FASTCOMPANYIf Apples rise depended on the standard SteveJobs
clichs, what are we to make of itsdominance now? Time to revisitand
correctthe myth.BYRI CKTETZELITHEEVOLUTIONOFSTEVEJOBSWunderkind.
Jerk. Innovator. Tyrant. (All of the above.) Evennow, almost four
years after his death, its hard to read a storyabout Steve Jobs
that doesnt rely on these kinds of genericlabels to explain his
character, that doesnt paint him as anobstreperous ingrate who
never changed, who cowedcoworkers and competitors with an almost
magical "realitydistortion field."Its a strange phenomenon, given
the extraordinary story of hislife: A callow businessman, a young
college dropout whosebehavior was so divisive and undisciplined
that he was exiled in1985 from the company he founded, turns around
and becomesthe radically effective visionary leader of a company
that becamethe most valuable enterprise on earth. Surely this cant
beexplained by a set of stereotypes that havent changed for
threedecades.Three years ago, fellow journalist Brent Schlender and
I set outto try to take the long view of Jobss career. I had worked
behindthe scenes as an editor on many Apple stories for both
FastCompany and Fortune. Brent knew Steve well. For more thantwo
decades, he reported on him for The Wall Street Journal andFortune,
interviewing him dozens of times. The two becameclose, albeit
within the bounds of a journalist/sourcerelationship; Steve
regularly introduced Brent as his "friend."Brent believed that Jobs
had changed more than any otherbusinessman he had covered.At first,
Steves closest colleagues were reluctant to speak withus. Our
earliest interviews were with people who had partedways with Jobs
at some point, often under difficultcircumstances. But even they
felt he was misunderstood. SusanBarnes was the financial manager
for the Mac team and CFO ofNeXT Computer. She left NeXT because she
believed Steve wassquandering its capital. Steve totally cut her
off, immediately,turning off her email and phone the day she
resigned. Yet Barneswas deeply emotional when recalling Jobs; like
others we spoketo, she still referred to him in the present tense.
"You read thebooks, and you cant understand why anyone would ever
workfor this guy," she told us. "He is an amazing boss." When
formerApple hardware chief signed on with PalmComputing, Steve
excoriated him on the phone, calling him atraitor to Apple. Yet,
says Rubinstein, "Steve can be trulycharming. No one ever manages
to explain that. And he alwayscared deeply."When members of Steves
inner circle finally began meeting withus, they further undermined
the stereotype., thepresident of Pixar and perhaps the most
important mentor inSteves life, told us that Steve was constantly
trying to improve inboth his business decisions and his private
behavior. "I look atSteve as someone who was actually always trying
to change,"says Catmull, who knew and worked with Steve for 25
years. "Buthe didnt express it in the same ways as others, and he
didntcommunicate with people about that. It didnt come across ashim
being personally introspective."What emerged from these exclusive
interviewswith and Tim Cook, and Bob Iger, and others,
includingSteves widow, Laurene Powell Jobswas a very different
pictureof Jobs. Steve was someone with a deep hunger for
learning,who breathed in an education wherever he could find it,
from hisJon RubinsteinEd CatmullREADMOREABOUTSTEVEJOBSTim Cook On
Apple's Future: EverythingCan Change Except ValuesRead more
>>!The Steve Jobs You Didn't Know: Kind,Patient, And
HumanRead more >>!Jony IveBill GatesSteve Jobs in
1976youthful pilgrimage to India to his key mentors and his
longtimecolleagues at NeXT, Pixar, and Apple. Powell Jobs goes so
far asto call him a "learning machine." He learned from his
manyfailures and relentlessly applied those lessons. This wasnt
anobvious processSteve always preferred to talk about the
futurerather than the past, so there are very few examples of
himreflecting on his triumphs and missteps, or acknowledging
alesson learned. But like most of us, he tried to use what
helearned to take better advantage of his strengths and temper
hisweaknesses. It was a lifelong effort, and, like most of us,
hesucceeded in some ways and failed in others.Steve was always
changing. Thinking of him this way casts him ina very different
light from the more common view of him as astubborn force of
nature. It reframes what those of us fascinatedby and engaged in
business can draw from his example. If yousearch for "Steve Jobs"
books on Amazon, youll find that mostcarry such titles as Steve
Jobs: Ten Lessons in Leadership or The66 Secrets of Steve Jobs: The
Most Complete Step-by-StepGuide Ever Written on Becoming the Next
Steve Jobs. Bookpublishers clearly believe that readers are dying
to mimic amagical "Steve Jobs Recipe for Success." (One
possibleexception: Steve Jobs Returns With His Secrets, which
