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Inside Steve's Brain
cgjherr writes "There are management insights to be learned from Steve Jobs? You're nuts. The only things you can learn from Jobs is how to drive people nuts. Or at least, that's what I thought up until I read 'Inside Steve's Brain.' Turns out, there are things to learn from Steve's obsessive perfectionism. Certainly I wouldn't copy every aspect of Jobs' management style. Doing that will likely get you fired, or at least reprimanded, in most companies. But there is some stuff to be learned from how Jobs designs products and analyses the market, and that's the view that Leander Kahney gives us access to." Keep reading for the rest of Jack's review.
Inside Steve's Brain
author
Leander Kahney
pages
304
publisher
Portfolio
rating
10
reviewer
Jack Herrington
ISBN
1591841984
summary
A look inside Steve Jobs' management style at Apple and Pixar
Chapter one covers in some detail Jobs and his relationship with Apple, both before he left and after he came back. He talks about exactly what steps Steve took to revive the company and restore the morale of the employees. As with all of the chapters it ends with a summary of what Leander thinks are the takeaways from each of the anecdotes.
Chapters two and three; Despotism and Perfectionism, talk about the two traits that most often associated with Steve. In Despotism Leander offers some stories about just how in control Steve is of every aspect of development at Apple. And Perfectionism, well, that's self explanatory. Though you'll probably find some things you don't know about exactly where Jobs gets his design and style influences.
Chapter four and five, Elitism and Passion, dig into how Jobs cultivates that magical Apple touch. He works his people inside the company and inculcates a sense of pride and perfectionism in the Apple brand. And he works the customer base through innovative advertising that promotes the ideals and the brand, even when the product was inferior when he first took over. In the short Passion chapter Leander talks about how he builds a wider sense of world changing responsibility in the company and through his products.
The sixth chapter, Inventive Spirit, cite several examples of how Jobs used his relentless management style to refine products, and most interestingly the Apple Store. He went so far as to develop a prototype store in warehouse at the edge of the Apple campus, and how he was willing to completely scrap the design of the store when it wasn't exactly right, costing him months of time.
The seventh chapter provides a complete case study on the development of the iPod and Jobs' role in that effort. It's intriguing to see how, while there had been MP3 players in the market already, Steve and his team were able to stand back and look at the larger picture of the iPod in it's complete product ecology.
The final chapter, the Whole Widget, covers what I think is the most important lesson to be learned from Apple; that they take care of the entire product cycle. Where other vendors take care of just one piece, the hardware, the software, the network, Apple takes care of everything. If there is a problem with an Apple product you take it to the Apple store and they fix it.
Leander Kahney is the same guy who wrote "The Cult of Mac" and "The Cult of iPod". He knows his way around Apple. He has a clear grasp of the history of Apple in the large and the evolution of their key products. His insights prove that he also has good working relationship with some of the people on the ground in Apple.
There are certainly some interesting anecdotes about Steve in this book. But it would be a mistake to look at the book as just some psychoanalysis of one man. Steve doesn't make all of the products himself. The developer and designers at Apple do. It's the culture of the company that Jobs' controls, but the people who work there are motivated by it and produce within it. What you really learn here is just how passionate these folks are about finely tuning everything about their products, their services, the whole deal. It's inspiring.
You can purchase Inside Steve's Brain from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Chapters two and three; Despotism and Perfectionism, talk about the two traits that most often associated with Steve. In Despotism Leander offers some stories about just how in control Steve is of every aspect of development at Apple. And Perfectionism, well, that's self explanatory. Though you'll probably find some things you don't know about exactly where Jobs gets his design and style influences.
Chapter four and five, Elitism and Passion, dig into how Jobs cultivates that magical Apple touch. He works his people inside the company and inculcates a sense of pride and perfectionism in the Apple brand. And he works the customer base through innovative advertising that promotes the ideals and the brand, even when the product was inferior when he first took over. In the short Passion chapter Leander talks about how he builds a wider sense of world changing responsibility in the company and through his products.
The sixth chapter, Inventive Spirit, cite several examples of how Jobs used his relentless management style to refine products, and most interestingly the Apple Store. He went so far as to develop a prototype store in warehouse at the edge of the Apple campus, and how he was willing to completely scrap the design of the store when it wasn't exactly right, costing him months of time.
The seventh chapter provides a complete case study on the development of the iPod and Jobs' role in that effort. It's intriguing to see how, while there had been MP3 players in the market already, Steve and his team were able to stand back and look at the larger picture of the iPod in it's complete product ecology.
The final chapter, the Whole Widget, covers what I think is the most important lesson to be learned from Apple; that they take care of the entire product cycle. Where other vendors take care of just one piece, the hardware, the software, the network, Apple takes care of everything. If there is a problem with an Apple product you take it to the Apple store and they fix it.
Leander Kahney is the same guy who wrote "The Cult of Mac" and "The Cult of iPod". He knows his way around Apple. He has a clear grasp of the history of Apple in the large and the evolution of their key products. His insights prove that he also has good working relationship with some of the people on the ground in Apple.
