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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."
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!
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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."
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.
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
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'