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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.
"iPod in it's complete product ecology."
OOPS.
Turns out, there are things to learn from Steve's obsessive perfectionism.
Example: "For every button I find, I shall kill you."
Personalities like the one that Steve Jobs shows to the world and his employees have their only chance for success in the top seat within an organization. As the summary hints, acting like Steve Jobs would get you fired pretty quickly if you were in middle-management somewhere, or just a worker-bee.
The psychopaths must have absolute control around their environment-- they cannot be held to orders from a boss. Some of the psychos are lucky, some are just personable enough to get things done, some are obsessive yet gregarious enough to build a company.
Steve Jobs got where he is because he never worked for anyone else-- he's never been homogenized inside the corporate zoo. Same goes for Sergei, same for Jerry Yang, Jeff Bezos, and the others: they never knelt at the trough of corporate life and got the stink of doing "just enough to not get fired" on them.
davejenkins.com |
Steve doesn't make all of the products himself.
Does the book tell us which one he does make all by himself?
I'm SHOCKED to discover that people could learn something from a man who has completely and utterly turned Apple around from a company on its way to failure into a company that is flourishing and growing and showing no signs of slowing down any time soon.
SHOCKED, I tell you.
One may not agree with him. One may not like him. But, anyone who claims that there's nothing to learn from the man is an idiot.
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.
"If there is a problem with an Apple product you take it to the Apple store and they fix it."
Fiction.
It's just not true. Ask them to figure out why your iCal isn't syncing with your dotMac or "MobileMe" account, and see how far you get with that. I was told to email for support.
Apple's early success really isn't attributable to Jobs. The Apple II was Wozniak's thing. Jobs insisted on a moulded plastic case for the Apple II, but Commodore had that, too. The Lisa (a good machine, but too expensive because the parts cost was too high back then) was a commercial flop. The original Mac (not enough memory, no hard drive) was too weak to be useful, and the Mac was a commercial flop until it was built up to Lisa specs of 1MB or so and a hard drive. (Understand that there were UNIX workstations with graphics years before the Mac came out. Cost, not innovation, was the problem in the early days.)
What actually saved Apple was the LaserWriter. That's what made the Mac useful and created the "desktop publishing" industry.
I'd much rather see into Steve Wozniak's head. The 'Mozart of the Motherboard' must have some beautiful stuff going on in there.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
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!
As a proprietary software vendor, Apple gives you (and supports them on their platform) more Open Source applications then that other major proprietary desktop OS who rejects them flat-out if that is any cancellation.
for me...he has steered some excellent products; some shaking the industry down to it's foundations (read: iPod), but one thing that's struck me the most is how he's managed to re-create the "coolest kid in the school" feeling kids go through but in adults, by having selling the coolest image/product/both with consumer electronics. The kind of emotion that buying a high-performance car has been reproduced in electronics & computer gear, even if the product in question isn't necessarily the best technically. That's impressive.
Also, Steve understands people want a complete experience; not component parts. iPods come with iTunes for complete top-to-bottom management. OSX comes with Apple hardware only. Even the throw-away packaging somehow looks like someone really thought it through as to how it fits into the whole "product experience". That to me is Steve's influence. Congrats I guess!
throw new NoSignatureException();
"As with all of the chapters it ends with a summary of what Leander thinks are the takeaways from each of the anecdotes...."
I think it takes quite a bit of arrogance to assume that you can find out what's going on inside someone else's brain. I don't know what goes on inside my wife's brain, let alone my boss's, let alone that of any Fortune 500 CEO.
It takes even more to assume that you can explain the success of a man like Steve Jobs... and even more to assume that you can draw transferrable lessons that will enable others to replicate that success.
A couple of decades ago, a bestseller entitled "In Search of Excellence" purported to explain factors that made companies successful. If I recall correctly, their examples of some of the best-managed high-tech companies included Atari, Digital Equipment Corporation, and Wang Laboratories.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
The Apple II had colour. I believe it was one of the first home computers to support it. At the time Apple's logo was a rainbow coloured apple to emphasize this.
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.
Anyone in retail that builds successful (or even ultimately unsuccessful) stores knows that building a full scale model is a huge help when building a new retail brand (or updating an older image).
Jobs was not a retail guy before the advent of Apple Store. Clearly, Jobs hired some pretty bright retail people to help pull it together. If nothing else, Job knows when he needs outside experts.
There are dozens of warehouses around the country that have partial or full retail stores within them. The fact that Apple Retail did the same is not a sign of Job's insanity or insight.
You can emulate being a despot. You can emulate being a perfectionist.
;).
;).
But can you emulate _taste_?
Say what you want about Steve Jobs. To me the big difference is Steve Jobs has _taste_.
If you work for him and he yells at you because the product you designed just has the wrong curves on the corners, or too many ugly screws visible, or it's "too klunky", deep down you know that it is likely that he is _right_. And so you respect that.
