Business Philosophy with Steve Jobs

"My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other's kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other and the total was greater than the sum of the parts."

Guys, if you're not Beatles-maxxing like Steve Jobs-era Apple...

You're doing it wrong.

Here’s 5 ways how Steve Jobs implemented this Beatles-type philosophy into his leadership at Apple

1) Under no circumstances are you to compromise your vision

Steve believed in changing the world through personal computing, connecting people and sharing art.

He was initially forced out of Apple in the mid 1980’s because of his refusal to compromise his vision towards newer, expensive products that change the way we interact with the world.

They wanted him to update the old product (Apple II) to keep revenue going.

He didn’t care about the shareholders/revenue/profit

Apple was HIS vision, not theirs.

Products before profits.

2) Open culture of inspiration

It didn’t matter if it was art, architecture, music or sports. He embraced inspiration from wherever he could find it.

Notably (as mentioned at the top of this post) he found a large part of it from The Beatles and their “sum is greater than the parts” philosophy.

Individually they were great.

Together, they were legendary

3) Only tolerating "A" players

He was notorious for rewarding his top guys exponentially compared to the rest of his staff: Jony Ive, Ron Johnson, Tim Cook (now CEO), Scott Forstall

The philosophy was simple:

“If something sucks, I tell it to their face. It’s my job to be honest”

He didn’t want mediocre people to feel comfortable sticking around

While that might sound harsh, he wasn’t running a charity.

He was trying to build something exceptional

You can’t get greatness from keeping the mediocre around

“By expecting them to do great things, you can get them to do great things”

4) Insane work ethic and ability to focus

His biggest talent (in my personal opinion) was the ability to work on simplifying and focusing

He knew what was filler and unnecessary, he understood how to judge that fine line.

The simpler he could get, the better it would be.

When he came back to Apple in the mid 1990’s, after being fed up with a diverse product line without a unifying identity, he took a marker and a whiteboard and drew a 2×2 grid of the following:

That’s some serious fucking simplification.

Chopping your entire production down to 4 products and ONLY focusing on those requires major, major macro thinking.

And balls. A LOT of balls.

5) Pushing the envelope with innovation and design

Seamless design was integral the entire time of Jobs tenure as CEO of Apple.

He would discover that people do judge books by their covers, and those covers needed to be different.

They needed to stand out, work seamlessly and be beautiful.

Closed operating systems also helped (and still help) with quality control of third-party software

Taking that end-to-end responsibility was innovative, making a walled garden to craft and curate the experience of using an Apple product.

It wasn’t just about using a computing device in your hand, or on a desktop

It was about using an Apple product

If you take anything away from this post, I want it to be one thing:

Don’t settle

Steve never settled for anything less than absolute greatness, and he expected it out of EVERYONE around him.

If you’re a new creator and you’re interested in learning about:

• Direction

• Growth

• Networking