Official Steve Jobs biography set for November 21 release
9to5mac.com
9to5mac.com
Depending on who you ask, people will tell you companies should be run by either MBA types or engineers. Jobs doesn't seem to fit either of these archetypes. Of all the big tech execs, he has to be the strongest systems thinker.
I think outside of the business success and technological innovation at Apple, one of Jobs largest contributions has been to bring the 'design process' to the center of management. Engineering has great models for problem solving, as does management theory, but design thinking is often the most overlooked. Its not given enough credit. Often when people talk about design they are really talking about aesthetics. When Jobs talks about design, he's talking about process. Hope the book sheds light on this.
Then again, maybe it's the combination of Jobs, Silicon Valley, and that formative era that is rare. Take a young Steve Jobs and put him anywhere else, and who knows what would happen? I doubt he would end up in business--not a legitimate one, at least.
Funny how 40 years later he's got one of the most restricted phone systems.
You must view Alan's body of work and what he's done to turn around a company from the very bottom to where it is today. Totally different brand image. He's done it twice.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/221956/cnbc-originals-ford-rebuild...
I hope Alan writes a book once he retires (he's in 60s). I think there's much more than just a few savvy business moves with him.
We all know what Steve would have done if he took over Ford:
1) Elminate all models with the exception of a few. Alan sold off Land Rover, Aston Martin, Volvo and a few others. He also closed Mercury.
2) Take those models and offer one or two different versions of it and offer it in two colors--black or white.
3) Put an emphasis on design. You'll notice that Ford's cars are now much more diverse and much more attractive.
4) Focus on reliability. Again, Alan did the same thing with Ford. He took the engineers to consumer reports and had them scrutinize their reliability right in front of the engineers.
I hope I'm making a point. Steve would of likely did the same thing Alan's done at Ford. Alan would have likely did the same thing Steve's done at Apple. Maybe not quite as good as Steve's done it, but very similar.
"I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, such as getting my girlfriend pregnant when I was 23 and the way I handled that, he said. But I don’t have any skeletons in my closet that can’t be allowed out." - Steve Jobs
Walter Isaacson is a great biographer. His Einstein and Benjamin Franklin biographies are amazing, definitely worth a read.
Since this is Isaacson's first biography of a living person, I'm really looking forward to reading the result. I guess it'll cover a lot of things we didn't know about Jobs and go even more in depth than his previous biographies have.
A lot of both positive and negative things can be said about Jobs, but no one can dispute that he is an interesting character with an astonishing record. November 21 can't come soon enough.
Respect.
It is stated that Jobs cooperated with the author, but requested no control over the content (bravo). You can bet he had something to say about the previous title and cover [1] though.
[1] http://www.redmondpie.com/isteve-the-book-of-jobs-official-b...
On February 24, 1955, a strange star appeared over San Francisco...
For example:
Does he regret hiring John Sculley?
With the benefit of hindsight what mistakes did he make with the original Mac?
What mistakes does he feel he made at NeXt?
What was his pitch to Gates when seeking Microsoft's investment into Apple?
I hope the book answers some of those questions. I am no Apple fanboy but he is quite simply one of the best business leaders in the past fifty years.
For example, on John Sculley: "I hired the wrong guy ... He destroyed everything I'd spent ten years working for. Starting with me."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK7TQVFSA1Y (Watch the end of the video. The answer is better with context, and there's more to the quote.)
Something to the effect of: "you invest some $$ and we will discontinue the multi-billion dollar lawsuit we're pursuing against you - win, win!"
Possibly not soon.
Maybe it's because he specifically wanted Walter Isaacson to write it, based on admiration of his previous work?
1) Trust. Jobs trusts this author. Many have wanted to write this book, this is the man Jobs trusted to do it.
2) Jobs isn't going to live forever. In some sense I think he rightfully understands that this book will partially define his legacy and he wants the record to understand that it isn't filtered through his lens.
In 100 years he may well be the only technologist of our era people readily remember. He's our modern Edison. I'm glad he's taken this book seriously.
I think he knows he won't live forever and wanted the opportunity to have his story told with his input, instead of it leaving it to chance once his voice was silenced by human impermanence.
Steve probably believes Walter was the best writer to tell his story, and you can't discount the fact that he is thinking about his legacy. In fact, I think the interviews may become part of some Apple internal library.
Maybe Jobs is not the right person to write the book about the Jobs way. Any book recomendation my fellows?
1) He "manages by end state and intent", just like the Marines are trained to do. Instead of trying to tell engineers how to do their jobs, he tells them what the customer should see, and why that's important. All good non-technical managers do that.
2) He has a rough idea of what all the elements of the system are, how they interact, and how they scale. For example, he talks about how some decisions will reduce API complexity, which increases developer productivity. Few technical managers do that well, and very few non-technical managers understand what technical constraints to focus on. I'm guessing this is something he's improved at, over the years. He screwed up a lot with in his earlier years (doing stuff that wouldn't scale well), and learnt his lessons. Every CEO tries to "understand the big picture". Steve seems to actually get it right.
3) When somebody sounds like they are fudging or hedging, he starts interrogating them to figure out what they are trying to imply. Engineers can be very indirect when they suspect a problem is looming. Steve picks this up, and goes after it like a terrier. It's scary stuff when he does this in public, with a reporter. I'd imagine it's even scarier when he does it with his employees.
4) He's got pretty good taste, and can hire good designers and people with good soft skills.
5) He was lucky enough to hire a few brilliant techies, at the start (Woz, in particular).