I read an article in Businessweek today which is an interview of John Sculley, the former CEO of Apple. He talked about his days in Apple as well as the Steve Jobs that he knew. I'm not gonna recite everything he said here. But few things that he mentioned are quite interesting, such as:
Steve Jobs felt the computer was going to change the world, and it was going to become what he called "the bicycle for the mind."
What makes Steve's methodology different from everyone else's is that he always believed the most important decisions you make are not the things you do, but the things you decide not to do. He's a minimalist.
Steve Jobs just didn't believe in having lots of things around, but he was incredibly careful in what he selected.
Steve's brilliance is his ability to see something and then understand it and then figure out how to put it into the context of his design methodology—everything is design.
...designers are the most respected people in the organization. Everyone knows the designers speak for Steve because they have direct reporting to him. It is only at Apple where design reports directly to the CEO.
He's a minimalist and constantly reducing things to their simplest level. It's not simplistic. It's simplified. Steve is a systems designer. He simplifies complexity.
The legendary statement about Microsoft, which is mostly true, is that they get it right the third time. Microsoft's philosophy is to get it out there and fix it later. Steve would never do that. He doesn't get anything out there until it is perfected.
Apple's current success seems to be so tightly bounded by what Steve Jobs has/has not done, I think he has probably set a standard and achieved a level of success that is not replicable by any CEOs/founders of other companies due to his unique characteristics and experience.
Anyway, he is such a fascinating living business/tech icon that following what he said and did has become a pasttime for many teckies/non-teckies, including myself.
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