is,according to its jacket copy, a "spiritual interview with
SteveJobs, conducted just three months after his death.")But there
is no such recipe. "You should call your book Dont TryThis at
Home," Bill Gates told us. "Thats the degree of difficultyof what
Steve achieved." There are no truisms about design orsimplicity or
focus that will transform you or your company.Instead, theres a
narrative of constant change. The evolution ofthe iPad did not
resemble the flash creation of the Apple II. Theway Steve assembled
and managed the team at Apple in the2000s had little in common with
the way he rallied the band ofpirates that built the Mac. What
Steve left behind was the processof his life, not a series of
diktats.The Evolution of Steve JobsRead more >>!The Biggest
Business Comebacks Of ThePast 20 YearsRead more >>!Steve Jobs
Considered Buying YahooRead more >>!Steve Jobs Vowed That
"Apple Will NeverMake A TV Again" Read more >>!The Lost Steve
Jobs TapesRead more >>!How Steve Jobs Changed Pixar And
PixarChanged Steve JobsRead more >>!An Oral History Of Apple
DesignRead more >>!The History Of Apple In 3 MinutesRead more
>>!Thinking of his career and life as a fluid history changes
what wecan learn from Jobs. It changes his legacy and how we have
tothink about the future of Apple. What follows here are
threeunconventional assessmentsand the ways in which theycontinue
to drive the company Steve launched. (Our book,Becoming Steve Jobs,
which is being published by Crown onMarch 24, offers more, and
fuller, insights.) For starters, we haveto reconsider Steves image
as a solitary genius who on his ownsimply willed breakthrough
products into existence.THEREISNO"I"IN"STEVE"Despite his reputation
as a tyrannical micromanager, Jobsmaintained an excellent and
relatively stable executive teamduring his second tenure at Apple.
The more mature andconfident he became, the more he surrounded
himself withstrong, opinionated executives who felt comfortable
arguingwith him. This was something he had learned during his
exilefrom Apple.For much of its first decade, Apple was riven by
internal conflicts,many of them initiated or exacerbated by Steve.
After gettingfired, however, he had the good luck to experience, at
Pixar, astrong collaborative culture. It had been molded by Ed
Catmull,a would-be animator who had developed into a great
managerover the years. As he steered Pixar through the many
difficultperiods that preceded the creation of Toy Story, he
nurtured anintelligent, respectful, and effective culture. Catmull
was sofirmly in charge of the place that he was able to keep Steve
fromSteve Jobs in 1984getting too involved in the production, so
Jobs watched from adistance as writers and animators worked their
way throughfailed plotlines, poorly conceived characters, and
interferencefrom Disneys then-chief of animation, Jeffrey
Katzenberg. AfterToy Story, he got to see the team do it again,
with A Bugs Life,and then again and again and again. "Watching
ourcollaboration, where we were making ourselves better byworking
together, I think that fueled Steve," says John Lasseter,the
director of Toy Story, who now heads up Disney Animationand Pixar
with Catmull. "That was one of the key changes whenhe went back to
Apple. He was willing to be open to the talent ofothers, to be
inspired by and challenged by that talent, but alsoto inspire them
to do amazing things he knew he couldnt dohimself."In 1997, when
Jobs returned to Apple, the person he kept aroundfrom the old Apple
regime was Fred Anderson, the CFO. Most ofthe executive team were
newcomers, including Rubinstein,software chief Avie Tevanian, and
Tim Cook, who joined in 1998from Compaq. Jobs gave the group huge
responsibilities andplenty of leeway. Anderson says Steve didnt
interfere much inthe financial operations of the company. "It wasnt
his strength,and he knew it," he says. Former Apple retail chief
Ron Johnsononce told a group of Stanford MBA students, "Steve was
the bestdelegator I ever met." Others, like Rubinstein, were
indeedmicromanaged but they could give as good as they had to
take."I fought with him for 16 years," says Rubinstein. "It was
almostcomedic. I remember one Christmas morning, were on thephone
screaming at each other and both of our significantothers are in
the background, saying, Come on, we have to getgoing, get off the
damn phone. " According to Barnes, Stevesbest collaborators
understood that "you had to listen past theyelling to understand
what the yelling was about."Each member of that early team
performedheroic work. Anderson reengineered thecompanys finances;
Cook slashedinventory and eventually built a
reliableADVERTISEMENTAPPLESRESURRECTIONWAS A TEAMEFFORT, AFACT
THATGETSOVERLOOKEDglobal supply chain that fed into an agilenetwork
of contract factories that couldpound out tens of millions of
devices everyyear; Tevanian created the operating system that
supports all ofApples various software even today; Rubinstein
