“In the wake of Steve Jobs’s resignation, let’s consider the greatest decision he ever made. It didn’t happen in a garage in Cupertino, sweating with Steve Wozniak as they dreamed up a computer for the common man. Or in a conference room, as managers told him that no one would ever pay $500 for a portable music player. Or in another conference room, as new managers told him no one would ever pay $400 for a cellphone. Rather, it was in a dusty basement of the Apple campus,” Cliff Kuang writes for Co.Design.
“Jobs had just recently come back to the company, after a 12-year layoff working for two of his own startups: NeXT, which made ultra-high-end computers, and Pixar. He was taking a tour of Apple, becoming reacquainted with what the company had become in the years since he’d left,” Kuang writes. “It must have been a sobering, even ugly sight: Apple was dying at the hands of Microsoft, IBM, Dell, and a litany of competitors who were doing what Apple did, only cheaper, with faster processors.”
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Kuang writes, “His tour finally brought him to the workbench of a solitary designer who was ready to quit after just a year on the job, languishing amid a stack of prototypes. Among them was monolithic monitor with a teardrop swoop, which managed to integrate all of a computer’s guts into a single package. In that basement Jobs saw what middle managers did not. He saw the future. And almost immediately he told the designer, Jonathan Ive, that from here on out they’d be working side-by-side on a new line.”
Read much more in the full article – recommended – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Marty S.” for the heads up.]
Actually, thanks to Emae who sent it to me 😛
Steve has always been able to look beyond today into what is coming down the technology tracks and what might be to where consumers would be in one to five years.
Individual product designs were always a way to move forward toward easier consumer use of Apple devices.
What makes Steve Jobs so great is that he would politely (or maybe not so politely) show the door to someone like stock market analyst Craig Moffett who cares only about short term gains. If Steve Jobs listened to such people there would be no iPhone!
What makes him great? His ability to see, articulate and confront the future. This is clear from his Stanford graduation speech or his open letter “Thoughts on Flash.”
To be fair, Steven Jobs is primary inventor of both iMac and PowerBook Titanium (among other things) according to patent records (these are quite accurate in this aspect; Jobs is listed as co-inventor in more than 300 patents).
So this article’s talk about how Jobs is “user” is typical ignorant media cliche.
Another typical ignorant media cliche in this article is the claim that Managers would say” nobody will pay $400 for a phone” when in reality, people were paying that all the time… and nobody was making cheap phones, all of them were relying on the subsidy model… where people pay $2,000 for the phone.
Steve Jobs is our link with the first enthusiasts of the personal computer era.
Those were great creative days, imagination and possibilities flying high..
To be fair derss superiors are sometimes listed as primary inventors when they’re really not. While we may have difficulty describing it everyone seems to be saying that Steve Jobs has “vision” and that can be more than being an inventor.
Interesting how this site has been overloaded since Steve’s resignation with accounts verifying that there is no one in the modern tech world like him. Not even close. No one can think like Steve, see like Steve, or lead like Steve. Yet MDN insists that Apple Inc.’s best days lie ahead. Somebody please tell me – why would anyone say that? And, please don’t explain that his inspiration has made Tim Cook and other Apple executives something they are not. That’s not possible. An occasional Steve Jobs is born over the long course of human history. You can never make one. Best example: not another living person would have ever seen the tear drop box on Ive’s workbench as the device that would have started the process of producing the world’s most valuable enterprise. So, I ask again – why does anyone think the best days for Apple, its customers, and its investors now lie ahead? – the stupidest thing ever written on this site. And, that is saying a lot.
If you read Gruber, then you’d know that some believe that Steve’s greatest invention is Apple Inc. He’s created an organization in his image. One that understands the process to great invention. If he’s right, then you can have an irreplaceable Steve, and yet still believe that Apple’s best days are ahead. I mean Steve said so, right?
Yeah, Tommy, you have lots of credibility here.
Oh, wait, wasn’t that you posting on the story about Jobs’ resignation that Apple is now finished and Apple’s stock would immediately drop to nothing and you were selling off all your Apple stock and moving on?
(Hey, how’s that working out for you?!)
1. You don’t own any Apple stock, never have, and never will.
2. You don’t own any Apple products.
3. If attempting to seed Apple stock sell-off rumours is the only way you can protect your Microsoft or Android interests, you’re a pathetic individual.
Begone, sad Troll.
Hey, NHL – you don’t know me and can’t even correctly repeat what I said earlier this week. I never said the stock would “immediately drop to nothing”. It is likely that I have owned AAPL longer than you have been alive. And, it’s worked out really really well, thank you. I do own just about every Apple product ever built – except for not Lisa – couldn’t afford it at the time. I have nothing but total disdain for MSoft, Android or any of the other inferior tech devices and the inferior software that runs them. And, what did you guys expect Steve to say in his resignation letter – that the company was doomed without him? Of course he said the best days lie ahead. And, for awhile, I think about 24 months because that’s the cycle for the new stuff in the pipeline, the days will be good. From then on, you can look for Apple stuff to be like all the other stuff. Since Apple would have been long ago forgotten nostalgia if Steve hadn’t come back, we now have reached the moment in history when he is gone and all the magic along with him. Sad, sad time and even though everyone new it was coming, there’s no way to be ready and absolutely no possibility that the best days lie ahead. They lie behind now, and so it is.
On the contrary, dear Tommy. It’s Steve Jobs’ last “one more thing”: that he built a company culture so compelling and deep that it will live on to innovate in his absence.
Also, as far as the “best days ahead” line, that’s from his resignation letter. I wouldn’t bet against the guy; he’s got a reasonably good track record.
“Throughout the world sounds one long cry from the heart of the artist, ‘Give me the chance to do my very best.’
Babbett’s Feast
I imagine this is what Johnny Ive had been thinking down in that basement.
Jobs has an ability to discover talent – inspire the talent – and apply it. Also, to keep the talent working happily. He learned from his past – which many of his do not.
Taste, folks. Just taste.
It certainly was one of the best days and decision (to stick around) by Mr. Ive. It is a bit fetching to think that single decision had made Mr. Jobs great as he is. There’s more to be a successful CEO than picking talents, having design acumen, or even that vision thingy. It’s about execution. “Real artists ship.”
Many of you may have already seen this but I though I’d add it here for fun. It’s available from The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/01/22/technology/20090122_JOBS.html?WT.mc_id=TE-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M216-ROS-0811-HDR&WT.mc_ev=click
I’d never actually seen a picture of the Apple 1 before.
Here are some interesting videos of Steve Jobs over the years.
http://allthingsd.com/20110826/steve-jobs-through-the-years-highlights-from-the-d-conference/
I love his “honest” demeanor.
After watching these videos, it’s obvious to me that Steve Jobs has a totally different paradigm about business. It doesn’t matter so much that a product is everything to everybody. It must be a “Great Product”! (Consider Flash).
I believe this is why Apple is in the position it is today. Its products are beyond “Great” and people see this.