Apple’s second coming, if you will, has spawned a cottage industry of books on the iconic company and its legendary leader, Steve Jobs. This is welcome because there still is so much about both that remains wrapped in mystery, thanks to the manically secretive nature of Jobs and his extraordinary influence on the company right from its founding.
Adam Lashinsky’s book, more than any other, tries to ferret out the company’s deepest secrets. He may be more able than other journalists, too. This is because of the ring seat he enjoyed at Cupertino, Apple’s headquarters in California, thanks to his position at Fortune, the business magazine from Time Warner that was much favoured by Jobs.
Still, Lashinsky was not favoured with any special interviews, and his remarkable account has the marks of simple shoe-leather journalism. So much so, even the fact that he relies on one too many anonymous sources doesn’t detract from his narrative.
This account should especially help students, if only for the way he shines a light on some of the most interesting career and life lessons one can glean from Apple.
Jobs, for example, followed no rules except his own, and heeded no management maxims except his own, often whimsical, ones. He treated many employees with disdain — co-founder Steve Wozniak left the company in tears. He bullied nearly all of Apple’s business partners and some journalists into submission, and was guilty of the worst imaginable type of micro-management. But if you took a different, maybe Apple, view of things, it might look different — and justifiable as well.
Jobs simply thought outside the box, as we are often exhorted to. He sought to create only the most exquisite products, ones that bordered on being art. To do so, he obsessed with things, or rather everything. Nothing — not even the product packaging or the font on the label — went to market without his approval. He demanded, and extracted, the best out of people, and, surprisingly perhaps, retained a team of outstanding, multi-faceted talent that would be the envy of any other company.
So, what did Apple achieve with its strange, questionable and certainly unreplicable culture? Apple rose from the dead. In the mid-1990s, when it was at its lowest, Michael Dell was asked by reporters what he would do if he were to lead Apple. The computer industry’s boy wonder then, famously, suggested Apple’s best option would be to sell its assets and distribute them to shareholders. He couldn’t have been more off the mark. Today, Apple is the world’s most valued technology company, and frequently flirts with the title of the most valuable company of any kind in the world. It has touched the lives of millions with its iconic products such as the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
So, was Steve Jobs a visionary or, perhaps, a jerk, as some have suggested? Was Apple an “insanely great” place to work? Or a tyrannical company in which Jobs’ writ alone ran? Go read the book and figure out for yourself. You may also find your own way to live, and, perhaps, shape your career.
— balamk08@gmail.com