William Shockley: The Steve Jobs Counter-Example

But the available data suggest that they were very different people, especially considering that the one trait they unambiguously shared – a big ego – doesn't exactly distinguish them from the bulk of successful tech CEOs.

Shockley was a Nobel-winning physical scientist with impeccable academic credentials (CalTech, MIT, Bell Labs) who was, quite literally, obsessed with the magnitude of his own IQ. He wrote a justly famous textbook.

Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed College. He studied calligraphy once. I don't believe he published any technical writing of significance, though he gave many great talks. He was, despite his enormous stage presence, actually quite artful about keeping himself out of the spotlight: His obsession was with the products. The products were "insanely great", and he wanted you to be obsessed with them, more so than with himself.

Shockley alienated some of the most talented people in industry history, driving them away. Jobs found talented people who were already alienated, like Jonny Ive, and talked them into building entire companies for him.

Shockley's employees are famous for the things they created at other companies. Jobs' employees are famous for the things they created while working for him.

According to this documentary, Shockley tanked his company because he insisted on pursuing a brilliant and original idea, the Shockley PNPN diode, even though it was unmanufacturable at the time. Steve Jobs, despite his reputation as some sort of spacey visionary, proclaimed that "real artists ship". Though he took a long view of the industry and was willing to tinker for years on pet projects until they met his standards, he also built teams that shipped real products like the Mac and the iPod. Indeed, shipping was Jobs' real skill: He didn't invent the Apple I or the mouse or the GUI or the MP3, and he didn't even personally build Apple's versions of any of these things, but he figured out ways to get them into customers' hands. And the modern Apple revival is largely predicated on a relentlessly pragmatic focus on operational detail.

Shockley was, infamously, an outspoken eugenicist and racist who stated that his theories on intelligence would be his most important legacy. In public, Steve Jobs was apolitical and talked only about his work, doing so only rarely, and mostly on stage.

Shockley died an elderly but lonely man, estranged from all but his second wife. Steve Jobs worked almost until his last day, yet died surrounded by his family, and inspired an enormous flood of mourning and memorials.