oversaw thedevelopment of the electronic guts of Apples Macs,
iPods, andother products. Then there was a designer, by the name of
JonyIve, whose sleek but playful sensibility led to the iMac, which
wasthe first step on the road to Apples recovery. Says Bill
Gates,"That is a really crack team that bonded with each other
intoughness. I mean, you can point to every member of that teamand
say, Okay, he earned his pay, he earned his pay, he earnedhis pay.
Theres no weakness in that team."Jobss executive team repeatedly
steered him away from troubleand in the right direction. When Steve
fell in love with digitalmovie editing in 1999, Apple made a nifty
piece of softwarecalled iMovie. It was up to the members of the
executive team toconvince Steve that digital music was a better
bet, and they didso at a hastily called meeting in early 2000 at
the Garden CourtHotel in Palo Alto. Jobs quickly conceded that they
were right;iTunes was released 12 months later, and the iPod less
than ayear after that. When Jobs initially introduced the iPhone,
hefamously barred independent developers from creating softwarefor
the device. It was only after he listened to his team that
heallowed the creation of the App Store, which secured theiPhones
place in history.The resurrection of Apple was a team effort, a
fact that getsoverlooked to the detriment of everyone, including
Steve.Managing a team that could support the long-term goals of
acorporation was not one of his innate gifts. While he had rallied
atalented group to create the Mac, many in that team wereburned out
by the process. Worse yet, the Mac was actually afeeble computer
when first released in 1984. But Steve taughthimself how to become
a better manager, and when he returnedto Apple, he was able to
sustain a strong executive group foryears and deliver first-rate
products almost every time.TO THEDETRIMENTOF EVERYONE.Steve Jobs in
1988INCHBYINCH,DAYBYDAYJobs is often heralded for the breakthrough
products hedelivered, ranging from the Apple II to the iPad. But
the processof developing those breakthrough products changed
completelyover the course of his life. Jobs the revolutionary
became Jobsthe incrementalist.In 1991, during an interview Brent
conducted with Jobs andGates at Steves house in Palo Alto (theyd do
only one morejoint interview, many years later), Gates argued
thatincrementalism was exactly what the computer industry
needed.Thinking about his corporate customers, he said, "All I want
is acar that will run on the current streets. Im on this
evolutionarypath." At that point, Jobs had a different goal. He
lovedtransformative moments like the Apple II and the Mac, and
thatswhat he had hoped to deliver with the NeXT Computer. "The
realtrick is to balance that incremental improvement with some
bigsteps," he said. "The standard bearer needs a kick in the ass
everyonce in a while."By the time he returned to Apple, just
sixyears later, Steve had moderated hisapproach. He applied the
incrementalapproach hed seen work so well at Pixarfor Lasseter and
Catmull. After selling NeXTto Apple in December 1996, Steve
spent"YOU READTHE BOOKS,"SAYS BARNES,"AND YOUCANTUNDERSTANDWHY
ANYONEWOULD EVERWORK FORTHIS GUY."months studying the massive
challengesfacing the Cupertino company. At first, he didnt even
knowwhether he wanted to return to Apple. By the time he made
thedecision, in September 1997, to come back full-time as CEO,
heunderstood the depth of Apples problems: massive inventory,
anuninspired workforce, a woebegone share price, a
meaninglessmarket share. No single product could possibly revive
thecompany. So he moved slowly, step by step. He launched an
adcampaign, "Think Different," whose primary purpose was toreclaim
the spirit of Apple for the companys employees. Hecontinued the
layoffs and cost-cutting that Fred Anderson hadset in motion,
finding the A players, as he put it, while sussing outand firing
the C team. He introduced a product, the iMac, thatwas more a trick
of design than engineering. It was just enoughto get people
chattering positively about Apple again. For thefirst time in his
career, Steve was playing the hand he was dealt,rather than trying
to solve everything with one brilliant stroke.Even during the
remarkable product run that would come todefine his legacy,
progress came incrementally. As Apple movedinto the consumer
electronics business, its metabolism forpumping out upgraded
versions sped up. So did its ability tophysically build and
distribute products. For all the talk of designgenius and
ingenuity, what Apple accomplished in terms ofsheer execution
during the 2000s (and is still accomplishing, forexample, with
sales of 75 million iPhones in its most recentquarter) is at least
as remarkable. Before the iPod, Apple wouldsell tens of thousands
of a particular item, hundreds ofthousands if something became a
hit; the iPod exceeded thosequantities by an order of magnitude.
