Be Like Steve Jobs*

* Remembering that you’re not him, your company isn’t Apple, and he himself got fired from Apple at one

point for being like Steve Jobs.

(spoiler alert: they hired him back.)

Lessons learned

from this:

Make business decisions like they’re

your earthly legacy, not just a few pennies of

next quarter’s earnings.

Focus on products and customers instead of profits. The money will find you.

Strange, but true.

Take pride in your work, even those

parts of it customers won’t see.

Steve demanded that more expensive components be used on circuit boards if they

looked more pleasing.

His reasoning: the customer may never know, but we will.

Bean counters and salespeople run

uninspired companies.

Steve brought John Sculley to Apple as CEO, but regretted it because Sculley only cared about profit. Result: the Second Coming of Steve.

He said Microsoft will never be innovative under Steve Ballmer because he only knows sales.

Steve Jobs was a product guy.

Simplify everything mercilessly.

Apple has few products, but they own those markets (actually, they created most of those

markets.)

Apple’s products look simple. Almost all the technology is hidden. They don’t even have an

on-off button.

Fire everybody who isn’t an A-teamer.

Stars work best with other stars.

Great employees are 30% better than the merely good, and way better than most.

Don’t let someone else control the user

experience.

Apple products have screws your tools can’t open. They’re sold from

stores they own. Their software runs mostly only on their own hardware. Endless thought goes into product

packaging (like using California as a brand.)

It’s OK to be a petulant, cruel, insensitive, immature, vindictive jerk as long as you take care of what’s important. And as long as

you’re almost always right.

The Steve-mobile. He refused to put license plates on it for fear someone might follow him.

Push people hard to do the impossible.

Sometimes they will actually do it.

Apple called it the Reality Distortion Field. Steve could distort reality in convincing people that an impossible task was not only doable, but expected.

Partner with someone whose strengths and

weaknesses are opposite yours.

Jobs: design, vision, and business.Wozniak: engineering.

There would be no Apple today without either.

Be a showman. Keep product details secret until

the unveiling event.

Don’t overexpose yourself or your product. Script, rehearse, and control every event. Image should not be accidental.

Note: the jeans and turtleneck made up Steve’s brand identity.

Real CEOs demo.

Customers are not always right. Focus groups didn’t

tell Alexander Graham Bell to invent the telephone.

Customers don’t know what they want until someone creates it and shows them. Nobody asked Apple to make music players, iPhones, or iTunes. Apple finds problems and fixes them, even if you didn’t know you had the problem in the first place. Customers can only think of “better, faster, cheaper.”

Good artists copy. Great artists steal.

Apple didn’t invent computers, graphical operating systems, music players, or cell

phones. Packaging, design, marketing, and customer support are not trivial.

Do it right even if it costs more.

Set the price after you know the cost and trust customers to see the value. It’s OK to be more

expensive than your competitors.

Building layout should force employees to have random

encounters.

Steve wanted one huge Apple building to have only one set of restrooms. He uncharacteristically compromised. He allowed two.

No PowerPoints (or even Keynotes) in meetings.

Ever.

PowerPoints let the presenter hide behind boring, edited information. Tension breeds

creativity and avoids polite rubber-stamping. Challenge people hard to justify their

arguments to see how passionately they really believe them.

Take the top company performers on a retreat. Get consensus on the 10 most important things to do next.

Then erase the bottom seven and do the top three really well.

Companies should have one P&L, not

divisions competing for

corporate love.

Source: Bonkers World

A good idea isn’t enough.

Executives can’t just hand off a good idea. Someone has to

manage the craftsmanship and packaging as it evolves.

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do.”