And when he finally tells you it is insanely great - though that might be an exaggeration, you at least know you've made something better than a Dell
In contrast if it were some other CEO screaming at you. What are the odds that CEO has taste?
From what I see a lot of CEOs can't even tell good from bad, so how are they going to tell "merely good" from "insanely great"?
It's like trying to emulate a top despotic perfectionist chef, but having no taste. You can yell at your kitchen staff all you want, good luck making something great.
I personally don't think you need a despot to produce a great product, but the people in charge of making it need to know the difference between good and great, and be allowed to make it great. Most bosses don't seem to care - they want to release the product ASAP.
BTW, I've never been at Apple nor do I know people there, but I wonder sometimes if working for Apple might be a bit like being married to an abusive spouse who can be very very good at times, insanely great even
Steve Jobs is definately a creative entrepreneur, but he is also a lucky one.
Nah... the failure rate for startups is phenomenal, but Jobs:
- Made a success Apple (maybe luck there - right place, right time - but also the right product)
- Made a success of NeXT (at least sufficiently so to sell it for boatloads of cash, and much of the tech lives on)
- Made a success of Pixar
- Came back to Apple when it was failing, turned it around, and introduced: iMac, OS/X, iPod, ITunes, iPhone ...
That's a heck of a string of "luck"! ;-)
Incidently I'm not a fanboy - never owned a Mac - but you've got to give the man his due.
Implications of the subject for this thread!
Brain == Mind as Television == Ronald Reagan
The inside of Steve's brain is probably much like the fatty substance between most people's ears. I'd like to know about his mind.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I have been to Apple, have met Steve, and know a few folks there. The people I have met seem to like working there...a lot.
Over the years, I've been to countless businesses and there are definitely places where you can practically feel the "bad mojo" in the air. Others have a happy vibe, and a few were "ready for the Kool-Aid". Apple was NOT like that...didn't have a bunch of happy, shiny cult members running around. I did feel folks were very focused, which is not a bad thing to be.
As for Steve's _taste_, I'd say he has definite and somewhat immutable ideas about how things should look and feel and operate. Sometimes, it's good...others, maybe not.
I am my own gestalt.
If all you care about is staying under radars, then of course you'll not want to work at Apple.
Otherwise - what sane technical person does not dream of a product with the reach of the iPod or iPhone? To work on an API used by tens of thousands of developers?
You could put up with a lot for that kind of opportunity.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
When working with teams of brilliant and inspired people it can become difficult if not impossible to point out that something someone did just plain sucks. Being able to do this when it is necessary is an unusual and powerful skill.
Then when the work appears finished it can be even harder to point out that the results suck. Being able to do this can be critical for honing a product to the point it becomes truly relevant.
Honestly, what's all the hype?
I mean, I consider Steve Jobs my role model just as much as the next guy (even more probably) - but his success isn't that much of a secret.
a) For one, he still is personally involved in all new key product developements.
b) He won't stop short until he *personally* is 100% convinced that the product in developement has stopped sucking.
c) He builds products *he* wants.
d) If someone gets pissy with him or starts dragging his heels, he'll come down on him like a pile of bricks. And for good reasons too.
e) He surrounds himself with people who think and act the same. Aka "Smart people".
For example: I just took 45 minutes today to check out the current range of music players. Sony, Archos, TrekStore, you name it. People, the utter pieces of pure shit folks put out to sale for MP3 players nowadays is un-f*cking-believable. Believe it or not, the iPod line of music players is actually *really* among the top of the line. No replaceable battery and no OGG support be damned. There is not *one* f*cking player where you can see that some CEO with balls and brains actually took a look at the iPod and then simply built a player that was better. Where is the player that supports all formats, has a replaceable battery, better sound processing, is water-resistant and has firmware that just works?
Jobs is a lucky man in a lucky position, and he happens to have enough life and business experience not to screw it up. But aside from combining discipline, business-sense and geekdom, I don't see any secret about him that requires a book to uncover. It's only that most competitors are so über-stoopid that Apple is reaping the benefits right now.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
here's what I found at forbes: "Jobs is also among the most controversial figures in business. He oozes smug superiority, lacing his public comments with ridicule of Apple's rivals, which he casts as mediocre, evil, and-worst of all-lacking taste. No CEO is more wilful, or more brazen, at making his own rules, in ways both good and bad. And no CEO is more personally identified with-and controlling of-the day-to-day affairs of his business. Even now, Jobs views himself less as a mogul than as an artist, Apple's creator-in-chief. He has listed himself as "co-inventor" on 103 separate Apple patents, everything from the user interface for the iPod to the support system for the glass staircase used in Apple's dazzling retail stores."
