Slashdot Log In
Inside Steve's Brain
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Jul 16, 2008 12:19 PM
from the read-all-about-it dept.
from the read-all-about-it dept.
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.
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.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Grammar Nazi (Score:3, Informative)
"iPod in it's complete product ecology."
OOPS.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right. Big oops right there. The misuse of the apostrophe is so widespread that I am almost getting immune to the misuse. If I had a penny for every time I saw the apostrophe used to denote plural form...
Re:Grammar Nazi (Score:5, Funny)
let's hope you mean possessive form and not plural...or you won't have many penny's
Parent
Grammar? I Take Exception to the Ontological... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Tons of Gems from Steve! (Score:5, Funny)
Turns out, there are things to learn from Steve's obsessive perfectionism.
Example: "For every button I find, I shall kill you."
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Probably hasn't figured out how to commoditize the technique.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Why? The iPhone has exactly the same amount of buttons as the Mac mouse!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:grammar nazi (Score:5, Funny)
people are not hung
Speak for yourself.
Parent
It only works in the top slot (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:It only works in the top slot (Score:5, Insightful)
It's possible to be obsessive and perfectionist without being a despot, of course. The problem is, while that attitude doesn't get you fired, it also doesn't get you promoted. Once you get a reputation as "the go-to guy" for a particular job, in a big (or even medium-sized) organization you're stuck in that role forever. I suspect this is where a lot of the "just enough to not get fired" attitude comes from. Idealistic kids take their first job thinking, "I'm going to be just like Steve Jobs, only sane." After a while they realize that all this attitude gets them is the opportunity to take orders from people who have all the sanity of Jobs and all the obsessive perfectionism of Bill Gates. Burns out the idealism pretty fast.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
An aspect of the position Jobs has is the need to be ruthless. You don't get to and keep that position by coddling people. I suspect most of us would have ethical or emotional difficulties making the kinds of decisions Jobs and others like him need to make every day.
The Ethics of Firing Dead-Wood (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Only works if you have "taste" (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Parent
And perhaps are .... LESS FILLING ! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:Only works if you have "taste" (Score:5, Interesting)
Steve Jobs once said, "The problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have no taste and I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way."
Microsoft's J. Allard quoted this to his team when they were designing the Zune, telling them "I for one...want to see this guy eat his words. Those are fighting words. He is speaking to every one of us and saying that we don't get it.".
The end result of this was, of course, the brown Zune. Looks like Jobs was right.
Parent
Re:It only works in the top slot (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:It only works in the top slot (Score:4, Insightful)
Hey, nice rhetoric! I didn't realize this "fact".
You really should correct the wikipedia article and the many other articles online which prove elsewise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_commerce [wikipedia.org]
Seriously, you've never heard about the rise and fall of the roman empire, being largely due to their economy?
Or you couldn't have at least typed in one of many google queries before posting?
It's ridiculous you were modded so high.
Also, if we assume that by MBA's you mean the upper ranks of business, then you're just talking about leaders and people who's sole purpose is to create value for others. With this definition, I think you'll find EVERY society has been created by people with this drive.
Parent
Re:It only works in the top slot (Score:4, Insightful)
If you have to whip your employees into being outstanding workers, you're hiring the wrong people.
As for Rome ... hah! As another reply to your post points out, Rome wasn't built by MBAs, or by their ancient equivalent. It was built by soldiers. Do you know anything about that world, "Brigadier?" (Probably not; business types love military imagery and "business is war" tough talk, but they prefer that Other Sorts Of Peple do the real thing.) I do, and I can assure you that self-important REMFs like you don't do very well at all when the bleeding starts.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure many of my own subordinates have plotted by demise but I usually pose it to them as follows. I can bring you donuts and call you buddy, or I can whip you into an outstanding worker. Which do you think will look better on you rresume?
That depends. If they fit into the all-whip all-the-time culture, they'll flourish. If not, it'll look worse, because their work will ultimately suffer under the tremendous amounts of stress induced by being left on pins and needles all the time. In this case, it'll l
Re:It only works in the top slot (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Parent
Re:It only works in the top slot (Score:5, Informative)
you say you have a graduate-level degree?
