Eleven key lessons

1. Passion. The defining characteristic of Jobs was his sheer intensity. And that intensity came from his three primary passions – to build great products, to build Apple into an enduring company, and to make a ‘dent into the universe’. The most visible of his passions was for products. He prioritized products over profits and strove for perfectionism in his products. This passion for products clearly paid rich dividends, as Apple ended up creating a series of industry-shaping innovative products that also led to great financial success for the company. Jobs believed that life does not just happen to you but that you can shape the future. His philosophy is well captured by Apple’s famous 1997 ‘Think Different’ commercial – ‘The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.’ This great passion for making a real difference was the force that led him to incredible feats.
2. Intersection of engineering and arts. For me, one of the most unique aspects of Steve Jobs’s talents was his ability to straddle and assimilate the seemingly contrasting worlds of engineering and arts. He had a range of eclectic interests, from music to calligraphy to Hindu philosophy to Zen Buddhism. He was able to bring intuition and empathy from the world of humanities into the staid world of engineering and technology. That was perhaps the distinguishing feature of Apple that separated its products so much from other technology companies. Jobs put it nicely, ‘I’m one of the few people who understands how producing technology requires intuition and creativity, and how producing something artistic takes real discipline.’ This concept of intersection of disciplines has many lessons for both new-age professionals and for industries in need of transformation. Significant innovation happens not within a box but at the intersection of different fields. This will increasingly become a formula for the future especially so in the digital age.
3. End-to-end ownership. Jobs’ quest for perfection led to his insistence that Apple have end-to-end control of every product it made. He doggedly pursued vertical integration across design, hardware, software and content. This approach could be attributed to Steve Jobs’ obsession with control. However, there is a positive basis to this approach. Steve believed that he had to take responsibility for ensuring that the customer got a superb product, and for that end-to-end ownership was necessary. Apple’s ability to integrate hardware, software and content into one unified system enabled it to impose simplicity and avoid the fragmentation that an ‘open architecture’ approach could lead to. This ‘closed loop’ approach was a key secret behind Apple’s success. It led to great products, helped Apple achieve high profit margins even with small market share, and was the foundation for new innovative products like the iPod, iPhone and iPad. The Jobs example explains better to me why some entrepreneurs who have a long-term orientation look to have end-to-end control over all aspects of the value chain.
4. Simplicity. Steve Jobs had a strong belief in simplicity and minimalism, likely influenced by his interest in Zen Buddhism. His maxim was that ‘Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication’. This mantra is reflected both in his products and in his personal life. The intuitive usability of Apple products, which has been one of the keys to their success, was driven by the focus on reducing clutter and ensuring that interfaces were as simple as possible. This simplicity was achieved not by avoiding but by mastering complexity. It took a lot of thought and detailing to get to those simple designs that would be most intuitive for users. Jony Ive, Apple’s design chief, captures this philosophy well, ‘You have to deeply understand the essence of a product in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential.’ Simplicity is reflected in Jobs’ personal life as well – in his trademark black turtleneck shirt and denim trousers or his relatively spartan home. He believed that material possessions often cluttered life rather than enriched it. Jobs’ example brings out both the value of simplicity and also the depth that goes into achieving simplicity.
5. Reality distortion. One of the more surprising discoveries from Isaacson’s book was about Jobs’ ’reality distortion field’, or simply put, bending reality. Jobs would envision seemingly impossible outcomes. However, he had the ability to get others to trust him and then see reality the way he wanted them to, often against their judgement. This led them to achieving outcomes that appeared impossible to them earlier. One of Jobs’ friends put it well, ‘If he’s decided that something should happen, then he’s just going to make it happen. If you trust him, you can do things.’ At some level, this seems delusional, and even manipulative. However, it does prove that extraordinary results can be achieved by having a very clear picture of the outcomes you want, a strong will and conviction to achieve them, and the confidence and charisma to focus and align others on achieving that vision.
6. Perfectionism. Jobs was a perfectionist. He was not just a great visionary but had an incredible eye for detail. Isaacson’s book has many examples of Jobs picking up mistakes that the entire product team had missed. Jobs had also imbibed a philosophy that people do judge a book by its cover. He would spend an incredible amount of time on the product packaging and its initial look and feel for the customer. However, it was not just about his products’ look and feel for Jobs. He was equally obsessed about getting the internals of all his products perfect. He had learnt early in his life from his father that a good carpenter uses good wood and finish even for the insides of a cupboard. He carried this lesson throughout his life. There is a fascinating story about how he insisted that the rows in the circuit of Apple computers be lined perfectly. Jobs’ perfectionism is a great lesson in ‘God is in the detail’, especially for senior executives often obsessed with grand strategy.