"Jobs' personal abuses are also legend: He parks his Mercedes in handicapped spaces, periodically reduces subordinates to tears, and fires employees in angry tantrums. Yet many of his top deputies at Apple have worked with him for years, and even some of those who have departed say that although it's often brutal and Jobs hogs the credit, they've never done better work."
Here's some of my favorites quotations from Steve: "Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it." "It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."
for microsoft fanboys, Bill Gates is also very rude when communicating with his people, but both motivates their troops a whole lot as you can see in Bill Gates: how a geek changed the world, BBC Money Programme. Here is a quote from bill:  That's the dumbest idea I have ever heard  ;)
I'm gonna give this book a try, but I'm still waiting for a real book ON steve's insights though one that he will have personnaly oversees.
source: Article, THE TROUBLE WITH STEVE. By: Elkind, Peter, Burke, Doris, Fortune, 07385587, 3/17/2008, Vol. 157, Issue 5
Jobs had one skill that was VITAL to Apple that Woz didn't: charisma. Much as I admire and love Woz, there is no way that Apple would have went anywhere had Jobs not been there to sell it.
I have to agree. I saw a video of Woz at a Commodore-64 anniversary event for a computer museum. He was rude to Jack Trummel (Commodore's CEO who organized the 64) during the audience Q&A phase. He may have been just joking in a sarcastic way, but it came across poorly. It was an interesting exchange though about "for the masses versus the classes". It should have been the 64's day in the spotlight. He should have praised it and waited for an Apple history event to brag about Apple. Not then and there.
Table-ized A.I.
Ok, I've been working for the gubberment for a good long time and I'd love to work for a despot like Steve jobs. It is not ethical to keep poor performers around just because they are your friends. Doing this penalizes the hard workers who have to pick up the slack. There is nothing wrong with getting rid of the deadwood. Keeping someone in a job because they are your friend or you feel bad for them or whatever is just another form of nepotism... and *that* is not ethical. And when, as in the case of where I work, this is done by spending tax-payer money to keep people employed in spite of their poor performance, that is getting awfully close to the same kind of corruption that plagues government agencies in the third world.
I am sick and tired of people accusing the likes of Jobs of being ethically challenged for the ease with which he fires people. Better to have someone like that at the helm than to suffer at a place run by the peter principle and where seniority trumps performance.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Here's an interesting article from a few months back. Among other things it talks about Jobs' "hero-shithead roller coaster" in which subordinates or developing products often flip from "insanely great" to "shit" depending on his mood. Apple seems to be a highly sought after employer among geeks, but is it really worth that, if you're unlucky enough to be on Steve's radar?
Apple may attract a certain personality that may not be considered "mainstream". One thing Jobs does well is motivate people to think their project is the most important thing on earth even if its just an accessory. When people screw up, Jobs makes them feel like its their own fault because he instills them with a sense of ownership in their work.
While he may chew you out big-time, you do feel attached to your work in an intimate way and don't feel like just another cog in the wheel. He ties your ego to the gizmo at hand so that you rise or fall with it.
Other companies talk about "team-work", and while it may create harmony and integration, it does tend to water down one's connection to the product. Teamwork is one approach to success, but Jobs found another path: ego coupling to the result.
Table-ized A.I.
none of apples products were industry firsts, NONE of them. the mp3 player, smart phone, slimeline laptop, even OSX's features - all of them existed well before apple jumped on the bandwagon. apple is at it's core a marketing machine, nothing more.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
If you're going to look inside someone's brain, than choose someone who's different to "the pack"...
How about looking into Linus Torvalds' brain to work out why someone would choose NOT to make themselves a billionaire from a brilliant idea?
How about looking into Stepheh Hawking's brain to understand how such a great intellect flourishes inside a "broken" body?
Steve's made his money by selling products that some people like because it makes them feel exclusive and good luck to him - but that's no different Jean Paul Gaultier, Enzo Ferrari or Anita Roddick.
So how about respecting those people who TRULY think differently rather than those who are clever enough to make others buy stuff that makes them feel differently.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
PHB alert!
Do you do that empowering their actualization of value added team playing in the channel?
Steve Jobs OTH is not a PHB but as he said an "artist that ships." I suspect he doesn't use business school jargon because he is too busy doing real things like making sure the interface is intuitive and polished BEFORE shipping unlike the Windows and Linux model of ship early, ship often, hack, hack, hack (in both the good and bad sense of hack BTW).
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Cancellation? I think you mean consolation.
If it's a negation for your vexation, it's both!
It's one thing to be able to single-handedly manage a company through the creation of an iconic set of products, explode a brand onto the world scene, develop mad mindshare... But it's all just a flash in the pan if it dies when he leaves. Good leaders help others do good things. Great leaders make new leaders. If Apple dies again when Steve leaves, I will have lost some respect for his leadership abilities. If his legacy remains at Apple after his passing, I will openly hail him as not only one of the best business leaders, but one of the best leaders period that I've seen come through in the last hundred or so years.