You do know that here in America, they give out MBAs (supposedly a "graduate" degree) to anyone with a pulse, a way to pay tuition, and an asshole, don't you?
Parent
Jobs role in Apple is overrated (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Jobs role in Apple is overrated (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple's early success really isn't attributable to Jobs.
Never underestimate the role that Jobs had in marketing the product. Some of the greatest technical achievements have never seen the general light of day because they weren't properly marketed. Overall, Jobs has had an incredible streak of wins. As you point out, it hasn't been without failures. But on the whole Apple has been wildly successful with him at the helm.
Parent
Re:Jobs role in Apple is overrated (Score:5, Funny)
From the archives of Slashdot, ca. 1984, story: Apple Releases Macintosh:
Parent
Re:Jobs role in Apple is overrated (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm no fan of Jobs, and I do agree that Woz got kind of screwed on the deal. But there is no way Apple would have become Apple without both Steves.
Parent
Woz is Rude (Score:3, Informative)
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
Not all himself? (Score:5, Funny)
Does the book tell us which one he does make all by himself?
Shocked! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The question is, can what we learn from Jobs be generally applied? Was his success at Apple something which anyone could replicate, or was it a function of a particular time, place, and situation? It seems to me that a lot of these sorts of case studies try to generalize too much from specific circumstances -- and doing the right thing at the wrong time, so to speak, can be a disaster.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Same could be said about Hitler.
Re:Shocked! (Score:4, Insightful)
Certainly. Now, who is it we usually refer to when a government tries to grab a little too much power, or when a public figure is able to excite a large group about an extreme political position with oratory?
Also, I'd say that it can be argued that the UN and the European community were founded on the principle of avoiding the situation that allowed Hitler to grab power in Germany with significant public support.
Parent
Re:Shocked! (Score:4, Informative)
Really? I seem to recall him not being a part of the company as it slowly slid down the toilet. Hence the "when he came back" portion - he was off doing his own thing with NeXT. Between '85 and '97, he wasn't a part of Apple so I don't really see how it was he who led the company to failure... Or are you referring to the industry-wide sales slump in '84 which led to the power struggle that saw him leave Apple? Industry-wide is hardly his fault...
Parent
wrong Steve (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:wrong Steve (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Wozniak (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd much rather see into Steve Wozniak's head. The 'Mozart of the Motherboard' must have some beautiful stuff going on in there.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wozniak (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Wozniak stands in line because he wants to stand in line.
Unlike Jobs, he isn't into the me-big-monkey game of primate dominance, where your sense of self-worth is tied to the number of people you can push around. I've met Wozniak at couple of conferences, and he's a nice guy: friendly, engaging, and charmingly geeky about his enthusiasms.
Wozniak could certainly afford all manner of personal assistants and minions to go buy stuff for him. But he doesn't. Instead, he chose to stand in line with everybody else. And for that, I give him mad respect.
Parent
1985 (Score:5, Funny)
And remember, it's even gotten Steve Jobs fired before...
Steve is impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Even the throw-away packaging somehow looks like someone really thought it through as to how it fits into the whole "product experience".
Yeah, I know a packaging engineer, and she loves Apple's stuff. Apple apparently wins packaging awards regularly.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Packaging [youtube.com]?
"what Leander thinks are the takeaways..." (Score:5, Insightful)
"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.
Jobsian Retail (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
it's about his personal relationship with suck (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
What's all the hype? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:"If there is a problem with an Apple product.." (Score:4, Informative)
[sigh] Macs do not cost anywhere near 50% more than comparable PCs. The "Apple premium" over PCs from other brand-name computer manufacturers such as Dell, HP, etc. is usually 10-20% at most; occasionally a Mac will actually be cheaper than a comparable PC, although that doesn't happen very often. If you want to say that Mac users generally pay more for their machines than those who buy comparable PCs, I won't argue with you, but "50% more than comparable tech elsewhere" is absurd and makes the rest of your argument easy to dismiss.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Grain of iSalt (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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.