7. Focus. Jobs was able to channelize his intensity and perfectionism through sharp focus. On his return to Apple in 1997, he saved the company from bankruptcy by reducing the number of products and focusing on single products in each of four well-defined segments. There are many stories of how he would take charge of the whiteboard at business meetings, slashing down the many ideas presented to just three priorities. His focus extended to the choice of people he would work with. He wanted to work only with A-players and was brutal in weeding out B-players. He did not want to waste his time and dilute the organizational quality with B-players. His obsessive focus did sometimes have negative effects, most notably in his personal life. He would filter out whatever he did not want to focus on or did not have the time for. This resulted in his indifference towards his first daughter when she was very young, and perhaps even to the delay in focusing on treating his cancer. However, in the net, his focus helped him channelize his intensity and achieve extraordinary outcomes that might otherwise not have been possible.
8. Resilience. Jobs’ life story is one of amazing resilience and rebound from adversity. Jobs was kicked out of Apple, a company he had founded with a lot of passion, at the age of thirty. For most people that would have been a knockout blow. However, Jobs was able to pick himself up and keep going. He faced more failures, notably at NeXT Computers, but he persevered. And in a remarkable reversal of fortune, he came back to Apple and led it to unprecedented glory. This resilience is apparent also in his battle with cancer. He did lose his third battle with cancer, but he came back from his first two battles, each time leading Apple to major product breakthroughs. Jobs’ life story is a great example of a man ‘never giving up’, a lesson that if you persevere you can achieve a better future, whatever the challenges in your present.
9. Connecting the dots. Jobs’ impact grew exponentially over the course of his career. This was because of his ability to ‘connect the dots’ across his many life experiences and to learn from his mistakes. Jobs was a rebel in his youth—experimenting with drugs, dropping out of college (but learning calligraphy in the process) and making a self-exploration trip to India. This was not a standard recipe for greatness in the business world. However, Jobs was able to connect these experiences into a unique success formula. Jobs also had more than his share of failures—getting kicked out of Apple, the struggles to build a successful business at NeXT, and the misplaced focus at Pixar on hardware. Again, Jobs was able to learn and grow from these failures. This comes out clearly as you compare his two stints at Apple. Act 1 at Apple was successful, but patchy. His contribution in setting up the company was secondary to that of Steve Wozniak, the technical genius who created the personal computer. Moreover, the negative aspects of his personality began to emerge and overshadow his contributions, resulting in his unceremonious ouster from the company in 1985. In Act 2, back at Apple, he was unbelievably successful, bringing in revolutionary thought leadership and creativity to the company. The series of industry- shaping products he created – iMac, iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad – were unprecedented, and Apple became the most valuable company in the world.Jobs’ story illustrates the power of the learning curve. Jobs might not have started out as a technical genius, but he was able to evolve into a creative giant by ‘connecting the dots’ in his life. He didn’t invent many things outright, but he was a master at putting together ideas, art and technology in ways that invented the future. Jobs’ life story is a great lesson in the value of having varied life experiences. Moreover, it shows that if we look within and reflect deeply on our experiences and intuitions, we will find answers to our most difficult questions.
10. Nobody is perfect. Jobs was a complex person with many contradictions and imperfections. I found his interpersonal style to be particularly disappointing. He was brutal with his colleagues, bullying them and publicly humiliating them. He was manipulative, not taking no for an answer. He seemed to take credit for ideas that often came from others. He also seemed to lack integrity and consistency in some of his dealings. Most sad for me was his lack of loyalty – he was mean and ungrateful to some of his close friends. Yet, despite these failings, most colleagues loved working with him and, of course, he achieved phenomenal results.There are three important lessons in this: a) Nobody is perfect, not even a great and highly acclaimed genius like Jobs; b) We should not focus too much on an individual’s imperfections but look at the whole c) We should not be too judgemental about what works and what does not – Jobs’ style was not ‘copybook’, but achieved tremendous results.
11. Different paths are possible. Jobs’ life and work are in great contrast with those of other genius and phenomenal business leader, Bill Gates, who interestingly, was also born in 1955 (the same year as Jobs). Two individuals and their life and work philosophies could not be more different. Jobs was the eternal rebel; temperamental and charismatic. Gates is more the establishment-types, more balanced and orthodox in his approach. The two adopted very different philosophies towards technology and product development. Jobs had a strong belief in end-to-end integration and ‘closed’ systems, while Gates has been one of the strongest votaries of the ‘open architecture’ approach. Despite their different personalities and approaches, both created tremendously successful companies and are amongst the most admired role models of our times. Their intersecting life stories prove that there is no one path to success.

Nitin’s conclusion:

Different paths are possible and can be equally successful, both at work and in life. Therefore, we should choose our own path, based on our own strengths and situation.

Reading Isaacson’s biography of Steve was both an emotional and intellectual experience for me. Jobs had a fascinating life and there is so much to learn from it. His life achievements are so tremendous that he almost seems like a ‘superman’ who was transported from an alien planet to earth for a period of time! I am not sure if Jobs as a leader can be replicated in entirety or if that’s even a desirable thing to do. However, there are certainly many lessons from his incredible life that all of us could learn and take inspiration from. If we could imbibe and consistently live even a few of these lessons, they would possibly help us progress on our path towards realizing our full potential.

I want to end this note with one of Jobs’ favorite comments, which he used in his famous Stanford commencement address: ‘Stay hungry, stay foolish’. This, in many ways sums up his life philosophy and is a great message to take away!

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