Learning 1: Nobody’s Perfect

He had a nasty edge to his personality that hindered him more than it helped him. But it did, at times, serve a purpose. Dozens of colleagues whom Jobs most abused ended their litany of horror stories by saying that he got them to do things they never dreamed possible.

He doesn’t have social graces, such as putting himself in other people’s shoes, but he cares deeply about empowering humankind, the advancement of humankind, and putting the right tools in their hands. — His wife

It had been a grueling ride, and many egos had been bruised by Job’s obnoxious and rough management style. But neither Raskin nor Wozniak nor Sculley nor anyone else at the company could have pulled off the creation of the Macintosh.

Learning 2: You have to be Irrationally Passionate (not Necessarily Extraordinarily Smart) to Build Something Revolutionary

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.

He had neither Ellison’s conspicuous consumption needs nor Gates’ philanthropic impulses nor the competitive urge to see how high on the Forbes list he could get. A dual legacy is what he aspired: building innovative products and building a lasting company.

Steve had a way of motivating by looking at the bigger picture. Jobs had a passion for making great products, not just a profitable one. The goal was never to beat the competition, or to make a lot of money. It was to do the greatest thing possible, or even a little greater.

Learning 3: It’s all about the Execution

The Apple raid on Xerox PARC is sometimes described as one of the biggest heists in the chronicles of the industry. They just grabbed defeat from the greatest victory in the computer industry. Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry.

“Great Artists Steal”: In the annals of innovation, new ideas are only part of the equation. Execution is just as important.

Learning 4: Make a dent in the Universe

Some leaders push innovations by being good at the big picture. Others do so by mastering the details. Jobs did both, relentlessly.

Apple’s legendary advertisement: Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. Apple is about the people who think outside the box, who want to use computers to help them change the world.

He emphasized that you should never start a company with the goal of getting rich. Your goal should be making something you believe in and making a company that will last.

Jobs when convincing Bill Atkinson to join Apple — “We’re inventing the future. Think about surfing on the front edge of a wave. It’s really exhilarating. Now think about dog-padding at the tail end of that wave. It wouldn’t be anywhere near as much fun. Come down here and make a dent in the universe.”

We probably only have the opportunity to do a few things really great and do them well. None of us has any idea how long we’re going to be here, nor do I, but my feeling is I’ve got to accomplish a lot of these things while I’m young.

Learning 5: Design / Product »

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Lesson from his father: When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.

From Mike Markkula he had learned the importance of packaging and presentation. People do judge a book by its cover, so for the box of the Macintosh, Jobs chose a full-color design and kept trying to make it look better.

It takes a lot of hard work to make something simple, to truly understand the underlying challenges and come up with elegant solutions.

Simplicity is not just a visual style, it’s absence of clutter. It involves digging through the depth of complexity. To be truly simple, you have to go really deep. 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.

Design is the fundamental soul of man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers.