【第297回】Walter Isaacson, “Steve Jobs” (again)

This is the second time to read through this greatest innovators’ biography. I’d like to focus on three parts, his youthful life, way of his business,  and how to manage his people.

First point is about his youthful life.

So he grew up not only with a sense of having once been abandoned, but also with a sense that he was special. In his own mind, that was more important in the formation of his personality. (kindle ver No. 481)

To be abandoned by his biological parents made him have complex feeling and talent. He regarded his abandoned youthful days not only as negative meaning but also as positive one.

By this point Jobs was no longer trying to find a guru who could impart wisdom, but instead was seeking enlightenment through ascetic experience, deprivation, and simplicity. (kindle ver No. 1050)

Though he sought for his religious guru to India, he couldn’t. But, on the other hand, his psychological journey made him get his extreme attitude to simplicity. It’s the starting point that he put emphasis on simplicity to his all products.

The Atari experience helped shape Jobs’s approach to business and design. He appreciated the user-friendliness of Atari’s insert-quarter-avoid-Klingons games. (kindle ver No. 1168)

Coming back from India, he restarted his work at Atari. His early career brought him an approach to user-friendliness. Special feeling compared to other people brought him being focused on simplicity and user-friendliness.

I’d like to move on to the second topic, way of his business.

“Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the telephone?” (kindle ver No. 2983)

Most top executives are trying to find out customers’ needs and to response to them in order to make new products. But Jobs doesn’t try to follow the current customer’s needs, because he totally believes that he can create customer needs. Only after Jobs shows new product, we can find out what we’ve wanted.

One of his core principles was that hardware and software should be tightly integrated. He loved to control all aspects of his life, and the only way to do that with computers was to take responsibility for the user experience from end to end. (kindle ver No. 5638)

His digital hub strategy is from his attitude to control user experience in order to make progress of user-friendliness. It is more understandable to know this innovative strategy, when we compare the case of with one of Sony.

Indeed Sony provided a clear counterexample to Apple. It had a consumer electronics division that made sleek products and a music division with beloved artists (including Bob Dylan). But because each division tried to protect its own interests, the company as a whole never got its act together to produce an end-to-end service. (kindle ver No. 6631)

At the beginning of 2000s, Sony had stronger chances to integrate their strengths to make customers’ hidden wants as same as Apple, because Sony had Walkman, highly designed lap top PC, and world wide music company. But they couldn’t, because each division sought for their own profits and fought together in side of Sony silently.

Sony worried about cannibalization. If it built a music player and service that made it easy for people to share digital songs, that might hurt sales of its  record division. One of Jobs’s business rules was to never be afraid of cannibalizing yourself. “If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will,” he said. So even though an iPhone might cannibalize sales of an iPod, or an iPad might cannibalize sales of a laptop, that did not deter him. (kindle ver No. 6764)

Head quarter of Sony worried about cannibalization between each companies. And that’s why they couldn’t make synergies. But, did any other good companies decide cannibalizing strategy? Maybe only Apple could. This is one of the most strongest points of Jobs’s way. 

Third point is about how to manage his people.

Was Jobs’s unfiltered behavior caused by a lack of emotional sensitivity? No. Almost the opposite. He was very emotionally attuned, able to read people and know their psychological strengths and vulnerabilities. He could stun an unsuspecting victim with an emotional towel-snap, perfectly aimed. He intuitively knew when someone was faking it or truly knew something. This made him masterful at cajoling, stroking, persuading, flattering, and intimidating people. (kindle ver No. 2180)

His extremely direct saying and action are from not his lacking his sensitivity but special sensitivity. I know another great CEO also has this talent as Jobs does. It seems to me that it is one of the important talents to lead and manage employees.

“This wasn’t about processor speed or memory,” Jobs recalled. “It was about creativity.” It was directed not only at potential customers, but also at Apple’s own employees: “We at Apple had forgotten who we were. One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are. That was the genesis of that campaign.” (kindle ver No. 5518)

Cited as above is about very famous ‘Think Different’ campaign, after he came back to Apple. He made emphasis not only on making impression to their customers but also on getting fire to employees. He must know that customer satisfaction follows employee satisfaction.

In order to institutionalize the lessons that he and his team were learning, Jobs started an in-house center called Apple University. He hired Joel Podolny, who was dean of the Yale School of Management, to compile a series of case studies analyzing important decisions the company had made, including the switch to the Intel microprocessor and the decision to open the Apple Stores. Top executives spent time teaching the cases to new employees, so that the Apple style of decision making would be embedded in the culture. (kindle ver No. 7612)

This is an example to show that Jobs really wanted to make Apple sustainable and great company. I hope that Apple will continue to make and launch new innovative products to us to make the world better place, as Jobs mentioned. 

Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, “The new digital age”
Brad Stone, “the everything store”
Sheryl Sandberg, “LEAN IN”