecy is worth in dollar terms. Apple got the cover of Time magazine for the G4 iMac, because it was a surprise. You can't buy the cover of Time as an ad placement, but if you could, it would probably be worth at least a hundred million bucks.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The more I read about him, the more I think perhaps the negative comments are sour grapes.
I used to think that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates where similar people. I've come to the conclusion that Steve Jobs is who Bill Gates wishes he was. Bill Gates has repeatedly said he wanted a computer in every home, etc.
But he failed to have a computer designed that DESERVED to be in every home. (and, in many ways, an OS that deserves to be on any computer...) He build an empire that could almost force it to be true, but that is hardly the same thing.
A lot of people seem to be unimpressed with the current crop of new Intel based Macs. I think Apples implementation of it is almost perfect.
Apple could have chosen to be bold, all the new machines based on the Intel processors could have been completely new designs ascetically. Instead they chose the keep the outwards appearance the same and replace everything inside, and make it function exactly the same as before. (Ok, with a decent improvement in speed.)
Had Apple chosen to be bold, and had the OS failed to deliver the promise of running almost all applications then the whole thing would have been looked upon as a fiasco. Instead they focused on getting the internals right.
I remember having conversations with people years ago about the idea of emulating a PowerPC based Mac on an Intel x86 platform; nobody thought it would been feasible. Even if you got it to work, it would never be fast enough to be useful. But Apple has done it, Rosetta is a stunning achievement and it's integration with the OS is almost seamless.
(yes I tried the PowerPC emulator (PearPC) and was amazed that it worked as well as it did. But that doesn't make it viable for joe-user.
I've been on the Apple campus once. I was sent to do a demo for, IIRC, the Final Cut group in 'the Piano Bar' or room, IIRC. We had a Genelec surround system sent directly to our contact at Apple and I loaded this on a huge cart along with other hardware and my Warr Guitar strapped to my back. We 'booked' the room so we were sure it would be abandoned, including the allocated setup time. So, I come crashing into the room with the cart *KERBLAM* and I see a group of five people talking at a table in the back. Our apple contact says, "We should, uh, get out of here." I shrug and follow him out. He and the other guy leave to go do something and I'm sitting outside the piano room by myself. Moments later four, ashen Apple employees scurry out of the room followed by a scruffy unshaven fellow with torn jeans. He surveys the outside area, and, like a missile locking on to a strong heat signature, zeros in on me and walks towards me, the person who burst in like a herd of buffalo on his private meeting. He holds out his hand and says, "Hi. I'm Steve." I owned a 128K Mac in 1984. Before that, the obligatory Apple //s and what not. What I do today was shaped largely by Apple, and what this person did. Heck, I started writing music by dragging notes onto a screen with a program called MusicWorks - it isn't hyperbole to say my very interest in music started with the Macintosh, and I'm staring Steve Jobs in the face.
Being a fairly eloquent person, I summon up the response: "Hey."
Smooth.
I don't remember if I shook his hand or not. In fact, I really don't remember anything beyond saying 'hey'