Monday Note

Oh my god! Steve Jobs breaks rules…

Fortune magazine cannot see the difference between artists and bean counters.

Steve Jobs is on Fortune’s cover again: Apple has become the most admired company in America. Is this another PR job of “oral gratification”? If it is, it comes with bite marks or, in politically correct terms, “balance”. As a counter to the effusive praise, we find a piece where Peter Elkind outlines in great detail what he calls The Trouble With Steve Jobs. To their (author and magazine) credit, the piece is well researched, it provides a good overview of Steve’s orgins and career. The writer ostensibly aims high: “It may be instructive, then, to consider what drives the Steve Jobs adventure.” Unfortunately, instead of insights we get is a compilation of Jobs’ known or alleged infractions, couched in a tone by turns righteous and salacious. Perhaps the writer will understand if we turn the ad hominem argument around and look at his publicly documented appetites: a book about the Enron scandal, another about a murderous pediatric nurse in Texas, and magazine articles covering Wall Street malfeasance. Is Steve Jobs to be nailed by this kind of hammer? Yes, Steve looks like he’s running a business, and the numbers are terrific. But no, he’s a creator, an artist, not a business manager. Yves Saint Laurent made tons of money but couldn’t be accused of being a businessman. And the couturier’s behavior… Steve can’t even begin to approach Yves’ well-documented collection of deportments. (Alicia Drake’s book on Saint Laurent and Lagerfeld is a terrific and instructive read.)
Contemplate for a moment Steve’s unequaled string of creations: the Apple ][, the Macintosh, Pixar (think Ratatouille), reviving the Mac and Apple, iTunes and the iPod, Apple stores and the iPhone. How can we expect such creator to be normal, to follow rules? Musicians, painters, couturiers, designers, where are the normal ones? Creativity is breaking rules, it doesn’t belong to the realm of reason.
Contemplate again: For shareholders, Apple’s stock went up about 20 times in a little more than 10 years. Customers flood Apple stores driving up profits and market share. Employees feel part of a successful company and, through options, partake in the shareholders’ good fortune. On the topic of employees, we hear the tales: Steve Jobs is impossible, he makes people cry, the stress there is unbearable. And the turnover? Negligible. Insert you favorite winning team cliché here.
Apple is a 30 years-old company. How do you keep it fresh? (compare with Microsoft, only 2 years older.) You need the desire, the fire of an unreasonable, un-ruly creator. Mr. Elkind is confused, he forgot to Think Different — the Jobs 2.0 slogan. Artists aren’t bean counters. Yves Saint Laurent isn’t Michael Dell.
-JLG

> Further reading: Steve has had brushes with failure and death as movingly recounted in his 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech (text here, video here).

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Related columns:

1. Seven statues for Steve Jobs TweetFor this week’s Monday Note, the plans was to calmly traverse the field of investment opportunities as redefined, upended is a better word, or narrowed, by what is shaping up as depression.  I used to write recession or recession/depression but, now, even the Washington sages are now losing their calm.  Today, they’re conceding: the bailout [...]...
2. Fiction: How Steve Jobs Cuckolds AT&T TweetSteve shimmers into a bar, materializes next to Dan Hesse, Sprint’s CEO, crying in his mojito and whispers: I can fulfill your fondest dream. You’re the Devil, go away! No, I’m merely Steve Jobs and I want nothing to do with your soul or your chiseled body. Relax, it’s just about money. A little bit [...]...
3. Thus spake Steve Jobs: The PC isn’t dead yet TweetDaniel Lyons, the Newsweek tech writer notorious for his Fake Steve Jobs blog, penned an epistolary piece last week (R.I.P., Macintosh) in which he asks and answers the question: “Is Apple ignoring its signature line of computers and laptops? Yup.” The columnist claims that with the iPhone and the iPad as the Dear Leader’s new [...]...
4. Will Steve Jobs Save General Motors? TweetHere is how Tom Friedman ends his 11/11/08 New York Times column: “Lastly, somebody ought to call Steve Jobs, who doesn’t need to be bribed to do innovation, and ask him if he’d like to do national service and run a car company for a year. I’d bet it wouldn’t take him much longer than [...]...
5. Steve Ballmer not so gracious TweetBackground: this Sunday May 4th Microsoft withdrew its offer to buy Yahoo for $44.6bn. Saturday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had invited the two co-founder of Yahoo, Jerry Yang and David Filo for a final discussion. In a last move, Ballmer sweetened his proposal by $5bn, to $33 a share. Yang and Filo demanded $37. So, [...]...