This wasnt simply a task oframping up production at existing Apple
facilities. It was aboutfinding new suppliers and contract
manufacturers; sourcing newkinds of metal and other materials;
building, tracking, andconstantly improving a new supply chain. It
was aboutmanufacturing millions of devices that consumers
wouldembrace as prized jewelsand then retooling for a new
versionevery 12 months.Steve Jobs in 1997The annual demands of the
consumer electronics market madeincrementalism a necessity. Yet
each incremental advance alsooffered the potential for a new
breakthrough. "Ive alwaysthought there are a number of things that
you have achieved atthe end of a project," says Ive. "Theres the
object, the actualproduct itself. And then theres all that you
learned. What youlearned is as tangible as the product itself but
much morevaluable, because thats your future." Again and again,
Apple tookwhat it had learned from one product and applied it to
thecreation of something new and better. After creating iTunes,
theteam knew that most digital music players were pathetic, so
theybuilt the iPod. After working on the Rokr, a kludge of an
iTunes-based music phone made by Motorola, the team
understoodbetter how to deal with carriers and what it would take
to makethe iPhone great. The obsessive work on the iPhones
touch-screen interface led to an understanding of how to make
theiPad more intuitive than any prior incarnation of tablets.Jobs
did have a genius for synthesizing what Apple learned as itsproduct
line expanded. Thats what fed the perfection of theiPod, iPhone,
and iPad, each of which was a new version ofsomething others had
tried, and failed, to market successfully.Steve was the epitome of
a technologist, in the sense thattechnology is, more often than
not, a product of recombinantthinking. Most "new" technologies are
really new combinationsof independent technologies that when put
together create anew capability by virtue of their synergies.
Apples incrementalproduct cycles were what gave Steve the raw
materials tovisualize the future. His visions didnt come from thin
air.APPLEISANATTITUDESteve Jobs in 2001When Jobs died, a simple
question was asked over and overagain: How could Apple possibly
thrive now that its charismaticleader had been replaced by someone
then known only as an"operations guy" (Tim Cook)? It turns out that
the simplequestion was the wrong one, on many levels.In 2008, Steve
hired Joel Podolny away from the Yale School ofManagement to create
Apple University. Apple U. isnt anythinglike Pixar University,
where animators can learn accounting andaccountants can take
drawing classes. Apple U. is designed toembed the why of Steves
thinking into the company he leftbehind. It is an attempt to codify
a set of corporate decision-making values. The classes are case
studies, both of successesand failures. These arent sessions in how
to be like Steve. Jobsdidnt want to leave behind a bunch of
executives who would trydesperately to learn how to be like him. He
did want to hand thecompany to a group of people who would apply
the samerigorous decision-making process that he applied during his
last15 years at Apple. He wanted a company that would continue tobe
collaborative, even without someone as charismatic at
itscenter.Steve Jobs in 2007Cook is exactly what Jobs thought
Applewould need going forward. Apple now sellsa cumulative
experience that involves lotsof moving parts. Its hardware,
software,and network services all have to worktogether, with
whatever movies or music orother content that users want to tap
into.Cook is a master of taming complexity. Hefirst demonstrated
this skill when hemanaged Apples switch to contract manufacturing
