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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.
Turns out, there are things to learn from Steve's obsessive perfectionism.
Example: "For every button I find, I shall kill you."
Steve doesn't make all of the products himself.
Does the book tell us which one he does make all by himself?
I thought this was going to be about Ballmer, and we could get some insights on how to fucking kill our competitors, and maybe some tips on the best way to throw chairs.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
let's hope you mean possessive form and not plural...or you won't have many penny's
Doing that will likely get you fired, or at least reprimanded, in most companies.
And remember, it's even gotten Steve Jobs fired before...
This guy's the limit!
From the archives of Slashdot, ca. 1984, story: Apple Releases Macintosh:
My blog
My organizational behavior professor wrote me off as crazy.
I'd call you crazy, too, if you turned in an MBA thesis full of spelling and punctuation errors.
I disagree whole heartedly, i used jobs as a role model when working on my MBA. My organizational behavior professor wrote me off as crazy.
Almost 12 years later, working in an architecture firm with deals with city and state bureaucracy and also some very cunning developers in a cyclical market your either good or your dead.
Yes being an ass hole is ill-advised, being an ass hole with an uncanny ability to motivate employees to be productive and efficient and being able to make projects perform fiscally is undeniable.
Rome wasn't built buy polite MBA's who took there teams on ropes courses on a weekly basis it was built by unyielding eccentric assholes who made you think if you screwed up they would have your head.
Ok, I don't like "grammer nazis" and picking on someone's writing style is petty but Jesus H. Cockstain, you say you have a graduate-level degree?
Here's a pile of commas. ,,,,,,,
Just fling them at your post, some of them might even land where they're needed.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
people are not hung
Speak for yourself.
Let's make a list of the things you didn't read in coming to that conclusion.
1) TFA
2) The first sentence of TFS
3) The table giving more information about the book
4) Any comments on said TFA
Quite impressive.
your either good or your dead.
Ow...
buy polite
Ow...
took there teams
Ow... Someone make it stop...
I thought you got the asshole thrown in for free when you "graduated"?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Actually, Apple have also gone through phases (some more than once) of pastel colours, black, see-through and brushed aluminium.. surely that counts as more than one trick.. or did you miss the iMac and coloured iPods because you were too busy being upset at Apple having success based on styling? Hint: even if the hardware looks good, if the innards and UI suck, it's not going to do that well. Wait, I'm most likely telling this to someone who lives in the US, where the Hummer H2 is regarded as a good car.. nevermind..
which is totally what she said
Cancellation? I think you mean consolation.
If it's a negation for your vexation, it's both!