There are certainly some interesting anecdotes about Steve in this book. But it would be a mistake to look at the book as just some psychoanalysis of one man. Steve doesn't make all of the products himself. The developer and designers at Apple do. It's the culture of the company that Jobs' controls, but the people who work there are motivated by it and produce within it. What you really learn here is just how passionate these folks are about finely tuning everything about their products, their services, the whole deal. It's inspiring.
You can purchase Inside Steve's Brain from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
More Steve Jobs/Apple Cult Genuflecting and self-flagellation! Oh, wait...this tries to get in Steve's head? Blasphemy! No one thinks like Great Steve-O!
Let's pray!
Great Steve, founder of the hallowed Apple.
Forgive us for our sins!
Now and at the hour of our MacBook's death. Amen.
All Hail the Dark Turtlenecked One!
My blog
I am crouched in the bathtub in a frog-like stance, small puddles of urine and liquid shit at my feet. I'm leaning forward, gripping the side of the tub and biting my knee, overwhelmed by a mixture of pain and pleasure as I piston a dildo in and out of my ass.
You see, I really love anal masturbation.
Ever try it? No? You should.
Doesn't matter who you are. God gave all of us, male and female, an abundance of nerve endings in our rectum - and one life to live. So why don't you go ahead and test out the equipment? Have some fun. No point in having a gun sitting on your shelf your entire life and never killing anyone, right?
But I realize there's a fairly persistent misconception among guys that I'm gonna have to dispel before we go any further:
Stimulating your own ass is not "gay."
That notion doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I mean, how could anything you do to your own body be gay? Nobody ever freaks out in the middle of jerking off like "Holy fuck, I've got a fistful of cock! I've gotta cut this gay shit out!" Well, what's the philosophical difference between playing with your dick and playing with your ass?
There is none.
Look fellas, here's the scoop:
If you have a girl wearing a foot long strap-on, smacking your face and screaming "WHO'S MY BITCH?!?" while she pounds your asshole until it bleeds, that would be a *heterosexual* act. Girl on guy. Simple.
Now if it's a guy that's fucking you, that would be homosexual. And if you're doing it to yourself, well, that's plain old masturbation.
But listen - if you're still sitting there being stubborn, all macho and uptight going "My ass. . . is EXIT ONLY!!!" then lemme just ask you a question.
You know that feeling you get when you take a really big shit?
You know what I'm talking about. You're sitting on the couch, eating Cheez-Its and watching Larry King, when all of the sudden you feel that familiar burning. . . so you get up and bound off to the bathroom all bow legged, clenching your sphincter real tight, and then you furiously rip off your boxer briefs and plop down on the seat just in time to let a huuuuuuge thick turd come sliding out of your ass?
Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!
That feeling.
That tingling, chills up your spine, this-is-absolutely-the-pinnacle-of-human-existence feeling.
Well guess what. That's the feeling of a massive rod moving through your rectum, tickling those wonderfully abundant nerve endings. You love it. It's okay. We all do. It doesn't make you a fag. Or at the very least, we're ALL fags. So indulge yourself.
(Yes, I understand that said feeling is partially due to the sensory experience of toxins leaving the body, which is unique to defecation - but the operative word here is "partially." You like the log movement, too. Don't try to argue.)
So anyway, now that you've decided to be bold, and not a homophobic pussy, and poke around the cornhole a little bit - good for you. But there's something you should remember. Anal masturbation is just like playing the accordion, or shooting a jumper, or really anything else that's worth doing. That is, it requires practice.
You see, back when I was a kid I would get curious and stick a finger or a toothbrush up there, but I wasn't fucking around with anywhere near the kind of pleasure I'm achieving now. It was uncomfortable even. So I worked on it.
And conversely, I know I'm still far from expertise in this particular discipline. I don't claim to be an ass master. There's a whole world of lengths, girths, textures, and vibrations that my eager browneye has yet to inhale.
But since I have honed my skills to a pretty decent level, I'll share with you my current technique. Without further ado:
SpunkyBrewster's Anal Masturbation Technique
What You Need:
1. Lubricant of your choice
2. Fake cock (eight inches, approx.)
3. Ridged anal wand (seven inches, approx.)
Procedure:
1. Apply a generous amount of lube to your index finger, and swirl the lubricate
If there is a problem with your apple product... you paid too much for it.
Products that cost 50% more than comparable tech elsewhere because they have a tiny fruit symbol on them had BETTER work perfect... all the time.
Otherwise, you just got suckered out of that 50% markup.
Last I checked Apple is an American company and as far as I know, /. is an American website. You go away.
Say what you want about Steve Jobs. To me the big difference is Steve Jobs has _taste_.
A preference for curves in your industrial design does not in any way, shape, or form mean that you have "taste."
And OS X is a shining example of having no taste whatsoever. Hideous, hideous thing.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Woznaik is loser. On one hand you have Jobs who is raking millions, and on the other hand you have Woznaik who is standing in a line to get iPhone.
Jobs was more of salesman but Woznaik was the real brains behind Apple2. But in the end, the Salesman wins and the brilliant engineer is seen standing in a line outside Apple store waiting to buy an iPhone. Sad :)