andmodernized the way the supply chain was managed. Frankly,Cook
could successfully lead any number of complexcompanies, something
no one would have ever said of Steve.("Can you imagine Steve as the
CEO of Microsoft?" Gatescackled during our long interview. "He
would have beenterrible.")Instead, Cook is thriving at Apple, with
the stock doubling duringhis tenure and the volume of units sold
tripling. Like Steve, Cookis unsentimental about his executive
team. Steve let Tevanianand Rubinstein depart when he thought it
was time; Cook coollydismissed software showman Scott Forstall. And
like Steve, he isunafraid to strike out into new territory: When
Steve envisionedthe Apple Stores, he brought in a leader with no
computingexperience, Ron Johnson; Cooks choice as head of
retail,Angela Ahrendts, the former CEO of Burberry, also has
limitedtech chops but has a firsthand understanding of fashion
thatApple lacks. Cook has also made moves that Steve likely
neverwould have, such as creating a corporate philanthropy plan
oropening up his personal life, as Cook did when he announcedlast
year that he is gay. He is proving to be a very forceful leader,and
charismatic in his very own way.Its extremely difficult to predict
what Apple will look like in a fewyears. The companys recent growth
has again and again beendriven by a sideways move into industries
that need itscomputing expertise, and there may still be many
suchopportunities. Wherever Cook and the core team take Apple,"CAN
YOUIMAGINESTEVE AS THECEO OFMICROSOFT?"GATESCACKLEDDURING
ANINTERVIEW."HE WOULDHAVE BEENTERRIBLE."they will have to apply the
real lessons of Steve Jobs, not theones perpetuated by the
stereotype of the brilliant enfantterrible. For now, Apples leaders
are rigorous, collaborative, anddeeply open-minded. They will
follow their noses and not lookback. That is a big part of the real
legacy they have inherited.[Illustrations: Heads of State; Steve
Jobs animations: JorgeColombo]ADVERTISEMENTSign up for updates
straight to your inbox as we reveal moreexclusive excerpts and news
from Becoming Steve Jobs, theforthcoming biography on the legendary
Apple [email protected] SIGN UPA version of this article
appeared in the April 2015 issue of FAST COMPANY magazine.RI
CKTETZELIRick Tetzeli is Executive Editor of Fast Company, which
hejoined in June 2010.CONTINUEMarch 16, 2015 | 6:00 AMADDNEWCOMMENT
SI GNI NType your comment here.9COMMENTSi RI CKTETZELI 2 DAYS
AGOInteresting, Insightful, Inspiring: thank You !LAURENTBEGAUD
Link Replyi RI CKTETZELI 3 DAYS AGO CAPYBARA449Great piece. Y'all
should check out this Steve Jobs poll, it'spretty interesting (you
have to vote to see the aggregatedresults)
http://app.statisfy.co/#/app/question/6056 Link ReplyComment
removed.i RI CKTETZELI 3 DAYS AGOVery good analysis. Thank
you!FRANKBERGEMANN Link Replyi RI CKTETZELI 3 DAYS AGOThose
animations are terribly annoying whilst I'm trying toread this
article. I couldn't continue till the end as a result.Shame,
because i think it would have been a good read.TRI PLI FY Link
Replyi TRI PLI FY6 HOURS AGOSo, let met get this straight - you
stopped reading thearticle, relegating it to "would have been a
good read"status, because of some drawings?Wow. May I suggest some
professional help - thisarticle may be the least of your
issues.TMSMQWX Link Replyi TRI PLI FY3 DAYS AGOI actually loved the
animations.LAMAHANASMOSTAFAKAMEL Link Replyi RI CKTETZELI 4 DAYS
AGO LAMAHANASMOSTAFAKAMELOMG Fast Company, John Lasseter did not
direct "TheIncredibles", Brad Bird did.1 Link Replyi
LAMAHANASMOSTAFAKAMEL4 DAYSAGOGood catch! We fixed it. Thank you
for the heads up,much appreciated.FASTCOMPANY Link Reply
